FOOTSCRAY’S Rising Sun footbridge has a poetic name for such a dour-looking concrete overpass.
Rising from an inhospitably narrow footpath at a bend in busy Buckley Street, it extends north over the Sydenham line train tracks and descends into the eye of a looping entry ramp onto choked Geelong Road.
It’s an unprepossessing landmark in a scrappy-looking part of the inner west, but news of its planned demolition to make way for the $5 billion Regional Rail Link has locals ruing the loss of a vital walkway to services such as childcare, parks and a primary school.
The footbridge, named after the boarded-up Rising Sun Hotel – once the ”official supplier of beer to the Footscray Bulldogs” – is one of two pedestrian overpasses in Footscray to be demolished as part of the rail link project, which aims to remove bottlenecks by separating regional and metropolitan trains.
A replacement footbridge will be built at the new West Footscray train station, 160 metres west of the current station, but the new line will create an impassable barrier about one kilometre in length between Footscray and Seddon, where previously there were two crossing points.
Locals complain they’ll have to drive to make short trips.
”State governments should be doing more to improve pedestrian and cycling connections, not remove them,” said Seddon resident Michelle Wyatt.
Mother Shannon Lea and her daughter Sophie, 5, use the footbridge to walk or ride to Footscray Primary School, where Sophie is in prep.
Ms Lea regrets she will likely have to drive her daughter to school once the overpass is removed.
”Are we going to walk the extra 500 metres? We might some days, but we all know that we’re [probably] going to jump in the car,” Ms Lea said. ”And that’s really disappointing. Aren’t we trying to teach our children there’s better ways than just driving everywhere?”
Ms Lea and Ms Wyatt stress they do not oppose the rail link, they just don’t want their neighbourhood to sacrifice its footbridge.
Western Metropolitan Greens MP Colleen Hartland raised the matter last week in state Parliament, calling on the government to explain why the footbridge has to go.
”If they can engineer a massive rail project, surely they can work out how to retain or adapt a simple pedestrian footbridge,” Ms Hartland said.
A spokesman for the rail project – the largest public transport infrastructure project under way in Australia – said the community was being consulted about the footbridge, but that the project’s design could not accommodate it.
”The current design for the Regional Rail Link project requires the removal of the Rising Sun footbridge to facilitate the additional tracks,” the spokesman said. ”It cannot be retained in its current location due to the construction of the new additional tracks for regional train services.”
