An engineer's city - landscape vandalism

Moonscape - the Marmion Avenue extension

photo courtesy of Sun City News

This long weekend we holidayed in Yanchep, 45 minutes north of Perth. To get there is a lesson in the history of planning for suburbs, starting with the 1960s suburbs - roads built through land on which housing is progressively built where the outcome is a mixture of housing types. Next is the 1980s suburbia made of wide curvilinear roads, lined with back fences. We got lost at one point, and had to double-back a few times until we discovered the way out (hint - these road names end in "Entrance" or something similar, but look like all the other roads). Next is the suburbs of the 1990s and early 2000s that are much like the 1980s except that retaining walls make a big appearance everywhere. Here, slopes not visible to the naked eye are severely retained, and combined with sand dunes streets become walled enclosures. Apparently building companies will not build unless the lot is flat.

On the urban fringe main streets are beginning to appear, before a 10km undeveloped coastal landscape separates suburbia from our holiday destination. Marmion Avenue was recently extended across this undeveloped land to the next town.

It is on this newly constructed road that we can see the true reign of the engineer. What would otherwise be a simple road becomes a technical feat. To make the two-lane road, a wide swathe of land is cleared - the road itself is probably 10-12m wide - probably an 80m wide reservation is cleared and flattened. Where sand dunes are encountered, precisely-engineered slopes are constructed either side of the road and the slopes fenced off (there is no other fencing anywhere along the road). Three roundabouts are constructed - two of which have no road connections and the third being a little-used road to the coast. Finally,despite being a 10km long stretch of road with no hazards or side roads, an 80km/h speed limit is maintained, even though the road is so over-engineered that any driver would have no problems travelling at 110km/h (if not for the roundabouts to nowhere).

The landscape around the road is scenic - rolling sand dunes are all that can be seen, there is no other development - other than the massive scar made by the road's construction. There is no other way of looking at this other than the vandalism of a pristine landscape for engineering's sake. Sure the land may be set aside for suburban expansion, but that is no reason to destroy the land in the meantime.

What makes me angry is that the road is obviously designed for development that may not catch up to it for 10-20 years. It is the wrong way of going about things - the road should have been built to rural standards using only the land required for the road - when development happens the road can be upgraded. This line of thought is more consistent with planning to extend networks are required, rather than just assuming that development will continue indefinitely and making provision for it.

The local government i work for is looking at constructing a new entry road into its central area. Instead of acquiring the full 80m wide road reserve, it is instead asking for a 40m wide reserve. If the remaining land is eventually required, it can take the rest at a later stage. If only this thought was applied to Marmion Avenue.