Campaign on Track

THE Lift Redfern Campaign will finally get its moment in parliament tomorrow.

The campaign, which addresses the lack of lifts or disability access at Redfern station, has generated a huge public response, with more than 11,000 signatures collected for a petition.

Lift Redfern spokesman Geoff Turnbull said even though the issue was finally about to be discussed in State Parliament, he was concerned blame would be passed down to the former government, rather than action being taken to fix the problem.

"Basically, it gets debated and then the Transport Minister (Gladys Berejiklian) responds and it's the minister's response we are particularly
interested in," Mr Turnbull said. "We don't want to get caught up in the politics over who is to blame. What we want is someone to get in and start addressing this problem."

Mr Turnbull said because of the amount of infrastructure that would need to be altered to accommodate lift access to the platforms at Redfern, an alternative option of just adding lifts on the eastern suburbs line had been suggested.

"To get the whole thing done will involve an upgrade of the entire station, however the eastern suburbs line would not require as much work," he said.

While one set of lifts would not fix the problem, Mr Turnbull said it would at least help many people with disabilities access the area more easily.

Source Central August 22 2012 Print Edition