Why Can’t Newcastle Be Like Other Cities?
Newcastle’s CBD and the adjacent harbour foreshore have changed dramatically during the last 20 years. In 1989, the year of the earthquake, Honeysuckle Rail Yards still operated adjacent to Civic Station. The Queens Wharf development had recently been completed as well as the Foreshore Park. Access to some of the harbour foreshore had just been given back to the people of Newcastle. Back then Newcastle’s CBD was between King Street and the rail line.
20 years on and the development of Honeysuckle has expanded the CBD over the rail line to the harbour. There are now more office workers north of the rail line than south.
Even though the heavy rail line once dutifully served the working harbour and brought coal to the then Zaara Street power station, times have changed. The purpose for which the heavy rail line was built has disappeared. The heavy rail line now divides the CBD.
No successful CBD in the world has a heavy rail line running through it at ground level. In the CBD’s of London, Paris, Rome, New York, Melbourne (the list can go on) the heavy rail lines are not at ground level.
Closer to home in Sydney’s CBD, why is Central Railway Station where it is, at the edge of the CBD? Why is Town Hall, Wynard, Martin Place, Museum and St James railway stations underground? Why isn’t there a heavy rail line running down George Street? The answer is that Sydney’s civic leaders of the 1920’s realised that heavy rail lines do not belong on the ground in a CBD and set about constructing an underground rail system. They knew that heavy rail is an efficient way of transporting large numbers of people but not at the expense of causing dislocation and barriers within the CBD.
The result being that Sydney’s CBD is dynamic, successful and pedestrian friendly. It is possible to walk anywhere throughout Sydney CBD unhindered by a heavy rail line.
Later, in the 1950’s when the Circular Quay Station was built why wasn’t it built at ground level? Imagine the barrier between the CBD and The Rocks/Opera House if the Circular Quay Station was on ground level. Newcastle’s CBD is now suffering from this type of physical and psychological barrier.
For a CBD to be successful pedestrian access must be unimpeded. It must be possible to walk directly from David Jones to Queens Wharf. An office worker in the new NIB building on Honeysuckle Drive must be able, during lunch, to walk directly to Marketown instead of having to make a circuitous trip via the stairs at Wickham Railway Station. Visitors to our city should be able to walk directly from the Newcastle Regional Art Gallery to the Maritime Museum at Honeysuckle without having to negotiate the railway gates at Merewether Street. Sydneysiders are not confronted with heavy rail lines in their CBD so why are we?
Within a CDB it must be convenient and possible to walk from one place to another without having to climb stairs, at select locations, over a railway line. In order for Newcastle’s CBD to be dynamic, successful and pedestrian friendly the heavy rail line must be removed. The rail corridor must be maintained as a transport link for pedestrians, bikes, buses, trams, light rail or any other form of transport which is viable.
Pedestrian accessibility is essential in a modern successful CBD. Just like in London, Paris, Rome, New York, Melbourne and Sydney.
Why can’t Newcastle be like other cities?
Robert Monteath
Surveyor and Town Planner
