By Andrew Herington In its opening submission the LMA made great play of a book by American writer Edward Glaeser called Triumph of the City. It was also the main reference used by their Expert Witness on economics, Marianne Stoettrup, who argued the East West toll road will be “city shaping”. The book tries to […]
Archive | Hearings RSS feed for this archive
Traffic projections: What do all the numbers mean?
At the East West Link public hearings this week there were countless numbers thrown around, with claim and counter claim about what they mean. Transport Minister, Terry Mulder sounded justifiably peeved when he said,”it seems the commentary on this project is that either no one will use it or too many vehicles will use it”. […]
Day 4: SLOW PROGRESS ON THE ROAD TO FACTS
By Andrew Herington Debate crawled along today like traffic in the Burnley tunnel. Mr Pelosi was grilled for the whole morning, but there was no illumination as to why he had supported everything in the CIS. He assured us that he could find nothing in the 1,030 submissions he read that convinced him of fault […]
Day 3: TRAFFIC CONGESTION IN THE BRAIN
By Andrew Herington with Rose Iser New documents started flying thick and fast along with a stream of seemingly conflicting traffic numbers and technical discussion about exactly what inner Melbourne would be like in 2031. A strong crowd of community representatives settled in for day three to listen to a long day of mind-numbing statistics. […]
Day 2: The LMA enjoys its time in the sun
By Andrew Herington Today was the day when the Linking Melbourne Authority could present its case uninterrupted. Taking it in turns, three barristers read a massive 76 page submission, occasionally adding asides that underlined their core message. They argued this is a narrow inquiry, tightly constrained by the terms of reference. According to the LMA, the assessment committee […]
Day 1 – The contest begins with opening statements
by Andrew Herington Today saw the opening of the 30 days of hearings. The Linking Melbourne Authority (LMA) had an hour to present its case followed by responses from the four councils and a strong presentation on behalf of the community groups. A number of procedural issues were resolved but the assessment committee chose to […]
PREVIEW OF WEEK ONE
The work of the Assessment Committee starts in earnest on Monday 3 March with opening statements from all the key parties. A joint statement from the Community groups will be delivered by Tom Pikusa at 4:15pm. The Chair is expected to clarify some of the issues left over from the Directions Hearing and the shape of […]
Live Blog starts 3 March
East West Link Blog 