Media Release

Friday, 9 January 1998

Impact On Bourke May Be Much More Than Claimed By Leightons

There are inconsistent figures contained in the Eastern Distributor EIS that throw doubt on the validity of claims by Leighton’s that only 35,000 vehicles will be diverted through O’Dea Ave and Bourke Streets.

Table 5.2 on page 5.9 of the RTA’s Eastern Distributor Environmental Impact Statement clearly states that the "Total Volumes" over 24 hours for "Southern Cross Drive at O’Connor Street" was 84,889 vehicles in 1995. Thus half of this, being 42,444, could be expected to be rolling north towards the O’Dea Ave turn off.

But table 10.2 on page 10.32 states that a year later in 1996, the volume had declined to a nicely rounded 70,000 at "Southern Cross Drive (south of Wentworth Avenue)". In this scenario, 35,000 would head towards O’Dea Ave.

Both figures can not be right. There can not have been a sudden drop in traffic of 18.7% on the same road from 84,889 down to just 70,000 in one single year.

I tend to believe the early figure of 84,889 because it seems to be part of a trend of figures for Southern Cross Drive (Table 5.1 page 5.7) that steadily increase from 1981 onwards.

source % increase

Table 5.1 1981 41,700 Southern Cross Drive at Gardeners Rd

1985 43,200 +3.6% Southern Cross Drive at Gardeners Rd

1989 60,300 +39.6% Southern Cross Drive at Gardeners Rd

1993 71,500 +18.6% Southern Cross Drive at Gardeners Rd

Table 5.2 1995 84,889 +18.7% Southern Cross Drive at O’Connor St

Table 10.2 1996 70,000 -17.5% Southern Cross Drive south of Wentworth

I suspect that the Table 10.2 figure of 70,000 is where Leighton’s have derived their 35,000 from.

I believe that the RTA’s consultants who wrote the EIS got the Table 10.2 figure wrong. It is clear from the accompanying text to the table that the

Contact: Randwick Greens Councillor Murray Matson