THERE'S an interesting way the council can get all the cars out of the central business district rather than running around booking people with that expensive number plate recognition thing.
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Put in some trams.
They’re making a comeback elsewhere. More than 55 years after the old toast racks last rattled along Sydney streets, the State Government is building a new 12-kilometre $2 billion tram line linking Circular Quay and the south eastern suburbs.
So if they’re good enough for Sydney, good enough for Melbourne, good enough for the Gold Coast, good enough for Adelaide and being considered by Canberra, they’re good enough for Orange.
Just imagine a tram line from, say, Lone Pine Ave, Bathurst Rd and Summer St to Woodward, a 3.8km trip that takes about 10 minutes to drive with an average of three and a half minutes stopped at traffic lights, burning up around 1.6 litres of petrol a week while you’re sitting there with engine idling.
This equates to about 84 litres a year which at present prices is costing you $125 while your car has been standing still so think of all the fuel you’ll save by hopping on a tram.
Of course there’d be disruptions like there is in George St in Sydney. No cars would be allowed in Summer St for a year or so and isn’t the intention to get the shop employees’ cars out of the street?
And another plus. The centre median strip would have to be ripped up, putting an end to plans by the Roads and Maritime Services to build a fence down the middle of the street while the roundabouts and garden beds at Sale and Hill streets would bite the dust.
The city council would probably have to run a few chook raffles to put together the money needed but there’s some excellent bargains going in Melbourne on old decommissioned W-class trams that are rusting away in a weed-filled depot.
A Public Transport Victoria spokesman says new homes are being sought for the retired trams that had been part of Melbourne’s landscape for more than 85 years.
So the council could kill a few birds with one tram, so to speak, getting rid of the cars in the CBD, saving motorists petrol, providing cheap and green transport for workers and shoppers, giving pedestrians a free reign to continue to wander around wherever they liked and establishing a heritage tourism attraction.
What more could you ask?
Ding ding.
On the wrong track
WHEN Countrylink unveiled new uniforms for its staff at a fashion parade at the old Mortuary Station in Sydney a few years ago, rail unions said it was the perfect venue because country rail services were all but dead anyway.
And they were pretty right.
More than 2,700km of track were closed and left to rust, thousands of rail workers, including drivers, stationmasters, clerks, shunters, guards, fettlers, mechanics and electricians, lost their jobs.
More than 30 passenger trains a day once left Sydney for country areas and dozens of rail motors ran branch line connections from main line stations to most parts of NSW. Goods trains ran almost all the time.
Now only a handful of regular country passenger trains are left.
Orange has one XPT service a day and if TrainLink gets away with cutting back staff and services at our railway station it will be the beginning of the end for rail for us.
And that’s probably what the government wants.
The XPTs’ engines are now packing it in every 250,000km and the rail cars, some that first went into service in 1982, have travelled an average of more than 9.945 million kilometres, equal to nearly 13 times to the moon and back.
They were designed to travel 7.5 million kilometres before being retired.
The train’s bogie wheels are also fatigued and there’s lots of brakes problems.
So the government faces replacing the XPTs but by shutting down more country rail stations and cutting back staff, it might be trying to wriggle out of that.
We can’t let that happen.
Food bugbear
WITH the United Nations trying to convince everyone to supplement their diet with insects, it’s a perfect opportunity for the Orange Food Week mob to make it a special feature.
There’s lots of grasshoppers, caterpillars and European wasps around here if chefs can be convinced to come up with some delicacies to raise the status of insects.
What about chilli and garlic crickets or battered beetles?
The opportunities are boundless.
Grilled grasshoppers, chocolate-coated worms or caterpillar pate would no doubt be a hit on any restaurant’s menu along with ant soup.
Just think. Orange Food Week could break new ground by adding insects to the dinners it promotes and the wine lot could recommend what diners should drink with their fried locusts, fromage frais cockroaches or braised bees.
UN figures show two billion people, a third of the world's population, are already eating insects because they’re delicious and nutritious, have lots of protein, calcium, iron, omega 3, B12 and B2 vitamins and are low in carbs and saturated fat.
So c’mon foodies. Give it a go.
Paying the price for craving
AN Orange bloke ordered two crème egg McFlurry’s at Maccas off the distributor road but they refunded the $8.60 because they’d run out.
With the ‘I’m lovin’ it’ feeling and determined to get two he drove across town to Bathurst Rd Maccas, put in the same order and this time was charged $8.70, up 10c in 13 minutes.
Talk about inflation.