Sún Etheridge

Earlier this week, Tam and Stephen met with Sún Etheridge, Labor’s candidate for Paddington Ward for an early morning coffee. Sún has cycled for transport in the past, but some bad experiences cycling in traffic have made her too nervous. As a single mother she fears that her children could be left without their primary carer. Hence she was not keen to join us for a bike ride, and we can fully empathise with this and would never put someone in an uncomfortable situation.

We had a discussion about active transport needs for Paddington, including Tam’s desire for a safe and comfortable route down the Terraces that she can use with her children. We discussed the recent conversation about Remy’s crossing and council’s contention that a wombat (raised crossing) would be unsuitable for a “major road”. Sún is an advocate for wombat crossings, and would be supportive of community consultation to install them on the Terraces and also to examine a reduced speed environment. We mentioned that La Trobe is not just a major road and that the businesses need footfall.

We had an honest and constructive discussion on balancing community needs and transport modes. We made the case that small shopping streets trying to compete with supermarkets and shopping centres on parking provision are going to lose every time. Businesses need to be brought on a journey to understand the true proportion of their business that comes from locals walking (including public transport users) and cycling, and that it’s much easier to grow this business than to allocate more of the limited space to parking. We cited the CBD CityLink academic study and Sydney Road (Victoria) study, as well as recommending reading the work of David Mepham. Sún was careful to point out the parking needs of those with reduced mobility and those moving around the city with children for example, and she highlighted the cost barriers to purchasing a bicycle for carrying of children (though that’s still cheaper than a second family car, and people with reduced mobility directly benefit from cycling infrastructure).

Tam mentioned her desire to trial some pop up cycle lanes as part of the annual Paddington Festival and to get some of the mobility as a service operators (Beam, Neuron, Lug and Carrie, Zoom) on board to offer people trials. Sún also mentioned some festivals in the past which have had opened their streets fully to people walking and riding, such as Spring Hill Fair.

We also discussed a low speed environment in the side streets of Kelvin Grove and Red Hill between the major roads. This would support community life in those streets as well as creating safe routes for active travel. Again Sún is supportive of this vision and for a community consultation on the topic.

Sún has committed to a ward-wide assessment of how we use our streets with a priority on improving pedestrian and cycling safety and connectivity. She advocates for taking up any opportunity to create missing connections between existing bikeways, subject to community consultation.