Source : the age
It may have been more than two decades in the making, but Sydneysiders cast aside any concerns about the long wait to check out a six-kilometre pathway which now fully connects Iron Cove in the north to the Cooks River in the south.
Thousands flocked to the opening on Sunday of the $57 million GreenWay, which weaves through five inner-west suburbs and realises the efforts of a grassroots community campaign.
Alexandra and Wesley Nel walk along the completed Greenway with their son and dog on Sunday.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Among those at the opening were Newtown residents Wesley and Alexandra Nel, who said it reminded them of New York’s popular High Line, an elevated rail line turned into a park and walkway.
“It definitely looks like the High Line,” said Alexandra, who once lived in the US’s largest city. “For us as a family, it will be for weekend activities – a bit of cycling and a bit of the park. You feel you’re going to run into people and your neighbours — I always love that.”
Wesley said it was a great addition to the area and made it easier to cycle, walk and run through the inner west. “I’m a runner and I miss having Centennial Park. But this allows you to go all the way out to the Bay Run,” he said.
Dulwich Hill residents Julian and Maria Neylan have also walked the New York High Line and believed the GreenWay would attract tourists, too.
Maria, who has lived in the inner west for 70 years, has seen the area transformed over the decades. As a child, she would wake to the noise of goods trains travelling to Darling Harbour along what has since become the L1 Dulwich Hill light rail line.
“It’s a very different suburb to the one I was growing up in. It’s just blossomed. We always thought [the GreenWay] was going to happen,” she said. “I think it’ll be interesting for a lot of people in Sydney to come and see it.”
Julian said it was a high-class carriageway for pedestrians and cyclists, and was well linked by the light rail line and, by late next year, metro trains on the south-west section of the M1 line.
“My favourite bit will be the connection under Parramatta Road. That was a real hassle coming up from the original first half of the GreenWay, [where] you’d have to suddenly straddle Parramatta Road and back streets. But now we can go straight under. It’s a fantastic feat,” he said.
Inner West Council mayor Darcy Byrne said the GreenWay would draw people from across Sydney on weekends, especially when the final stage of the M1 metro line opens next year.
“The GreenWay was a vision that our community created more than two decades ago, and to see that vision now finally being brought to life – it’s a red letter day for everybody in the inner west,” he said.
The pathway largely follows the route of the light rail line, and comprises tunnels under Constitution Road, Davis and Longport streets, as well as underpasses beneath New Canterbury and Parramatta roads.
People walking and cycling along the Dulwich Hill section of the GreenWay.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Byrne said the tunnels were complex and expensive, which was why the project had taken years to complete. “Tunnelling under existing road infrastructure that’s decades or centuries old is just really very challenging,” he said.
The project has been funded over the years by more than $41 million from the NSW government, $11 million from Inner West Council and a further $6 million from the federal government.
The latter sum will be spent on building a tunnel under Old Canterbury Road, which was in the design phase and part of ongoing improvements along the corridor.
NSW Transport Minister John Graham said the GreenWay illustrated rapid changes in the way people moved around the city, and would prove popular for locals and visitors alike. “[It] will add greatly to the network and, as you can see, this is going to be wildly popular,” he said. “This beautiful arc, green space, active cycleway-walkway – that’s a great addition.”
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