Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Positive Approach Towards New Mount Druitt Transport Group

What is amazing for myself, is how I became involved with the Mount Druitt community being pretty much a simple man that wanted no more then what everyone wanted. That wasn't their bus services taken away.

Local community identities Joan and Betty had asked myself to be chair of the new bus group and so our successful true life story goes on. In summary, we have held consistent interesting group meetings (sometimes hot issues), large community meetings in the very heat of the day and struggled finding central community meeting places for group meetings. 

As a community, we obtained:

  1. Well over three thousand petitions handed over to The then Honorary Minister of Transport, Mr. David Campbell, with all our hard working 6 representatives, recruitment of around 40-50 voluntary group members attending meetings,  my speech as Chairperson at a 'Sydney Alliance Listening Meeting' (representing transport community of Sydney and the Greater Sydney).
  2. A youthful community member, Blake who has come out of the blue (listened to our stories) and developed close to 80 bus network routes around the Western Suburbs of Sydney (in and out of Mount Druitt from Penrith to Parramatta and from Castle Hill to Liverpool). 
  3. The attendance at a Blacktown Council organised Transport Forum. speech from myself 
  4. Open community meeting where hundred attended on a hot and humid Saturday.

We have been interviewed by radio 2UE, televised by Channel Nine and consistently reported by our local papers Mount Druitt St Marys Standard, St Marys-Mount Druitt Star, letters to the editor also, advertising our group meetings in local papers. Blake has been interviewed by ABC radio. We have done attendance at local community fairs promoting our cause and conducting surveys.

By doing all this, at the beginning we were told we are fighting a losing battle. Yet I didn't lose faith and never thought of any form of defeat - I just thought we had a hard battle to get on with and had to go for what the community spoke for and wanted. 

Then came the time, the hard efforts were paying - the first sign that our efforts were not meaningless. The Mount Druitt Community stood proud of itself when it was announced that we had returned the major 755 Busways bus (only half the service it was in length and in service time). This bus service drove past or close to 8 suburbs of Mount Druitt (Mount Druitt, Whalan, Tregear, Emerton, Lethbridge Park, Shalvey & Blackett) and later on obtained a partial return of bus service around the Gasmatta Crescent, Whalan community. These were a proud time in Mount Druitt which captured the local media and yet didn't go beyond

Now, we are taking a proactive approach in ensuring that commuters of Mount Druitt have the justified amount of public transport services that is required, promote a safer and more reliable public transport system, ensure that bus and train connections are fairer - reducing the complaint factor. What I hate is grumpy commuters that complain yet they don't voice their opinion. I don't mean not joining our group but contacting Transport Info 131510  or Click here for further details

You can either make a complaint or compliment on any facets or issues you have experienced. Ensure you are provided an incident number.

We will be looking at having our inaugural meeting on the 26th February 2011. By doing this will we be inviting all members of the Mount Druitt community  to join as members for a small fee of $5.00 per annum with a signed membership form. With a new branding we are looking at and a sub-committee is currently looking and exploring our new branding - that is Wayne, Allan and Shane.

As a group, we will be looking at suggestions from all members of the community to improve safety, service of and making it easier to pay the relevant due fares. We will seek support from all stake holders, local politicians: Federal, State and local government and leave it to them if they wish to support us or even be with us.  New items will be provided on this new website so that all community members and anyone with interest will be kept up to date.

Good news is we already have the strong support from the CityRail Western Line Manager Dimitri Hondros, ( Some Staff and management of Mount Druitt Train Station) who can see the benefits of this new relationship that will emerge from our group. This in turn, will make others join in! Potential newsletters maybe  issued as well! We will "Make a difference!'

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