Update 17 Dec 2024.  Dear Supporters, yes, the trees and garden beds have gone, the table-tennis table removed and the pavilion reduced to rubble. The roundabout at Lavender St with its palm, designed to let semi-trailers and buses pass but not it seems bikes is to be flattened. A linear bike ramp is a mistake, offering a disfiguring “slash across the Mona Lisa” (quoting Engineers Australia) to remind us of bureaucratic self-serving adhocracy and government subservience to it. How did it happen?

From the outset, multi-party support of TfNSW’s preferred linear ramp has meant that conflict, on which most news media depend, has been absent, leading mainstream media players to conclude that there was nothing to see here. Such is life in a post-truth world, where perceptions and emotions often trump facts, challenging the quality of ‘public common sense’, damaging public confidence in elected officials and undermining the trust that binds us.

The Premier has now delivered two Bradfield Orations:

Last year Mr Minns wanted thoughtful considered and lasting change, make people fall in love with their city all over again, aspiring to live up to the ultimate change maker in Sydney’s history, Dr J.J.C. Bradfield.

This year, again invoking Dr Bradfield, ‘The past history of the city must be known, present day conditions understood, and the future visualised with imagination, originality, and sound practical judgement.’

Fine words. Sadly, a linear bike ramp tramples over past history, refuses to understand present-day conditions and shows no imagination or originality. It is a path to nowhere. Dr Bradfield would disapprove of what is happening in Bradfield Park at Milsons Point.

With almost 10,000 supporters on this platform and many other paper signatures, I thank you for your caring interest and wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy 2025. Ian