SUMMERTIME. And the living is easy. So sang the wonderful Ella Fitzgerald. Her version of that song with Louis Armstrong is like a gentle wave of sunshine through the body.
But Ella never looked for a parking spot around Newcastle beaches when the mercury was busting 30 degrees.
While it's not quite summertime, the living sure ain't easy.
Traffic is back big time and the roads to our beaches are just as busy as they were before the pandemic.
Wharf Road is already a hot mess on a hot weekend, as traffic crawls alongside the harbour at a fifth of the legal limit of 30 kmh. And watch it, the police are patrolling regularly.
Hunter Street is not much better than Wharf Road, with the light rail gobbling up half the street and disappointed families from the west thinking a bolt down Merewether Street will provide a strategy for a sneak attack.
Nah.
Much of the traffic into and from the beaches has moved onto King Street, although good luck my friend turning from Hunter Street into Darby Street. That right-turn light might allow three vehicles through before switching to amber - providing the driver at the front of the turning lane on Hunter is paying attention.
Is there another traffic light in the Hunter that turns from green to amber more quickly than Hunter into Darby? Is it broken? Fifteen seconds tops.
This muddle was a gift from the Andrew Constance led TfNSW. The exiting Minister for Transport - another one leaving the sinking ship that is the NSW Coalition - never really warmed to Newcastle, what with ungrateful media and their pesky questions. Never provided a business plan for the light rail and slammed by the Auditor-General in a brutal assessment of the light rail project.
To be fair, there were people who liked Constance. Overseas train and ferry suppliers loved him. His electorate received a $44 million cruise ship wharf at Eden.
Constance was also liked by developers. He saw no conflict of interest in referring to DOMA boss Jure Domazet as a "long-time uni mate" when he announced the Store site sale in 2018, a site for which DOMA paid a $10 consideration.
A land transfer document dated October 14, 2019, shows the Hunter and Central Coast Development Corporation transferred the Stewart Avenue site to Doma for the "consideration of $10.00". As part of the deal, Doma had to build the bus interchange on the Store site and give it to the government. Property data websites, including Pricefinder, also list the land sale at $10.
Noice.
It's impossible to discuss traffic flows to Newcastle beaches and ocean baths without mentioning the changes to the key routes that have occurred over the past six or seven years and whether motorists should pay for parking at or near the beaches.
Not before a council election next month, they shouldn't. That's crazy talk.
If there's one thing that makes an otherwise calm and rational Novocastrian blow up deluxe, it's having to pay for parking.
CoN's Parking Plan On Our Streets was adopted in February 2021, with the implementation plan outlining a range of short, medium and long term actions commencing from July 2021.
A number of strategic traffic roles which were also a part of the parking plan have been recruited, with staff having just started or about to commence in roles.
Old mate Percy Reckons - who adores a CoNspiracy theory - will bang on to anyone within ear shot that approximately 800 numbered plates installed along Scenic Drive, Henderson Drive, Merewether Baths, Merewether Beach, Dixon Park, Bar Beach, Strzelecki Lookout and Newcastle Baths will usher in fees for parking.
I'd be surprised if that doesn't happen in the near future, but not until after the council election is in the rear-vision mirror.
A CoN spokesperson says the plates are actually smart parking sensors that will provide real-time data to the Easypark app and the City of Newcastle app. The integration of this data to the apps is still being worked out - and one can only hope it's better worked out than the eventually abandoned resident parking system fiasco from a couple of years ago - but will allow motorists to use their smart phone to better know where a park is available.
And it will be operational this summer. Will it stop the conga line of vehicles from Honeysuckle around Shortland Esplanade to the Newcastle Police Station or the crawl around Merewether and Scenic Drive?
I doubt it. Only paid parking will slow that hot mess down.
