Unanderra has what must surely be the most controversial train station in the Illawarra.
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Every commuter who wants to catch a train at Unanderra or get off one there has to negotiate two sets of stairs – one up and one down.
For almost 20 years residents have been campaigning to replace those stairs with a set of lifts.
The closest they’ve come was in 2009, when Labor pledged $11.4 million for an upgrade, which included three lifts.
Had they got to work immediately, things might have been different but the project hit a few setbacks.
So many setbacks that, when the Labor government was ousted in 2011, the lifts still hadn’t been installed.
This was bad news for Unanderra because, less than a year later the new Liberal government pulled that funding.
The reason given was that Transport for NSW was reassessing the way so-called “easy access” upgrades were decided.
Ultimately, Transport for NSW announced it would use a set of benchmarks – including patronage, proximity to schools and tourism areas as well as how close a station was to another that already was wheelchair accessible – to decide on upgrades.
The reasoning was that this would remove the possibility of stations being chosen for political reasons rather than actual need.
Now it’s hard to argue against anything that looks to take away political biases and uses straightforward and transparent evidence-based approach.
But, while the approach may be transparent, the results aren’t.
The Mercury has asked on repeated occasions just where Unanderra sat on the rankings for a station upgrade, and never received an answer.
It was only via a freedom of information request that Unanderra’s rank of 11th was revealed.
That information also included the oddity that the station was granted a zero score in the tourism category, despite being the closest station to the well-visited Nan Tien Temple.
If the government truly wants to ensure the process of choosing which stations get upgraded isn't swayed by political interests, then these rankings really need to be made available to the public.
Otherwise, the people of Unanderra might be justified in thinking that perhaps decisions are still being made for other reasons.