Four years ago, footage of a double amputee, a stroke victim and a senior citizen struggling up the stairs at Unanderra station went viral.
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Bec Lachlan was the stroke victim and the video came about by chance after she and now-husband John had travelled up to Sydney overnight.
“When we were coming back on the train we ran into John’s brother and sister and her husband,” Ms Lachlan said.
“I was whingeing about the stairs on the way home and so she said she would film it.
“It just happened to be that those people were at the station at the same time. That really highlights that it’s an everyday occurrence. It was not a set-up thing, it was something that happens all the time.”
Ms Lachlan said the video really crystallised the issue for her.
“It really made it a central point to me that something had to be done because it wasn’t right that these people have to face this every day,” she said.
“I can’t imagine dragging myself up the stairs through spit, chewing gum and God knows what else.”
It was a video that then Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian called “distressing” but four years later, nothing has been done about the stairs at Unanderra station.
It’s prompted Ms Lachlan, as co-convenor of the Unanderra Access Group to mark the inauspicious anniversary with a rally at the train station.
She was not impressed that there had been no action taken since the video was released.
“I actually find it disgusting,” she said.
“The video has gone viral, it’s gone international. It’s been viewed by other people in other countries and a lot of the comments when they saw it on Facebook were of sheer horror.
“I believe we are a leading country in the world. Why is it that we are so far behind in our public transport?”
Ms Lachlan said the access group hadn’t just started pushing for lift access at Unanderra in the wake of the video.
Co-convenor and quadriplegic Richard Kramer had been pushing for improvements for years.
“We’ve been asking for it for a total of 27 years because Richard started this in 1992,” she said.
“But still it’s a matter of ‘oh yeah, we’ll get to it when we’re ready’. I don’t think that’s acceptable.”
With a state election coming up, Ms Lachlan said every candidate running for the seat of Wollongong needed to have a “plan of action” for Unanderra station.
The rally at Unanderra station starts at noon on February 17.
Glen Humphries
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
I'm an award-winning senior journalist with the Illawarra Mercury and have well over two decades' worth of experience in newspapers. I cover the three local councils in the Illawarra for the Mercury, state and federal politics, as well as writing for the TV guide. If I'm not writing, I'm reading.
