Blogawler

Increasingly the wider community is becoming attuned to rising fuel prices and the cost of running a car, in particular driving to work. More and more people are using trains, buses and trams to commute to work if possible.

With the cost of fuel rising, it is becoming evident that it is not viable to simply keep pushing population growth out onto the urban fringe and then force people to rely on cars to get to work.

We currently have proposals to push the urban boundary further from the metropolitan heart. When the cost of fuel edges towards $2 a litre what will be the financial impact on people in these new developments? A more enlightened and sustainable view is to develop appropriate housing close to employment and services.

At a local level, traffic in and around Gawler is a constant problem. Murray Street is almost at capacity and the Government is conducting a traffic survey and looking at the impacts of different developments on traffic flows and movements.

A proposed solution is to create bypasses to accommodate the new housing developments but this will not solve the problems caused when these new residents want to travel into Gawler to access shops and services. Gawler, with its current traffic problems, is already a commercial destination, and the new developments of Target and off Para Road will draw additional traffic into the town.

It is inevitable that doubling our population with new housing developments will add to our traffic problems in Gawler, not solve it.

Hopefully the Government will start to take a more long-term view of urban development taking into account social and environmental outcomes. To do this they need to consider local concerns and not simply adopt solutions that seemed suitable last century.