More Unnecessary Changes

Guardian Express, 24th September, 2013

Hot on the heels of bus routes having to be moved from William Street to Beaufort Street, north of the railway, largely because the City of Perth designed the 2-way William Street in a way that the PTA didn't regard as suitable for buses, we now have bus routes being shifted from Barrack Street to William Street, south of the railway.

Whilst there is some validity in the PTA's argument that having both directions on the one street improves clarity for public transport users, the downside is that most shoppers will have to cross busy William Street for their journey home. Shoppers with young children, in particular, will not appreciate this.

The same thing happened with the shift of William Street buses to Beaufort Street north of the railway, where the main destination for many is the Perth Cultural Centre. Passengers arriving from the north now have to cross Beaufort Street to get to the Cultural Centre - and there is no safe crossing point between the lights at Aberdeen Street and those at Roe Street. On top of that, the lights at Roe Street hardly provide safety for pedestrians given the complexity of traffic movements.

One of these days, if we're really lucky, the City of Perth will actually finish messing around in the core of the CBD and allow pedestrians to move around in safety, rather than having to duck around roadworks that seem to take forever (and now will presumably go on even longer, with the new lot of changes to William Street). It would be nice for businesses, too, to have a safe and predictable context for their customers to get to them.