The Balmain Blog

In an effort to ease car congestion within the Sydney CBD, the Sydney City Council has announced it will allow motorbikes and motor-scooters to park free of charge on streets that it controls.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore made the announcement as part of a proposal to encourage less fuel-hungry modes of travel. The term they used was environmentally friendly, but since many of these machines run smoky two-stroke engines, it remains to be seen what will happen to the pollution levels!

Some cynics have already warned the offer may be little more than an cheap election stunt. Who knows…

Anyhow, I think I’ll fire up my old Honda CX-500 motorcycle and head into the city to check things out for myself. Let’s see if there are more of the pitifully-few free parking spots for motorcycles. And, by the way, they have always been free in the past. There were just very few of the things. You had to know where they were and have your machine parked already by about 7:00 am, or there’d be no spaces left.

I’ll let you know if I see any significant difference today.

The real proof will be to see what happens after the elections, won’t it?

Group of happy Pacific Islander guys seen on Prymont Bridge were enjoying WYD.

Tens of thousands of buoyant Roman Catholic pilgrims filled Sydney’s Darling Harbour this afternoon to celebrate World Youth Day 2008 and the Pope Benedict’s visit to Sydney Australia.

The pilgrims took part in a Stations of the Cross religious service which re-enacted the last day of Jesus Christ’s life, when he was whipped and nailed to a wooden cross.

The First Station of the Cross began at St Mary’s Cathedral near Hyde Park, Sydney. There the actors portrayed The Last Supper, and the Pope said prayers.

Right through different points in Sydney, the actors portrayed different scenes of Christ’s last hours for the crowds. And the proceedings were broadcast on TV screens for an estimated billions of more Catholics from around the world to watch on TV from their homes.

Those watching locally and remotely responded with prayers.

The crowd was remarkably well-behaved.

The Australian national airline, QANTAS, announced today that it will cut 1,500 jobs worldwide. Some 1,200 of the jobs will be lost from within Australia, and 300 from QANTAS operations around the world.

And the national air carrier says it has cancelled plans to have hired 1,200 new staff within Australia.

Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon attributed the bloodletting to two things: the surging price of oil and fuel, plus the airline’s pay dispute with its maintenance engineers.

More than 20 percent of head office and support jobs will get the axe, and the job cuts will happen before the end of this year.

The New South Wales government says it will spend $165 million (AUD) to build a new bridge and add three more lanes at Iron Cove, Drummoyne.

The new NSW government plan includes a smaller bridge on the western side of Iron Cove and a three and a half kilometre city-bound bus lane running through Drummoyne and Rozelle during the morning rush hour.

State Roads Minister, Eric Roozendaal, said the new plans were only finalised after community consultation. “This is a $156 million project to upgrade Victoria Road and duplicate the Iron Cove Bridge”, he said. It is expected to deliver a substantial saving in travel time for the 35,000 bus users that use Victoria Rd every work day.

Mr Roozendaal says the NSW Government has tried to take more than 1,200 submissions into account and tried to incorporate many suggestions.

The Opposition’s roads spokesman, Duncan Gay, said the project is too costly and won’t do much to speed up commuters’ traveling times.

A spokesman for the Victoria Road Community Committee, Bill Warner, says residents have just been ignored. He said there had been only nominal consultation.

Commuters driving into the Sydney CBD this morning may have noticed a gigantic cloud of thick black smoke pluming skywards from White Bay.

It was caused by a fire on a floating wooden structure that was undergoing demolition.

The fire brigades was alerted to the blaze this morning when a caller dialed triple-zero to report a fire in Robert Street.

Police are not treating the fire as suspicious. They believe that machinery being used for the dismantling work could have set the structure alight.

The demolition workers were able to escape by walking up the jetty to escape dry land near the shipping docks.

Six fire crews fought and finally extinguished the fire. They included the fire-boat, Marine One, and a fire truck from the Sydney Ports Authority.