Editorial: Light rail is back on track
PROGRESS! Following months of slow or zero movement at key work sites for Sydney’s light rail, the pace has suddenly improved. But it seems it still won’t make the alread-delayed 2020 deadline and the Transport minister says the Spanish company is “stuffing around the taxpayer”.
Opinion
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PROGRESS! Following months of slow or zero movement at key work sites for Sydney’s light rail, the pace has suddenly improved.
The Spanish intermission, as it is wryly known among those most inconvenienced by the glacial rate of light rail construction, might finally be at an end.
As the Daily Telegraph reveals, Spanish transport infrastructure firm Acciona — previously accused by the NSW government of being on a semi-official “go slow’’ — has lately put down 490m of light rail track, all in just the past couple of weeks.
That rate stands in dramatic contrast to earlier efforts, including one memorable week earlier this year when no track was laid at all.
But here is the bad news. Even after this improvement in track completion, Acciona is still putting down track at just half the rate required to meet the company’s own already-delayed 2020 deadline. Transport minister Andrew Constance, meanwhile, remains in his usual state of frustration, last night telling the Daily Telegraph: “Acciona are clearly still stuffing around the taxpayer”.
“Other contractors across the state are able to get on with the job they are paid to do,” Constance said. “I expect these guys to do the same.”
For their part, light rail consortium Altrac is now claiming that work will be speedier in key zones such as Surry Hills, the CBD, Randwick and Kensington during coming months. According to a consortium spokeswoman, this is because work teams were previously delayed by the need to relocate utilities before tracks could be put in place.
The spokeswoman said that now “most of the utilities works are completed”, which should mean rapid track completion from this point onwards.
The spokeswoman also claimed that the government’s allegations of a go-slow were incorrect: “As we have said publicly there was never a go-slow and work has been progressing along the alignment.”
That might come as surprising news to those paying close attention to the light rail system’s construction. In many cases they’ve had little else to do, given the various restrictions on movements and deliveries imposed by the project.
A nation of nips and tucks
Previous generations of Australians were never much into achieving better appearances through medical intervention. Plastic surgery was always seen more as essential repair work following a disfiguring accident — ex-PM John Gorton underwent such work following a World War II plane crash — than as a shortcut to beauty. Those times are long gone. Australia’s cosmetic surgery addiction now outstrips even that of the US.
We have become a Kardashian nation. Who could ever have predicted that John Grey Gorton, our 19th Prime Minister, would become a 21st-century fashion trendsetter?
Dad dashes daughter’s day
Royal weddings are such complicated, all-consuming events that something is always bound to go wrong.
One of the more offbeat moments of Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles, for example, was Diana’s anxiety-caused confusion over the order of her husband’s names.
The lead-up to Saturday’s marriage between Meghan Markle and Diana’s son Prince Harry had until this week seemed to run remarkably smoothly, all things considered.
That was until Markle’s father Thomas, 73, was accused of staging some paparazzi-style photographs, allegedly for payment. To say this was a bad look would be to understate matters.
“This is a deeply personal moment for Ms Markle in the days before her wedding,” Kensington Palace announced yesterday in an official statement.
“She and Prince Harry ask again for understanding and respect to be extended to Mr Markle in this difficult situation.”
Let’s hope everything is in order on the big occasion itself. Just in case Meghan is worried about another naming blunder, her husband-to-be’s full name is Henry Charles Albert David.