To: {Contact_FullName}, {ContactField_Business_Name}

Dear {Contact_First_Name},

The Oxford Street East Cycleway project continues to ignore legitimate resident concerns regarding both its design and the impact on suburbs such as Woollahra. The report released late last year on the reopened consultation conducted in July last year simply ignored the fact that the majority of residents and businesses do not want the cycleway along Oxford Street. To add insult to injury, it appears that the bundle of submissions made by attendees at the meeting at Paddington RSL opposing the current plan, over 350 individual submissions, was counted as one single submission in TfNSW’s report, effectively saying that those people’s views don’t count and the effort they made to submit their views was entirely wasted. The latest manifestation of this blindness to community concerns was the recent survey (click here) asking for ideas to create a more vibrant and active Oxford Street between Paddington Gates and Taylor Square. That sounds like a good idea, but unfortunately it is all based on the presumption that the cycleway is build.

One of the key arguments being made by TfNSW is that there isn’t an alternative. This is blatantly untrue. They may say this because the TfNSW project remit specifically states they should only consider Oxford Street for the cycleway, and ignore Moore Park Road, but other organisations have put together a viable alternative plan. Originally the Paddington Society put together a plan ‘The Village High Street as a Place for People’ (download here). This is a great plan to revitalise Paddington but was rejected by TfNSW as it didn’t have a dedicated cycleway. This plan has now been incorporated into a Plan C (download here, website https://www.plancoxfordst.com.au/), which includes retaining the Moore Park Road cycleway and extending it down Flinders Street to Taylor Square. This then allows cyclists at the Paddington Gates a choice of continuing down a dedicated cycleway on Moore Park Road, or a shared, 40kph lane down Oxford Street. This is a very sensible alternative which would meet the needs of all parties, including those in Woollahra, and the QSWWA is happy to endorse it as our preferred alternative.

There is a meeting this coming Wednesday, 7^th August at 6.30pm at Paddington RSL , Safe Our Oxford Street Community Update, organised by the authors of Plan C, where you can learn more about it.  All QSWWA members and friends are invited and we encourage you to show your support.

Giles Edmonds, President