Pedestrian Foot Bridge on Beecroft Rd

At the AGM last Wednesday, RMS gave a presentation on the proposed pedestrian foot bridge to span Beecroft Road.  The present plan is to install this to the south of the community centre, on the basis that any installation closer to the Beecroft shops is technically difficult.  Interestingly, the RMS presenters were not aware of all the new residential units, and big new shopping centre, all going in well to the north of the fire station, nor of the fact that the fire station is currently zoned to be replaced with mixed residential and commercial development. 

The questions from the audience quickly made it clear that nobody believed the bridge in this distant location will be used.  The meeting urged RMS to look again at the reasons why the bridge can't be built perhaps with its eastern end at the fire-station.  There's a nice garden on the southern end of the fire station that could be used as one end of the bridge.  Surely it would be best to install the bridge there now, while "payment" for access would be just transfer of funding between government departments.  Once the land is owned by developers it would be much more expensive to install the bridge there, where people might use it.

This extract from the RMS brochure shows the steepness of the foot paths from the proposed road bridge up to Beecroft shopping centre.

RMS seemed a bit surprised by the scepticism of the audience, most of whom are very familiar with pedestrian traffic flow across Beecroft Rd.  If the locals don't think it will be used if installed where RMS currently propose, they should reconsider.