Comments on: In Defence of Cathedral Drive

By: Justin Russell

Justin Russell — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:51:08 +0000

I appreciate your comment Paul but can’t say that I agree with your arguments. Based on accident figures obtained from Toowoomba police, your odds of dying on Cathedral Drive are astronomical. Since 2000 there hasn’t been a single fatality between Geham and Hampton, and just 16 accidents with injuries. Six thousand vehicles per day travel along this stretch. Yet we hear over and over this argument that tree branches are falling all over the place killing and injuring people. There is a very slim chance of this actually happening, so slim that you’ve got a greater chance of being struck by lightning…twice. To make fear based decisions that will forever alter a stand of old growth trees prized by the majority of the local community isn’t wise, in my opinion. Trees and drivers can co-exist, assuming drivers can enough responsibility for their actions and that some minor safety improvements are made to the road.

As for your last point, that new trees will be replanted. This is actually not the case. Main Roads has nothing allocated in their project budget for revegetation along the 10km length of Cathedral Drive. Throw climate change into the mix, and it’s unlikely that we’ll see big old trees growing along this stretch of the New England Highway for centuries.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:02:00 +0000

These trees along this stretch of highway do infact cause a problem, I have driven this road every night and day for the last year, have any of you been travelling the correct speed or slower and a branch has crashed down onto your vehicle ????, have you ever driven along in the fog where visability is pretty much nill and if there has been a storm or bad weather then the tree branches which are all dry soak up the water and end up crashing onto the road where you have to drive, did any of you see the car which was smashed down onto by a tree which the occupants went to hospital and the car was a total writeoff. have any of you known someone who was killed and now know that any improvement to the safety along this strecth of road will benefit human lives which are in my mind alot more important than the trees, once they have been chopped down have a new bunch replanted ten metres to the side of the road so this will not happen future….

By: Ian Menkins

Ian Menkins — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:24:04 +0000

What Audrey says is very true. In Australia we have a tendency to build things much larger than necessary because the assumption is that we will always have plenty of room. The problem with this kind of thinking is it is based on a belief that our resources and space are infinite. We have already reached the stage in SE Queensland where the rush to secure and utilize our dwindling resources has become highly unsustainable. Moreover human activities in SE Qld are adversely impacting on the natural and human environment at an alarming rate. As biodiversity is lost so too will aspects of our quality of life. We should be striving to save every little bit of precious biodiversity instead of finding excuses to destroy what remains. Can we really afford to destroy thousands of trees (homes to thousands of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates, plants and bryophtyes) just so that we can have the luxury of an excessively wide highway?
Humans need communities of tall trees, not only for their aesthetic appeal, but also for the shade they create, the fog and moisture they capture, and the protective barrier they form against frost and drying winds. Whether we like it or not, we are all part of the web of life. Every strand that is broken inevitably effects us, maybe not straight away, but eventually.

By: Justin Russell

Justin Russell — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 04:19:04 +0000

Thanks for your comment Audrey. It will indeed by a sad day if Main Roads butchers Cathedral Drive the way they intend to. Can I urge you to write to Anna Bligh (premier@ministerial.qld.gov.au) imploring her to overturn Craig Wallace’s decision to proceed with the project? Work is scheduled to commence on Monday 14th September.

By: Audrey Sampson

Audrey Sampson — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 04:04:35 +0000

We feel very sad that these lovely trees are to go. I have actually seen a koala there, so it is a habitat for them. It is the best part of the drive from Maidenwell, where we live, to Toowoomba, but when those trees go I think we will have to drive via Oakey as it will be so sad!
There will still be trees for cars to slam into at the speed they drive, when they run off the road, unless they clear the whole lot!
More than 150 species of maammals, bats and birds rely on tree hollows and many of those trees have hollows, which are scarce and take many years to develop.
If you travel to Britain there are many, many narrow roads. They are bordered by hedges and stone walls and they are still in use by traffic which often has to drive into a gateway to allow another to pass.
Surely we can preserve this beautiful drive! It is almost unique in S.E Qld.

By: Ian Menkins

Ian Menkins — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:41:34 +0000

By the way, my hay bale incident was quite a ways north of Geham and on the narrow section bordered by tall trees. I was doing 100 km/hr in a 100 km/hr zone. I safely brought the car to a stop on the road shoulder. The driver behind me – who was clearly speeding – was the one who nearly lost control and almost hit on oncoming vehicle.
I no longer wish to reply to someone who lacks the intestinal fortitude to publish their surname. Such messages should be treated with the same respect as one by an anonymous writer.

