Piers Akerman: Clover Moore’s new plan will destroy Sydney’s world-famous street

The state government needs to step in and stop Clover Moore’s mad plan to destroy historic Paddington, writes Piers Akerman.

In the 20 years Clover Moore has been mayor of Sydney she has managed to

turn a global city into a slum.

There are more beggars in the streets than there are in many Third World capitals and her Green-Left policies were driving businesses elsewhere even before the Covid lockdown.

Regular traffic is down because of her vehement loathing of cars and her

infatuation with bicycles.

Bicycle commuting is big in places like Amsterdam which is not big on hills.

Sydney has hills rising from its spectacular Harbour giving hundreds of thousands of people stunning views.

Even the glimpses of the water caught between buildings to the North, South and West are uplifting.

But Moore (that should be less) has spent two decades choking the life from the city with redundant bike lanes that have made transit through the CBD a challenge.

Clover Moore has only made transiting through the city even more difficult. Picture: Craig Wilson

Satellite navigation systems can’t keep up with the circuitous routes now necessary to get to central city locations and drivers are staying away, ensuring that the city is dead from mid-afternoon on most days.

Having killed scores of small businesses that once kept the city throbbing, Moore is now intent on destroying the heart of historic Paddington by running a bike lane along the southern side of Oxford Street, killing the internationally famous high street with its boutiques, bars, restaurants and small businesses.

Look no further at the destruction of William Street and Oxford Street west of Taylor Square to see what this maniacal redirection of traffic has done.

Major retailers have closed only to be replaced with the detritus of commerce, tattoo joints and tobacco shops.

Moore’s bike paths are like the strangler fig vine ficus watkinsiana, the seeds of which germinate high in the branches of rainforest trees and send down aerial roots which thicken and gradually enclose its host until the original tree dies and rots away.

William Street is pretty much gone, Oxford Street is dying of Clover’s rot and she’s determined to push the destruction East into Paddington.

The weak Woollahra Council, which controls the northern side of the street, originally agreed to mad Moore’s bike lane proposal but has seen the light and now opposes it as do hundreds of residents and small business owners.

Bike lanes have popped up all over Sydney, at the taxpayer’s expense. Picture: Richard Dobson

With a bike lane effectively blocking right-hand turns from Oxford Street, residents of South Paddington, will be denied easy access to their homes.

North Paddo will become a rat run, with greater pressure on parking as spaces are lost on Oxford St.

The bike path challenges aging members of the community attempting to board buses (which the state government would run less frequently).

With a single lane in each direction, ambulance and other emergency vehicle passage will be a joke.

A bike lane already exists on Moore Park Road, wholly within Moore’s boundaries. It should remain – saving ratepayers millions.

Moore, once a State MP, lives the fantasy that local government is the third tier of government in Australia.

It is not. It’s not in the Constitution, it’s a creation of the State government.

Sydney was built on solid sandstone foundations by people, many of whom arrived in chains as convicts.

Their legacy lies in the honey-coloured architectural gems which remain on Macquarie Street and in The Rocks.

Moore wanted to see a giant milk crate erected on George Street as her legacy.

An over-filled wheely bin would have been more appropriate beside a mountain of sidewalk blocking discarded E-bikes.

Morning traffic on Oxford Street, Paddington. Picture: Craig Wilson

The NSW government should take the responsible step and block her mad plan to kill historic Paddington but perhaps it is too frightened of Moore and her Green allies.

Moore relies for votes on residents of social housing, who don’t pay rates, and the handful of others on the rolls. Some homes have three or more residents and thus more votes than big businesses still in the CBD which are restricted to just one vote, no matter how many they employ, and their vote is not compulsory.

The city, founded by those who believed in growth, industry and reward for toil, is now in the hands of those who wallow in self-pity, delude themselves about climate change, and despise the pioneers who built it.

Sydney should not be Moore’s plaything.

It is the recognisable capital of Australia. It rings in the New Year for the rest of the world (even though it dawns somewhere to the East).

The Opera House and beloved Harbour Bridge spell Australia globally.

Premier Chris Minns should place the city under administration before the last life is choked out of it.