Wentworth Falls Chamber of Commerce is considering legal action after Blue Mountains Council has refused to act on pedestrian safety on the railway bridge at Station Street.
Lew Hird, the president of the chamber said the group will investigate Maurice Blackburn Lawyers’ provisions for a “class action on a pro bono basis against the council for their lack of duty of care and due diligence regarding safe accessibility for pedestrians on the Wentworth Falls railway bridge”.
With the support of the three schools in Wentworth Falls, Mr Hird has pleaded with council on two occasions in the past 12 months to look into putting a safety barrier between the bridge’s footpath and road. The nearby fence on the bridge has been damaged by cars mounting the kerb.
This month a council officer wrote back refusing to attend a site meeting and said the provision of a safety barrier was “unlikely”.
“It’s beyond me,” Mr Hird said. “It’s obviously a safety concern. I used to be a deputy mayor [of Drummonye council] and if I got a community group wanting council to come out and look at a safety issue which wasn’t being addressed, certainly we would have been out there in a shot.
“They are spending money on managing asbestos ... fighting airports that are a foregone conclusion, high court action [sic] attempting to avoid the Minister’s suspension, instead of pedestrian safety.”
The bridge is owned by Sydney Trains, but council is responsible for the pavement, markings, walkway, drainage and kerbing. The vehicle restraint barriers on the bridge are the responsibility of Sydney Trains.
In a letter to Mr Hird, a senior council staff member noted his concerns but said “council are limited in potential works in this area [and] have a number of very similar scenarios … where there is a combination of existing infrastructure and an increasing use by vehicular, cyclist and pedestrian traffic”.
"All footpaths located adjacent to any road provide a similar level of risk exposure to both pedestrians and drivers. Where a kerb is provided this does offer a form of barrier between users, as is the case on the Station Street overline bridge.”
In recent weeks the Gazette has revealed safety issues at a number of Mountains bridges. A report, obtained by a retired engineer after a Freedom of Information battle, has indicated that the load capacity of the Sydney Trains bridges are being flouted and council needs to erect signage and impose load limits.
The report said the pedestrian barrier at the 25 metre skewed bridge on Station Street was “unlikely to contain an errant vehicle from entering the rail corridor” meaning a car going at speed could end up flying onto the railway tracks five metres below. The footpath and the road width also did not meet minimum standards.
“Large vehicles were observed traversing the centreline as they travelled onto the bridge travelling south. This results in coincident vehicles travelling north to move closer to the footpath and pedestrians,” the report said.
Mr Hird has also written to the State Government to look into a scoping study for a proper realignment of the entire bridge, but has been told the structure, built in 1959, has a 100-year life span.