Term 2 / Week 11: A Mad Scheme! Paul Mees has the Last Word

Transport expert and educator, Paul Mees, sadly passed away less than a week after he made this video message to be played at the Trains not Toll Roads Campaign Launch on 13th June, 2013.

He was always a good speaker: easy to understand and direct - a straight talker. So have a listen - what are his reasons for describing the East West Tunnel as a Mad Scheme?




Some of the words he uses:

- the most expensive
- far more expensive than ....
- value for money
- benefit to cost ratio is.... for every $1 you get 50 cents back
- simply a waste of money
- alternatives: much higher returns on investment
- upgrading existing services so more people can choose rail to get to work
- Los Angeles chose an alternative path
- no money left for substantial projects for at least a generation
- transport policy has to move from roads to rail

Late breaking news: Julia Gillard's last speech as Prime Minister

On the second last sitting day of the Australian Parliament, the Labor Party voted in Kevin Rudd as Leader again. Julia Gillard was deposed from the position - she was ousted from the job.

You can read along with the transcript as she makes her resignation speech. Here is the video and transcript.

Our walk in the Park - tracing the path of the Tunnel

Any impacts within Royal Park will be mostly short-term during construction.... the park will be restored and even improved once the project is completed. ....We are working with the community during planning to understand and minimise impacts in this area.

 from the Linking Melbourne Authority Fact sheet: Royal Park

Today we drove to the western end of Royal Park to visit the site where the East West Link road will come out of the Tunnel and cross Royal Park.

The sun came out and the only trouble we had was finding a park because all the construction workers had parked in the car park. A big thanks to all the drivers including Hang, Huong, Jason and Martin (Anna's father-in-law). None of us got lost, thank goodness.

We did a short walk into the Trin Warren Tam-boore wetlands (no, I don't expect you to remember that name!). There we saw a number of coots - two were even fighting!

Australian coot

We then went over to the Ross Straw sportsfield and looked across to the train line. Somewhere along the train line, the road is expected to come out of the Tunnel and trace a path over the sports ground and wetlands to Citylink. A dozen galahs were feeding in the grass.



After that, we crossed the road to have a look at the billabong wetlands which hold the stormwater (for watering the park in Summer). While we ate a snack, we watched a large swamphen and a black duck at the water's edge.



On the way back to CNLC, we turned off Elliott Avenue and drove up to the top of the highest point in Royal Park at the Netball Centre, just to have a look at the view over the zoo.

--> Weren't we lucky with the beautiful weather? Note: you can find our photos at ESLThree Kidblog.

A walk in the Park - video of Royal Park near City link

Here are some photos that I took the other day when I visited the western end of Royal Park where the East West Tunnel will connect to CityLink.

Term 2 / Week 10: Discussion - Tunnel or Train - putting it all together

As promised last Friday, here is a Dictation to help prepare your ideas for your Discussion text.



Note: - effect (n): The effects of climate change will be felt everywhere.
          - affect (v): Climate change affects the plants and animals living everywhere on planet Earth.

Listen to the text three times. Pause the recording to think and write. Check your writing and listen for full stops and paragraph breaks. When you can't improve your writing any more, you can check your work by looking at the Transcript here.

New resources

• Trains not Toll Roads Campaign - City of Yarra hub for the campaign
• Trains not Toll roads: Council opposes government - gives a good summary of both sides of the argument

Term 2 / week 7 - 8: East West Tunnel - Arguments Against

• What do you know about the recent State government decision to build an East West Road Tunnel Link?  
• What is your opinion?

Yarra Campaign: Trains not Tolls

City of Yarra is supporting the community campaign against building the East West Tunnel Toll road.

Researching the Arguments AGAINST the Tunnel

• Read the text: 10 Reasons not to have the Tunnel and the information from the above leaflet at the Yarra Council website to understand the main arguments AGAINST the Tunnel
• View the videos below to help you research the Arguments AGAINST the tunnel.
• Use the Handout: Prepare to write a Discussion about the proposed East West Tunnel to summarise your arguments.

Video from our protest 12 June 2012

Guest speaker, Adam Bandt, is the Federal Member for Melbourne in the Australian Parliament. Listen to his speech. What is Adam Bandt's view of the East West Tunnel?


Community protest at East West Link geotesting site, June 2012 from Carlton NLC on Vimeo.

Speech in Parliament about the East West Tunnel

In May this year, Adam Bandt gave his opinion about the East West Tunnel proposal to the Federal Parliament. He says:

'Building more roads to relieve traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity.'

Practice with Prepositions Part 2

Here's a review of prepositions which follow adjectives: as with the first Prepositions Review slideshow, you can test yourself by reading the sentences out loud and choosing a preposition to fill the gap.

Then press Enter to move to the next slide to check your work. Read the sentence again with the correct preposition.

 

Practice with prepositions part 2 from Jill Koppel