Glenelg’s Jetty Road is open for business? They’re not fooling anyone | Peter Goers
Urban planners and councils seem to detest cars – yet cars bring business. And business is currently dead on this once-thriving road, writes Peter Goers. Have your say.
I love Glenelg. Moving here has become a song in my heart. Glenelg and surrounds could be a jukebox musical. Kurralta Park can be sung to the tune of MacArthur Park (the greatest song ever written) and “you can give my regards to Broadway, remember me to Moseley Square” and “a nightingale sang in Moseley Square”.
But no-one’s singing at Glenelg now. It’s hard to get to and then hard to get around. It is chaos. There are still two lots of roadworks on Anzac Highway, Colley Tce was closed to traffic until recently and is now blocked again – and Jetty Rd, the heart of Glenelg, is a construction site.
Tragically, shops have closed through lack of business and many could go out of business. The famous trams have ceased to run for six months while overpasses are built and the Holdfast Bay Council decided to move the highly-controversial redevelopment of Jetty Rd forward to coincide with the tram closure, creating a double whammy for traders. This will kill the crucial summer trade.
It’s a mess. A $40m mess which ratepayers are levied to pay for it.
Two residents’ associations which opposed the redevelopment believe the cost will blow out to $60m.
What does it achieve? Wider footpaths, new kerbing and 29 fewer car parks. And chaos. And dying businesses.
No-one will ever say, “Let’s go to Glenelg. It’s harder to get a car park but we can look at the new gutters and planter boxes.”
Apart from Victor Harbor, Glenelg has the oldest demographic in SA and we old people enjoy the convenience of tootling down Jetty Rd, parking on the street and walking into a shop. No more. Urban planners and councils seem to detest cars – yet cars bring business.
The eastern end of Jetty Rd has been redeveloped at great inconvenience to the traders, who report no increase of business.
Appallingly, kerbing was installed at the wrong height and it had to be ripped out and replaced at great expense and causing further delays. The council publicly regretted this and hopefully it is not replicated further down Jetty Rd.
TELL US WHY BELOW
Is the work happening efficiently and expeditiously? Last Monday, I counted seven hi-vis clad workers merrily standing around doing nothing.
One worker was eating chips and staring into space, three others were shooting the breeze and another was dozing off leaning against a shop wall.
Disability parks have been inexplicably and permanently moved further away from Jetty Rd. The side streets are being used as storage for equipment and rubble.
Urban planners seem to be copying the dreaded redeveloped King William Rd at Hyde Park and installing car parks which are higher than the road so that you have to park uphill. Why?
Thirty car parks have been removed on Anzac Highway.
There will be a pedestrian crossing with traffic lights on the Jetty Rd/Moseley St intersection just 50m from the existing pedestrian crossing on Colley Tce/Moseley Square.
Traffic often gridlocks along Colley Tce, but the new second crossing will cause traffic jams back along Anzac Highway.
Jetty Rd traders are desperate. Some shops have already closed and many others fear for their survival.
The Jetty Rd Main Street Committee (a subcommittee of council) campaigned vociferously for the redevelopment but the many traders I’ve spoken with feel they were not involved in the decision and are very angry.
Access to Jetty Rd is extremely limited and access to shops along Jetty Rd is very challenging. You are shopping in a construction site. Because Jetty Rd is closed there is traffic gridlock around it.
The Holdfast Bay Council wanted this. Retiring mayor Amanda Wilson wanted this. All councillors voted for it except for Annette Bradshaw.
This is change for the sake of change. The council has erected signs on the construction site saying “Jetty Road is open for business.” No-one is fooled by that.
The Paris end of Jetty Rd is now a noisy, dusty, intractable ghost town and there’s no song in anyone’s heart. For shame.
Peter.goers@news.com.au
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