AUSTRALIA PROGRESSIVE REVIEW? - PART 1, a train for every city

No folks, you're editor is not going to flee to the southern hemisphere and take up residence in the friendly and interesting country of Australia. Besides, if the Alaska Progressive Review wasn't providing you with the most avant-garde, incisive, hard-hitting progressive environmental and socio-political commentary, someone else might be! But I have taken a great liking to this country and all the people I've met, and I want to describe some of the things I like here, in a multi-part series. To stimulate thought and action, so we can work to achieve similar things in our country.

So this first part will be about public transportation, specifically, light rail.








Sydney is a large city, almost 5 million people live in it's environ's. Nestled between a beautiful rocky blue-water coastline, and the gently rising Eucalyptus-clad Blue Mountains to the east. Looking much like Southern California, with similar

temperatures, but more rainfall throughout the year, it is a little greener, and instead of the Spanish influence in architecture and ambience, it retains the English character of it's first founders. With it's mild climate, relatively low crime rate, and scenic setting, it usually is in the middle of the World's top ten list of most liveable cities, when various organizations publish these.








Nevertheless, I am a country man at heart, since the headquarters of the A.P.R. is nestled in the birch and aspen forest atop Chena ridge on two acres, west of Fairbanks. I am not used to the rigours of city life, the traffic noise and fumes, bicycle riding amidst the higher densities of cars and pedestrians, etc..

So, I felt a strong need to get out of the city this past week and into the hills. But without a car, I thought my options would be limited, unless I was willing to ride my hybrid mountain bike 40-50 miles on crowded noisy highways and motorways, before I could get into quieter surroundings outside the suburbs. With great pleasure, I discovered the Sydney City Rail system.

Begun in the 1950s, it has gradually been built up and expanded out from the center of Sydney in all directions. Clean, quiet electric trains run frequently, every day of the week, and on holidays. The network extends well out into the country to the North, East, and South, and you can access several national parks.

http://www.cityrail.info/networkmaps/index.jsp

I decided to visit Blue Mountains National Park, on Boxing Day, the 26th of December, which is a holiday here almost equal in significance to Christmas (all of the former English colonies, save the U.S., celebrate it). I was told you can even bring bicycles with you on the train, perfect for me! So, on Boxing Day morning at 0630, I pedaled the four blocks from my hotel down to Sydney Central Station, the main station for the whole network, and bought my round-trip ticket to Katoomba, the gateway to Blue Mountains N.P., 65 miles northwest of downtown here. The fare was 16.50 Australian, round-trip (about 12.00 USD). Since it was a holiday, and more people were coming in to Sydney, to shop and watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, the train west was uncrowded, and I had plenty of room to bring my bike aboard. It was a two hour trip, with many stops, but I enjoyed the clean, quiet, comfortable ride, and the views of the new territory I was seeing.

The train arrived to the Katoomba station at 0930, after leaving Central Station at 0715.

I then had to pedal about a mile through the quaint mountain-resort town of Katoomba, to reach the trails in Blue Mountains National Park. Katoomba lies at about 3500 feet altitude, so it is cooler in general than Sydney, and just high enough to get a little snow in winter. It has the look and feel of a more mountain town, somewhat similar, but larger than those in Southern California, like Idyllwild, or Julian. The Blue Mountains are not very high, only 3000-4500 feet, but their claim to fame is that there are sheer 2000-2500 foot cliffs dropping down to a wide valley, all clad in thick Eucalyptus/Gum rain forest. This thick forest cover emits turpenes, a chemical which causes the signature blue haze (hence the name of the park), and which I noticed quite easily.

I spent about four hours hiking around on trails on the canyon rim, then down into the rain forest. The trails descend the cliff faces down a network of stairs and steps cut into them. Almost like rock-climbing! Very fun, for me, since I love being perched in high places. The humidity was too much for this Northern man though, I quickly became completely drenched, and decided to head up and out of the jungle, and back to Katoomba, to do some biking in the cooler, drier, breezy air there for the rest of the day.

Here though are a few pictures from the trails in this interesting park. Looking up here to the canyon rim, from about mid-way down, note the blue haze. The jungle vegetation is very thick, without a trail, bushwhacking would be incredibly difficult here. I didn't see any Joeys (baby kangas) or Emu, but I think they tend to favor the drier, more open areas. The sound and sight of many of Australia's colourful birds were present, Cockatoos, Lorikeets, Kookaburra, and many others. I am not too knowledgeable about the local birds here, but would like to learn more. Even better, would be to bring a Cockatoo home, I think one would be a happy addition to the A.P.R. staff, and would probably quickly pick up a diverse and colourful vocabulary.

There are numerous waterfalls and rivulets cascading down the cliff faces in the park, a great way to cool off in the subtropical heat/humidity underneath the jungle canopy.

After a few hours of biking in the fresh, breezy air around Katoomba, it was time to head back into the city. I just hopped on the most convenient train (they run hourly on holidays, every 30 min. during the week), and headed back with the bike, to Central Station, arriving at 630 pm.

I was quite happy, here I am, a visitor with no car, and yet I can get on this clean, quiet train, and in two hours get to enjoy myself in a wilderness/country setting, with my bicycle. Shouldn't every larger city in the U.S. have something like this? Fairbanks is probably too small, but even Anchorage would benefit greatly, and would have a large ridership, if lines were built from Girdwood/Alyeska, and Palmer/Wasilla, into the city. Some larger cities have limited light rail networks, like Portland, OR (a wonderful system, the Max line), Washington D.C., and a real nice link in Florida that connects Miami, all the way north to near Palm Beach. All cities should have one of these though, everyone would benefit, as would the environment.

How much will these cost, you say? Well, if our government can offer 700 billion dollars to prop up financial institutions crippled because of greedy, short-sighted policies/decisions, and therefore socialize their debts/losses, IT CAN NEVER SAY IT CAN NOT AFFORD TO DEVELOP/PRODUCE THINGS THAT WILL ACTUALLY BENEFIT ALL PEOPLE, IN A CONTINUING MANNER. We at A.P.R. urge you to think on this whenever any politicians express concern about social, environmental, or infrastructural spending projects. Remember, 700 billion dollars is going to go to criminally greedy financial institutions and the men that were responsible for bankrupting them, and what are you going to get for it? How about working for things like this instead, light-rail networks? Instead of bailing out the American automakers, our government should nationalize them and use their engineers and workers to develop and manufacture less polluting transport methods, like electric rail systems. Food for thought. Cheers.