New Take On Old Idea

Illawarra Mercury

Thursday December 4, 2008

By BRETT COX

THE Wollongong city centre plan of 2007 pushes for a shuttle bus around the CBD's fringe but the idea is older than that.

In the late 1990s an ambitious council planner drew up the idea of a tram looping around the city, but it was deemed too expensive. The idea of a bus, though, was widely supported.

In 2003, the Unsworth Review into urban bus services promoted the bus idea.

That same year, a University of Wollongong student completed a thesis also talking it up.

In 2004, then Lord Mayor Alex Darling travelled to Perth and was impressed by the city's free bus service.

"I think it's very, very positive stuff and I don't think the (NSW) Government would be wasting our time and everybody's time to take us over there if they weren't definitely thinking about doing something like this," he said at the time.

In 2006, Wollongong City Council prepared an Access and Movement strategy for the CBD which proposed the bus service, and the present plans for metered parking.

Many of those ideas were developed further for the 2007 centre plan.

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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