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Canberra Today 22°/24° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Letters / Grow up, you complainers and whiners

AS complainers, whiners and generally “Me First” folks, Canberrans, particularly those who’ve lived here, for, let’s say one public service career (amounting to about two or three lifetimes in one of “Dante’s Circles of the Damned”) win hands down.

quillAs well, living in the national capital seems to give its residents a sense of entitlement seldom found elsewhere in Australia. Streetlight shining into your window at night?

Complain and they’ll send someone around to paint that part of the lamp a shade black (don’t laugh. Incredulously, this has really happened)!

Don’t like dogs? Just dob the owners into Domestic Animals or the RSPCA (don’t worry about whether your complaint is justified, those damn dogs shouldn’t be living next door and barking at the possums you feed).   

Growing a rose bush with fierce thorns that could put a child’s eye out if he/she trips and falls on to it – well, parents should look after their children better, should they?

And gosh, those people who’ve just moved in, not really our type of people, are they now ? (Unless, of course, they are genuine, persecuted asylum seekers, in which case we can make them welcome into our multicultural Canberra).

Robert Macklin complained that he hadn’t received a full, contrite apology for his $2 “salmonella lettuce” from Woolies (“Canberra Confidential”, February 11).

Well, Robert, if you’d been on your feet for the last six or seven hours, dealing with customers, you probably wouldn’t feel inclined to say: “We greatly regret your inconvenience, dear sir, please accept our most sincere and heartfelt apologies and we earnestly hope that the $1 lettuce you have just purchased fulfils your highest expectations.”

Grow up, people! Canberra doesn’t register in the consciousness of most of your countrymen. Perhaps that’s just as well, because after learning your endearing neighbourly ways, would wonder what’s so special about the national capital and frankly sympathise with politicians who have to spend time here.

Christina Faulk, Swinger Hill

Unkempt Haig Park

JOHN Griffiths, I think you’ll find the difference between your view and others’ on Haig Park stems from the fact you’re not a woman (“Shadow of ‘progress’ looms over Haig Park”, CN, March 3).

Even away from the public housing flats, the place is unkempt with few paths and mostly deserted, so yes, even a lone man like you walking a dog can be seen as a potential threat. Hence the nickname “Rape Park”.

Claire Ridgewell, via email

Alternative to light rail

I AM writing as a deeply concerned citizen who fears the government is committing a huge sum of our tax money on a light rail system that is inappropriate for Canberra and will potentially only benefit a small proportion of the population.

Cities with much higher population density like Sydney and the Gold Coast have made the mistake and are now left with light rails that are costly to ride, noisy if you live near them, but useless to you if you don’t.

The light rail is being railroaded out (pardon the pun) with little credence being given to dissenting opinions by the media.

I am proposing a system that I think is much better and cheaper.

In a nutshell, the system is government-operated electric mini vans, which will cost the government and taxpayers less than one tenth of the proposed cost of light rail.

I am proposing a fleet of 14 to 20-seat electric mini vans that are equipped with GPS so that potential commuters can look up when the next one is coming and how many seats are available.

The system will be operated by Action Buses and driven by part-time drivers, who will penetrate suburbia on set routes, picking up and droping off anywhere along the route.

They will connect minor shopping centres to major bus depots and run every five minutes during peak hours and every 15 minutes other times.

A mini-van licence would require minimal upgrading and retraining. The position of part-time drivers would suit retirees or near-retirees who have a good driving record.  

The drivers will be screened and trained in first aid and crime watch. The vans will also double as mobile safety zones for women, children or anyone in distress.

Potential commuters only need to look up their smart phone to see when the next mini-van will be passing by, flag the van down and be dropped at a point closest to their destinations.

Residents will rely less on cars and use this form of transport to get around. Potentially this will reduce pollution.

When a government makes so many spend so much for the benefit of so few with light rail, someone (an investigative journalist) needs to ask: “What is going on?”

Dr Doug Lee, Erindale

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Ian Meikle, editor

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