Media Release
8.15 Am This Morning Friday 17/10/97
RTA Offices Blockaded By Linkup Anti Motorway Group
Cnr Albion And Elizabeth Streets Surry Hills
At 8.15 am this morning Eastern Distributor protesters will disrupt work at the RTA’s head office building on the corner of Albion and Elizabeth Streets in Surry Hills.
Ms Christine Laurence, a spokesperson for the anti -motorway group "LinkUp" (sic), stated that the action was ...
"...to demonstrate to the RTA bureaucracy that it’s road building program is becoming seen as an unworkable transport solution doomed to continually embarrass the state government."
She claimed that a continuing erosion in the RTA’s credibility as an accountable urban planning authority now means that all major new motorways will experience acts of non-violent civil disobedience from the community.
Randwick City Councillor Murray Matson elaborated further by claiming that unnecessary RTA projects served to undermine Australia’s claims for special treatment on Green House Gas emissions. He said,
"The RTA itself claims that the Eastern Distributor project is supposed to double traffic at one point on Southern Cross Drive (south of Wentworth Avenue) from 70,000 cars per day to 142,000 in 2011. "
"This is at a time when Australia is embarrassing itself by trying to argue that it is too expensive to reduce Green House Gas emissions because we are a primary producer."
"Yet the RTA has persuaded Bob Carr to spend $700 million on a road project for the Olympics that will in places double present car emissions. I don’t see any integrated planning or global responsibility here from anyone."
CONTACT: Christine Laurence, Adam Nelson (LinkUp)
Randwick Greens Councillor Murray Matson