There are even rumours that construction workers in Parkville all took public transport into work,so they didn’t snatch up all the parking spaces that local businesses rely on for staff and customers. What has this city come to?
Thankfully,this morning I had to take seven detours just to drive a kilometre down the road. For a moment,I was worried thatMelbourne was becoming liveable again.
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Look,I get it. When you have great roads,they need to be maintained. When infrastructure breaks down,it needs to be repaired – often urgently. When local councils have to spend their budgets before the end of the financial year,they may splash out on a fancy new park bench or a hideous art installation in Fitzroy.
State governments campaign for office with sexy buzzwords like “expansion” and “development for the future” because they’re a lot more exciting than more balanced ideas like “maintenance” and “let’s take it easy for a while”.Of course,we’re going to keep developing the city. We’re not Hobart for goodness’ sake.
But when does the serenity of day-to-day life factor into the overall construction equation? We’re lucky to live in such an affluent city,certainly,but surely,there are ways to make the inevitable disturbances from construction more bearable.
Perhaps instead of subjecting us to the harrowing experience of replacement buses for months on end,the train line can splurge on one of those fun disco limousines from time to time. Maybe when one of your neighbours is building a house,you get to record all the construction noise and play it back to them once they move in. When a road is closed for construction work,the businesses affected by it should each be sent a Millennial to teach them how tosell their goods on Facebook Marketplace. These may not be real solutions,but I’ll leave those to the taxpayer-funded city council members to come up with.