So rail is dead!

Wow – Council killed the project.

I hope that’s a lesson because this thing has been on questionable for a while – and it all a result of flawed consultation and (excuse the reference) railroading opposition.

This morning I heard one councilor suggest that they didn’t sell the public on the vision – and then explain that vision – the last developable land is in the south. What a vision; serve developers not the citizens in communities east and west of the core stuck in traffic daily.

That was the core problem for most people – the travel problem is east west not north south. What’s more there’s lots of developable land in side the green belt – we don’t need an 800M sop to developers to meet the real population growth.

The pity about this project is that the warning signs have been there for some time. From the first complaints that the environmental assessment was to narrow to the location of the service yards at every juncture opposition grew not diminished. And staff’s and councils response – push on, create artificial deadlines, allude to a secret contract, posit legal repercussions. In the end the citizens were not buying any of it.

It’s time that those councilors who supported this thing – and placed the city in it’s current position – asked themselves – will I let this happen again? And voters need to ask themselves – four years from now (when we know if we get sued and what the cost was) if my councilor supported the project at every juncture do I want them back.

Let’s hope that more than a rail project died yesterday – lets hope an approach to governing died as well.