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When Emma Bacon sends out Christmas cards this year, images of Santa, presents and reindeer won’t make the cut. Instead, the cards will feature one of Blacktown’s worst bus stops, decorated in festive tinsel.
Bacon, the executive director of advocacy organisation Sweltering Cities, said the message was clear: “This festive season, all we want for Christmas is good bus shelters in western Sydney.”
Sweltering Cities has decorated one of the many Blacktown bus stops without shelter to send a message to local MPs.Credit: Sweltering Cities
From scorching cement to worn-out benches and poles in dirt, bus stops in western Sydney often lack the necessary shelter to protect commuters from extreme weather. Bacon said this could have a significant impact on residents’ physical and mental health.
“This isn’t just about sun exposure or being exhausted,” she said.
“It’s also about the feelings of isolation that come with thinking I can’t even leave the house on a hot day because ... I’m walking down a treeless street, and then I’m standing there with no relief.
“That means that people, they miss appointments, they cancel social engagements.”
A bus stop on Rosenthal Street, Doonside, is one of 1674 in Blacktown that does not have shelter.Credit: Wolter Peeters
In the Blacktown City Council area, where temperatures often exceed 40 degrees in summer, 1674 of the area’s 2242 bus stops – or 75 per cent – lack shelters, a new council report found.
The report also identified high-use bus stops that should be prioritised for shelters based on their patronage and number of bus routes.
Blacktown Mayor Brad Bunting said there was “a lot more work to do in regard to delivering more bus shelters as the weather warms up”.
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“There’s more hot days out here definitely than in the eastern suburbs – it’s important we try to give [people] cover,” he said.
While the state government decides where bus stops are located, the provision of bus shelters is the responsibility of councils. In Blacktown, Bunting said one bus shelter can cost up to $30,000.
Bacon said the pressure was building on local councils to deliver more bus shelters, but there’s simply no funding for it. That’s where she wants the state government to step in.
As part of its campaign for better bus shelters in western Sydney, Sweltering Cities is sending Christmas cards to all local MPs in a plea for the NSW government to commit $20 million in funding for bus shelters.
“Transport accessibility is a state government problem that they should be solving, and they already fund shelters in regional NSW and to do with the airport infrastructure,” Bacon said.
Executive director of Sweltering Cities, Emma Bacon.Credit: Sweltering Cities
“These are some of the most affordable pieces of public transport infrastructure [that will] make our suburbs more accessible in the heat, in the rain.”
A Transport for NSW spokesperson said, as the western Sydney bus network expands, the NSW government was also preparing to increase the number of bus shelters.
“We will have more to say on this shortly,” the spokesperson said. “The provision of bus shelters remains the responsibility of local councils”.
The Sydney Morning Herald has a bureau in the heart of Parramatta. Email [email protected] with news tips.
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