Watching the video of Boundary Road Rail Level Crossing Flythrough October 2022, I wept. Jesus Wept (John 11:35).
It is weeping of joy and sadness. Joy because, finally, a beautiful solution has been reached in the Boundary Road Rail Level Crossing Flythrough. Sadness because my parents passed in their 90s in recent years, and mum and dad were among the original residents, in the late 1950s, who called for a rail crossing; as with so many mums and dads over the decades in Coopers Plains.
The CRITICAL POINT is it should not have taken over 60 years (I am 63!) for the project to eventuate. As an Australian historian and historiographer, of several different scoping, I do not accept the bullshit (meaning not accurately caring) in the delaying excuses. Yes, it is complex. But knowledge is complex, no excuse. Yes, there are decisions about priorities, but those priorities are decided in thinking, often in obfuscating, obstructive, obsessed thinking without creativity and principled compromise. Creativity and principled compromise is what finally got us to the start in 2025 of the Boundary Road Rail Level Crossing Flythrough, unless a new administration decides to pull out of the Project.
There are not one factor but several factors in the historical delay, and the questions must go to the decision making in the priorities in a period of over 60 years:
Prejudice: Who in Council cared for the call which was coming from Coopers Plains?
Funding: almost endless and needless arguments in the competition between all worthy projects, with nascent conversations on “re-prioritising” without the public honesty on the decision-making process, only relenting to a project commitment under too many years of public pressure.
Strategy of Expertise: Engineering is not an easy science that armchair critics can deliver. Engineers will disagree on the correct strategy to take. However, that expertise also includes landscape geography for residential requirements. In this case the expertise is the residence landscape geographers, collaborating with Engineers. Again, Creativity and principled compromise is what finally got us to the start.
Finally, Cognition corruption: This is not the same as charges of legal corruptions. It is to say that politicians and all experts, and all armchair critics, may at some stage of planning have corrupted thinking. Corrupt thinking comes of obfuscating, obstructive, obsessed thinking, and the unhelpful resistance to creative and principled compromised solutions.
Featured Image: 2024-10-03 Screenshot Coopers Plains Rail Crossing
Neville Buch
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