...And where it meets King William St???

Do you realise that Whatley Crescent (East) will be cut off at Hamilton street?

All traffic from and to this eastern precinct will be channeled down little old Olfe Street next to Bert Wright park!

Have you ever tried to turn right from Olfe Street into King William St?

•   The line of sight is compromised
• At peak hours (AM and PM)  traffic is banked up beyond Almondbury Street 

DID YOU KNOW that Olfe St will have a major increase in traffic flow?

• If you live east of King William St you will need to use Olfe St to access King William St
• If you live west of King William St you will need to use Olfe St to park near the shops and police station
• All traffic into the precinct east of King William St will need to use Olfe St.
• In case you didn't know, Whatley Crescent will be cut off  between King William St and Hamilton St
    

Did you know that there will be even MORE traffic on King William St near Olfe?

• There will be no right hand turn from Coode St into Whatley Crescent West.

All the traffic from this precinct will need to use Olfe St to head north up Coode St.

Olfe St is very narrow between Slade St and Hamilton St and WILL see increased traffic

Olfe St between Hamilton St and King William St is bounded by 

• Playground and recreational park
• Senior Citizens
• Child Health Clinic
• Library

Olfe St  between Hamilton St and King William St is also narrow AND provide essential parking , at right angles which requires reversing!

The intersection between Olfe St and King William St is adjacent to a primary access point to the local primary schools.

ALL THESE ISSUES HAVE BEEN RAISED BUT THERE HAS BEEN NO RESPONSE!
How much will this community put up with?? Compromised safety???

HOW IS THIS INTERSECTION GOING TO BE UPGRADED?
You and we have asked this question many times and still...
...nothing, nil, nada.

 The original concepts for the new station were shown to the Community Advisory Group (CAG) Monday 9 July 2018.

Over two years ago.

The CAG  consisted of residents as well as representatives of community groups, but these groups were given no opportunity to take the designs back to their groups for assessment and proper feedback. No drawings to talk to.  Luckily our rep could draw and FuBa had a really hard look at what Metronet called Option 2... and as you know, we thought there was a far better way to design our town centre around the train station.

On 2nd October 2018 in a meeting with Metronet where FuBa raised our many concerns, , we were told that

"only 20-30 vehicles that belong to residents in that eastern precinct use Whatley Crescent per day". [paraphrase]

Two things
1. Although that number may be correct, it doesn't account for all the users of that shopping strip and the far wider consequences within the Whatley East Precinct
2. Traffic studies have been done back in 2018 

..and since then, nothing, nil, nada.

...despite this being a major concern for the community...  (Link to recent Facebook post)

 The image above left shows the traffic flows around the town centre that WILL occur if Whatley Cres is closed AND you want to go to the shops! AND if you want the shops to have customers!

Early design concepts showed new shopper parking at the intersection of Hamilton and Whatley (vaguely marked in purplish blue above left) yet in a close up  of the concept plan above right, there doesn't seem to be much on offer. Not much has happened to alleviate any fear for the business owners. The shopper parking, seems to have  slipped between the cracks as the railway station construction marches on.

And what about the INTERSECTION at King William Street?
Could the answer be another set of traffic lights??? No thank you
Could the answer be a round-about??? Absolutely NO THANK YOU! Roundabouts are the worst possible solution for pedestrians and cyclists. And so close to a school and senior citizens?  It's vital to retain the Bayswater pedestrian experience.

At the forum held in August, one local told us that with Whatley Crescent cut off they could no longer get their caravan out of the precinct!

Traffic studies have been done - we know that. The road layouts have not changed since the first concept design so why it has taken more than 2 years to come up with a solution that was created by their own design, is mind boggling at the least.

This problem at Olfe and King William is a product of the current road layout design,the two- subways design. It has been imposed on the community, the community has raised the issues, but it feels like it is never addressed, properly.
Good for trains and buses but is it good enough for our community?

Hopefully it's not a case of leaving this problem behind and unresolved once the circus has left town.
That would be unforgivable.

 Early 2018. The first images of the Bayswater Station to the community showed a modern iconic shelter and elegant bridge. 

In late 2018 the proposed design revealed a simpler but elegant shelter with a timber ceiling, a streamlined bridge and curvelinear column designs. The western entry was modern with timber lining.  The plazas were a sleek design and DIDN'T LOOK LIKE A FREEWAY UNDERPASS.

So what happened between 2018 and 2020?

Why this bulky FREEWAY design? And a shelter of zero architectural character.

CONCRETE is a great building material, and PRECAST CONCRETE can certainly speed up construction.
Why is there resistance to an excellent finish to the most important piece of infratstucture in this town's history?

" The construction methodology includes precasting for speed of construction to reduce impacts on the community and passengers. Instead our focus is on what relief we can put on the finish to soften it. We are currently working through the community’s comments on public art as a means to soften the structure. This station must have a lifespan on 120 years so paint and cladding has maintenance issues." CAG Meeting MInutes 17 June 2020

We certainly don't want THIS to be our reality...

How extensive is the public art budget? There is a mighty lot of concrete to cover with murals alone... and that is probably not the desired outcome, really.

The renders of the proposed station may well have been stripped of final finishes (why?) and there does seem to be some texture on the (bulky) columns and pier caps.

Here's some inspiration for textured finishes in concrete.
Link to source by clicking on image

And just down the road...

Maybe it's just a "budget thing"?

ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS...

 There will be no escalators at the Bayswater Station!
All the other stations pictured, have escalators

How High are the staircases at Bayswater?
The climb from the ticketing entry to the station platform is somewhere between 6 and 7 metres.
What can you use as a comparison to figure out what this means?

If a modern house has 2.7m ceilings plus 100mm slab, then the staircase at Bayswater would climb past the 1st floor, and past the seond floor ( 5.6m) and a bit more. That is, you'd be standing a bit higher than on third floor.

This is a serious length staircase and will exclude more people  than, say, 1 storey staircase. More people would need to use the lift.

To date, the response as to "why" has been "it's policy not to have escalators on the Heritage lines"
This question has been asked by FuBa and has been asked in the CAG.
Apparantly the printed version of the policy is still being sourced....

Are there Lifts?
Yes there are two lifts on each platform. One at each entry.
Although requested, size has not yet been confirmed. How many people (comfortably), how many wheelchairs and how many gophers will fit in each lift?
And with Covid, lifts are not appropriate , compared to escalators.
Are the proposed lifts going to be enough? We don't know.

"There are no escalators at Perth Stadium station" is a reason Bayswater doesn't need them...
Our only response is the Stadium station is an event station, used infrequently by individual members of the public. People use Bayswater everyday. If the experience of use is too uncomfortable, they will turn back to the car. Shouldn't the travel experience at Bayswater be the best it could be?

Bayswater is a major junction of three railway lines. It is also the first line above ground that airport passengers will see on arriving in Perth. If Bayswater is the junction of the Airport line, which all have escalators, surely Bayswater could be considered of equal significance as the FAL line. It also provides two rail lines (MEL and Midland)with interchange access to the airport requiring those passengers to change platforms ( current configuration).

Surely with a busy station, we need safer, more accessible and more comfortable options.

If budget is an issue - why not allow  for installing escalators in the future?