M2 Motorway bridge at North Ryde threatens bush: residents
ENVIRONMENTALISTS say a pedestrian bridge over Delhi Rd and the M2 Motorway at North Ryde would devastate bushland and has to be re-designed.
Northern District Times
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ENVIRONMENTALISTS say a pedestrian bridge over Delhi Rd and the M2 Motorway at North Ryde would devastate bushland and has to be re-designed.
The State Government recently revised its plans for the bridge, which would link the thousands of people who will live at the Lachlans Line estate with North Ryde station.
The government says 43 trees need to be cleared to make way for the bridge. Of these, 22 would be removed from Bundara Reserve.
The small pocket of bushland between the busy roads contains Sydney Turpentine Ironbark forest.
The Ryde Hunters Hill Flora and Fauna Preservation Society accepted a previous bridge proposal in 2014 but were alarmed by the proposed changes.
President Cathy Merchant said: “They’ve changed the design of the bridge. It’s just crazy. It’s too wide.”
The changes would fell 17 more trees than the previous design.
Ms Merchant said the forest was important.
“These are mature trees, so they are contributing significantly to air quality in North Ryde, which is hard hit by all those cars,” she said.
Should more trees be cleared, the view would be worse.
“You won’t have a patch of bush, you’ll just be seeing high rise,” Ms Merchant said.
The contractor building the bridge would have a piling rig in the corner of the reserve to install underground reinforcement piles to support the structure.
Engineering contractors say a 5m clearing from the bridge piers is required to ensure the structure can stand for 100 years.
They say the clearing would reduce the threats of bushfire, falling branches, bird droppings and eucalyptus oil secretions which can corrode the paint which protects the steel.
Ms Merchant called the justification “ludicrous”.
She said the earlier approved bridge concept followed community consultation, which had now been disregarded.
Ryde Mayor Jerome Laxale will write to the government opposing the changes, and ask for the public consultation period to be extended.
He said the reserve had survived the creation of the M2 and widening of Epping Rd and so should survive a footbridge.
A spokeswoman for the government’s land agency, Landcom, said it would offset the loss of trees by planting others elsewhere in Ryde.
See the plans on the Department of Planning’s website: www.majorprojects.planning.nsw.gov.au