Perth’s ‘great divide’ is still a long way from being straddled.
Perth’s ‘great divide’ is still a long way from being straddled.
The great divide is the narrow 11 hectares of railway land that extends from the Horseshoe Bridge westwards to the Mitchell Freeway and runs parallel to Wellington Street to its south and Roe Street to its north.
This valuable government-owned tract of real estate runs through Perth’s heart and divides the CBD from Northbridge, with the former a late 20th century style commercial and retail high-rise centre that towers over a largely undeveloped, ageing low-rise precinct that extends to Newcastle Street.
The CBD’s post-war growth, as well as being upwards, has consequently been in an easterly and westerly direction – down Adelaide Terrace towards the Causeway and to West Perth and Subiaco – so is a long ribbon rather than an outward development.
The great divide, like the Swan River, has precluded the CBD’s growth.
Perth is thus a capital city that’s been sandwiched between a natural and a man-made barrier, the Swan River and an 11ha railway yard respectively.
The first person to suggest a way of straddling the great divide was a state government architect, William Hardwick, who in 1911 urged government to sink the Perth-to-Fremantle railway line so as to clear a path for the CBD to extend northwards.
Hardwick was considered the last of the ‘old school’ of chief and principal architects.
The ‘old school’ refers to Perth’s great monumental architects, those who have endowed Perth and many country towns with neo-classical and traditional public architectural forms, like Parliament House and Kalgoorlie’s post office and tower.
The ‘old school’ was replaced by the ‘utilitarian school’, in which function dominates form.
Had Hardwick’s vision been promptly realised, Perth would perhaps today more closely resemble Melbourne and Adelaide than having undergone its two directional east-west ribbon expansion.
However, Hardwick’s 1911 solution was something no government was far-sighted enough to embark upon, even during Western Australia’s long-cycle of economic prosperity that began in the early 1960s with the emergence of Pilbara iron ore province.
Notwithstanding this, many tens of millions of dollars have been spent on the Swan River foreshore, including on the Perth Bell Tower.
Consequently, the great divide has survived largely intact, 94 years after Hardwick urged that the railway lines be sunk.
But the issue of the fate of the crucial 11ha resurfaced in 2002 when Planning Minister Alannah MacTiernan announced a change of course for the Mandurah-to-Joondalup line.
Rather than having it enter the CBD via Armadale line, as the government of Richard Court had intended, Ms MacTiernan opted for a river foreshore or Kwinana Freeway entry.
Her original announcement did not envisage sinking the Perth-to-Fremantle line even though the linking of Mandurah-Joondalup included tunnelling below William Street from the Esplanade to link with the railway yards to emerge near the intersection Roe and Lake streets. (Also, see story next page).
Hardwick’s farsighted 1911 plan had, therefore, been ignored again
But a turnaround, even if not leading to Hardwick’s blueprint being fully realised, was on the way due primarily to pressure from Perth City Council Deputy Mayor Bert Tudori, who convened a Council Railway Committee that included Emeritus Professor Martyn Webb, planner Ralph Stanton, and businessmen Neil McKinnon and Karl Torre.
The Tudori Committee produced a comprehensive document, Realising a New Vision for Perth, which council sanctioned and released.
That document followed the 1911 Hardwick approach by calling for the sinking the railway lines all the way from the Horseshoe Bridge to the freeway, and set out a conceptual framework.
But the Government wouldn’t accept Realizing a New Vision for Perth, so the great divide was set to survive.
The Government claimed straddling the great divide by sinking the lines was too expensive and wanted Perth city to carry some of the cost, to subsidise what government agrees to being done to enhance Perth.
However, pressure from various other quarters, including Lord Mayor Peter Nattrass, has resulted in a mellowing of the Government’s anti-rail lowering stance to a position where one third of the Hardwick vision is now envisaged.
This happened via the Northbridge Link Committee – made up of representatives from the City of Perth, Public Transport Authority and Department for Planning and Infrastructure.
Finally, during the state election campaign, an election the Government feared it would lose, Premier Geoff Gallop announced a modification to earlier refusals to straddle the great divide.
Although that announcement came to be marketed as a railway line being sunk it was not that, but rather a decision to sink that line just one third of the way – from the Horseshoe Bridge to just Lake Street, not to the Mitchell Freeway.
Paragraph one of that pre-election Gallop statement reads: “The Gallop Government today unveiled a plan to change the face of Perth, linking Northbridge to the city by sinking the Fremantle rail line and opening up massive development opportunities.”
Paragraph two told the story thus: “Premier Geoff Gallop said the Northbridge Link Project would see the Perth-to-Fremantle line sunk to Lake Street, where the new Mandurah-to-Clarkson line would also emerge by 2010.”
Thereafter it highlighted envisaged benefits and other outcomes initially outlined by William Hardwick in 1911.
Very little has happened since election day and not too much should be expected in the immediate future, since the Gallop statement’s second last paragraph said: “Delivery of the project would occur over the next 10-15 years.”
In other words, one third of the Hardwick vision – the sinking of the line from the Horseshoe Bridge to Lake Street – will occur but the remaining two thirds of the great divide is to be covered by buildings and other structures.
And the entire project won’t be fully realised until 2015-20.
• Marsha Jacobs is on leave.