By: Ian Menkins

Ian Menkins — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:26:08 +0000

Driving inside the little air-conditioned cocoon of an automobile tends to shelter people from the reality of the world around them.
It is really sad to see the Darling Downs that I knew as a kid gradually disintegrating before my eyes, and the sad thing is a lot of people cannot see past all the superficial “progress”. The environment on the Downs is disappearing by degrees, a little bit here, another little bit there, a big bit somewhere else, taken for a mine, quarry, or new housing development. The trees along the highway are just one of many bits being carved out of the remnants of our natural environment. Before we know what has happened, there will be no “little bits” left. The Cathedral Drive trees are not just trees like people plant in their gardens. They are part of a small, complex, remnant ecosystem and an endangered one at that. Once they are gone they CANNOT ever be replaced. A tree can be planted but an ecosystem can never be regrown or restored as it was before. It is gone forever, with all its birds, insects, reptiles, mammals, and plants. 300 years of growth gone. You can replant the trees and get a massively weedy uinderstorey, but the diversity of life will be lost forever.
The relentless march of the concrete jungle is slowly but surely sweeping aside everything natural in our environment. May the drivers find happiness within its impending rat race. They can zoom along a four lane highway secure in the knowledge that no tree can ever again get in their way. Can we really expect less accidents?? So many people today only worry about the present and getting from point A to B as fast as possible. Selfishness will be the ultimate downfall of human beings on this planet. History will not be kind to the Bligh government for allowing the scale of environmental destruction that we are presently witnessing on the Downs. Sorry Justin I no longer have anything positive to say.

By: Justin Russell

Justin Russell — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:39:48 +0000

Thanks for your comments Kaitlyn. Ian can probably stick up for himself, so I’m not going to rush to his defence, but my interpretation of his comments is that we have to learn to live in harmony with the natural world. This to me is the gist of what he’s getting at, and essentially, it’s the issue that underlies all of the environment versus development debates. Life is, by its very nature, messy, and full of risk. If we choose to do things like rocket along the highway at 100kmh inside a metal cocoon, we ought to be prepared for the potential consequences.

Statistically, Cathedral Drive is not an unsafe stretch of road in comparison to some other major highways. Police figures indicate that traffic is 3000 vehicles per day, of which just 3 percent is heavy vehicles. There hasn’t been a fatality since 1997. While I fully acknowledge that one life lost is too many, and would be horrified if my own wife and kids were killed while driving along Cathedral Drive, I still wouldn’t advocate the wholesale removal of the trees.

To clarify the aims of SAVE, the group is primarily concerned with enhancing the safety of the road while minimising the wholesale clearing of trees in the road reserve. SAVE has acknowledged that some trees will need to be removed. But there are alternative options to Main Roads’ initial proposal. Let me challenge you to put your money where your mouth is, and put some innovative thinking into place to come up with a ground breaking idea of your own. As far as I can see it, SAVE is at least seeking an outcome that will be a win for all parties concerned.

One final point – I wouldn’t be too hasty in criticising the tourism focus within the SAVE campaign. Besides being just one of SAVE’s four stated aims, tourism is a lifeblood of small communities like Hampton, and there are plenty of local people around who have established viable tourism businesses and therefore have a legitimate stake in the visual amenity of Cathedral Drive. I think they deserve some support and respect, not ridicule.

I do appreciate your comments and welcome the debate. But the challenge remains: instead of simply criticising, what would you do, as “one who loves trees”, to increase the safety of Cathedral Drive while preserving as many of those trees as possible. Give us something positive.

By: Kaitlyn

Kaitlyn — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:54:33 +0000

Ian, you have gone way over the top. We are not removing everything related to nature that is in our paths; it is simply a small stretch of trees in comparison to the rest of the stretch into town, and, luckily it is the only dangerous patch of the highway. I am sure you will find, most people for the trees to be removed have a passion for trees, like yourself. But, when they are a hazzard at all hours of the day to the thousands of cars that pass through, there has to be something wrong. If the trees are not removed, it would be ignorant and unfair to the young families and others who use the road at least twice daily. I find it interesting that your close call to danger was near Geham, where there is a wide and safe road. That is predominantly THE reason why you were able to jam on your brakes and return to safety. However, had this have happened at “Cathedral Drive” I dread to think what your outcome would have been at 100km/hr.

I further find it interesting that in this forum, the thousands of cars, trucks and school buses have not been acknowledged. As far as I am aware, The New England Highway is the only way people from Crows Nest, Hampton and surrounding areas can access Toowoomba, which is where they travel to daily at all times of the day, on and off peak. Supposing that a bushfire comes through the area like the Black Saturday, (which many a bushfire has) how else could one access emergency and other vital services if the “Cathedral Drive area” was blocked from bushfire? I have to say, apart from Tourism, not too many other aspects have actually been adressed and acknowledged in this “S.A.V.E” project group etc. It seems so important to preserve the “Hampton High Country” image. There has really been no ground-breaking ideas (apart from reducing the speed limit) to make the road safe if the trees are not removed. Appologies for breaking the truth but reducing the speed limit is not the answer to all scenarios. Reducing the speed limit will not magically remove the limbs and branches, roadkill, wallabies, or bails of hay off the road.

Through the eyes of a student, a member of a young family, one who loves trees, and wants the best for our community, the trees must be removed.

By: Justin Russell

Justin Russell — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:15:13 +0000

Thanks again for your comment Ian. Your line “We’re fast moving towards this kind of “cotton wool” society that wants to remove everything in nature that might be dangerous, while ignoring the dangers we pose to ourselves and the environment.” really nails the underlying issue with this whole debate.