Removal of trees for bike path is insanity

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See here for our rules and tips on getting your letter published. Tree removal insanity I am all for bike riders’ safety, but I am even more for mature trees and their shade. I’m sure with a bit of imagination and good sense we can have both.

How disturbing it was to read about the proposed removal of 250 established trees in Caulfield, some apparently on the significant tree register for the expansion of a bike path. This is an act of vandalism from the state government and Glen Eira Council. Residents who opposed this have been treated with disdain.

It is quite laughable to suppose the promised replacement sapling planting could make up for this loss. This proposal is a contradiction by encouraging bike riding as a good environmental alternative to car travel while cutting down mature trees that provide an environmental benefit through removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Apparently there is a viable alternative to this bike path which would not require sacrificing these trees.

Let us hope sanity prevails. Lu Thek, Glen Waverley Best path forward We agree that a safe shared path is essential to link the Frankston and Djerring trails. When we heard that Level Crossing Removal Project proposed to remove trees along Queens Avenue (two years ago), we met LXRP with suggestions on how to keep most trees but still create a safe shared pathway.

Not all such pathways need to be compliant with the Australian Standard three-metre wide concrete highways. Now Glen Eira Council has approved the removal of all trees. Where’s the consultation? A shady and meandering path is much more enjoyable for walkers and cyclists.

It gets us to the destination all the same. Malcolm Dow, Elinor Knappert, Glen Eira Bicycle Users Group New SEC a good thing It would be nice to go back in time and undo the damage the Kennett government did when privatising the SEC to give control and profits to private energy companies. The state government in recent years has battled, from a disadvantaged position, to encourage the change to renewables, to lower prices and reduce emissions.

The ″⁣new SEC″⁣ is an attempt to improve the situation. Headlines about a new SEC 38. 5per cent funding input into an energy project not complying with an aim of 51 per cent is an unnecessary whinge (″⁣ Government reneges on key SEC election promise ″⁣, 30/12).

The project finance was already partially structured. The investment should be viewed as a good attempt at improving the energy situation for Victorians. Tom Maher, Aspendale There is no link Despite the sustained objections of residents, hundreds of trees on Queens Avenue are set to be destroyed for a shared pedestrian-bike path that comes to an abrupt end at a busy intersection in Normanby Road.

How a Level Crossing spokesman can rationalise this destruction by claiming the path is the ″⁣missing link″⁣ in the Glen Huntly cycling corridor confounds me since there is no link from the intersection to any other existing bike path. These trees which provide much-needed shade, habitat and aesthetic value for our neighbourhood do not need to go. For a little more expense, they can be saved by the simple act of extending the existing path partially over the roadway.

Paulette Smythe, Caulfield East Out of comfort zone Climate scientists are now using the term global heating rather than global warming, as referred to in the article ″⁣ Fires, rain, heat: How did weather stack up? ″⁣ (27/12), as the rise in global temperatures has passed the comfort zone and are now bringing increased threats to humanity. Without rapid changes to reduce emissions the impact of global heating on the energy balance of the planet will result in catastrophic and probably irreversible global environmental destruction. It may already be too late but the lack of action by governments around the world to develop and implement methods to significantly reduce greenhouse emissions immediately will doom our planet to extinction.

John Togno, Mandurang The people’s opera The essay (30/12) about the ″⁣emotional weight″⁣ of barracking for an AFL team in Victoria is spot on. The old phrase ″⁣It’s more than a game″⁣ is intensely felt by so many. Our footy is the opera of the people.

Stories extend far beyond who won and by how much. Who used to stand on beer cans in the outer for a better view at games at Victoria Park while booing and cheering out the week’s stress? What about those mixed marriages of supporters of opposing teams? And then there’s the romance of father-son recruitment, players overcoming severe illness to play again and the theme songs that farewell supporters at their funerals. Madness maybe, but our madness.

Glenda Johnston, Queenscliff What slavery? How on earth could the US presidential contender Nikki Haley be so obtuse in failing to mention slavery when asked at a town hall meeting about the cause of the US Civil War? The enslavement of Africans and African Americans was prevalent in the United States from its founding until 1865, predominantly in the South. Eric Palm, Gympie, Qld Get out of this Loop In a depressing end to another depressing year, The Age reported on “The five suburbs set to climb sky-high with the Suburban Rail Loop”. My New Year’s wish for 2024 is that this loopy lemon of an urban rail project does not turn out to be the ALP’s State Bank of Victoria debt disaster of the 2020s.

Victorians do not deserve a repeat of the dark years of the early 1990s. James Tucker, Greensborough Easy to understand It’s perfectly understandable that the US would support the Middle East’s only thriving democracy, rather than the proscribed terrorist group that actually started the war (Letters, 30/12). Geoff Feren, St Kilda East Masters of war When will wars stop? My father used to say that there would always be wars as wars make money.

The winners in war are the arms manufacturers. Susan Munday, Bentleigh East.