Wednesday, June 02, 2010

We only want a little shade!



(Once a shady avenue)

If you ride your bicycle along McMillans Rd in Jingli/Moil NT. Then you've probably noticed that all the lovely shade trees have been knocked down. My ride home from work has been so much hotter thanks to the DPI's new landscaping project.

OBSTRUCTION: When I asked why, I was advised that the trees obstructed peoples vision... I mistakenly thought that they were referring to road safety and other traffic but as I ride by that way every day I know that there never was any such obstruction. However with the trees there the Bottle Shop/Hotel and motel were slightly hidden from the road... Is it possible they cut down the trees so that traffic can be directed to the drive through bottle shop more easily?

The form of these trees was quite uniform, narrow trunks with a spreading canopy of leaves above (kind of like big umbrellas). I'm not saying they weren't an obstruction at all because I believe they were blocking particular things. Firstly the row of tree trunks would have acted like bollards along a busy roadway... If a car had lost control and jumped the curb it is quite likely one of those trees would have stopped it from smashing into traffic, pedestrian, cyclists or property on the other side. The other obstruction the trees caused was far more likely to affect cyclists and pedestrians... The canopies of those trees obstructed the harsh rays of the afternoon sun from frying the skin and brains of those who traveled along the bike path. If you ask anyone who uses the shared bicycle/pedestrian path they will tell you how nice it is to have some shade... They will also tell you how pissed they are now that the shade they relied on has been removed!

The signs say 'landscaping in progress', I can't wait to see the end results of what they have done to our landscape! I can only imagine, greener grass and a manicured water intensive, 'Prettification' but NO Shade!. I wonder if they'll have to declare the amount of carbon they are releasing through the chipping of those trees?

(Stumped!)



(Marked for the Axe)


Thanks for nothing DPI. Please don't call the work you are doing 'improvement'.

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