When it comes to some things in life it seems that change will never touch them.
What reminded me of this truism was that in recent days I have been driving over that pathetic, narrow Georges River crossing along Cambridge Avenue at Glenfield.
Didn’t the memories come flooding back of many a newspaper campaign to get someone to build a decent crossing there.
It’s bad enough that with a bit of rain this bridge crossing is closed to traffic, which then goes somewhere else to clog up.
It’s bad enough that the bridge is so narrow only God knows why there have not been more fatal crashes there.
Buck passing are the keywords for this ssue.
That’s because everyone quickly presses the buck passing button anytime someone raises this issue.
Everyone from the Australian Defence Force to the two senior tiers of government, state and federal.
Nobody wants to know about our problem in Glenfield; nobody has wanted to know about it for as long as I have been in Macarthur, 1980.
I have no doubt it did not become an issue when I started working as a journalist in this region.
The irony of it all is that a new bridge may soon be built.
Not because one of the stakeholders has had a conscience attack, no.
A new, flood free, wider bridge is part of the plans to build a container intermodal terminal around the corner on Moorebank Avenue.
The containers will be brought in on freight trains, according to the proposal, but leave the terminal on trucks.
Naturally, the quickest way to the Hume Highway and a lot of south west Sydney/Macarthur customers is along Cambridge Avenue, then along a new road link right through Hurlstone Agricultural High School land.
The current river crossing is obviously inadequate for big semi trailers, so a new bridge is being proposed.
Fancy that.
A new bridge that’s needed by locals travelling to and from work, but not built specifically for them.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for a new bridge crossing at Cambridge Avenue.
Local residents near Moorebank Avenue – Wattle Grove, Hammondville and Moorebank – are fighting the intermodal plan tooth and nail.
So it’s still possible that after a decision is handed down – maybe some time this year – Cambridge Avenue will still be one of those things never hit by change.
Spot on, Eric.
To state the obvious, this treacherous, inadequate and narrow causeway should have been replaced by a wide bridge many decades ago.
Yet it has been my observation since the 1970s that successive local MPs, (Federal and State, past and present, Labor and Liberal), have never regarded this issue as worth going that extra mile for.
They never tried hard to get something done about it. Not one of them.