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Two old Norfolk Pines could be collateral damage if the City of Fremantle moves ahead with plans to create two pedestrian crossings at a popular coastal intersection.
But the community will be pivotal in determining whether the removal actually happens.
A month-long community survey asking residents questions about the proposed pedestrian crossings at South Terrace and Douro Road wrapped up on Tuesday but if the signs plastered on the trees are any indication – locals are not behind getting rid of the trees.
A City of Fremantle spokesperson said they had received “an overwhelming response from the community.”
Local resident Marie Jeffrey told 9 News Perth she couldn’t believe the council was considering removing the old pines to make way for a pedestrian crossing.
“It is absolutely sacrilege to remove such beautiful trees,” she said.
Danielle Bayard, also a Fremantle resident, echoed similar sentiments.
“Having a crossing of some sort obviously helps for pedestrian safety and to manage the speed of the cars, but I just think taking the trees out is unnecessary.”
Proposed plans show one wombat crossing – a zebra crossing that is placed on a flat top road hump – would be built across Douro Road just in front of the first Norfolk pine positioned in the median strip.
The two century-old pines have been recommended to be removed, along with the existing juvenile street trees also in the median strip.
The second crossing would be built across South Terrace just before the roundabout.
At a May 27 council meeting, councillor Jemima Williamson-Wong said the proposal was strictly to help pedestrians cross the busy intersection safely.
“Out of 60 people, every single one has a good experience of that roundabout (at South Terrace and Douro Road) if they’re in a car, and out of 60 people, every single person has a bad experience if they are trying to cross it,” Williamson-Wong said.
“We know that more and more people are trying to cross this intersection, and it is very important that we provide a safe route for them to go across.”
Williamson-Wong acknowledged the removal of the trees would be contentious, but that she was open to hearing what the community had to say on the proposal.
“The big elephant in the room in this proposal is that we are looking at removing two trees, and that’s not a decision that I take lightly,” she said.
“It’s a very good example of a hard decision that sometimes we are asked to make because yes, it will be very sad to lose two of those big Norfolk pines.”
Despite this admission, Williamson-Wong said keeping the trees could result in a child, pet or adult getting into a road accident because they were hidden behind the tree out of sight from a driver.
“We know that the baseline of safety is not good right now, but I think if we’re going to implement a proposal that we want to be safe, we need it to be safe,” she said.
“I hope the community can see that by including these trees … in the consultation, we’re being clear about, do you think it’s appropriate for us to be prioritising a crossing over trees, or do you want us to say no to that crossing and keep the trees?”
Councillor Andrew Sullivan said that no decisions would be made on the removal of the trees at the council meeting, noting a report on the community consultation would have to be discussed in the coming months.
“The issue of the trees is going to be very significant for us. It’s even more significant for the community because a lot of people will come in blind, in a sense, they haven’t been through a two-year process, looking at how hard this has been to try and find the right location for these crossings,” he said.
“They will look at it, going, ‘Why the hell can’t we come up with a proposal that doesn’t include the removal of trees?’ and I can assure people that if that was possible, I would be racing it out at 100 miles an hour.”
Sullivan went on to propose amendments for officers to consider incorporating on-road cycling paths, which would likely result in the removal of the median strip anyway.
“The whole of Douro Road is also one that we know is being looked at by staff at the moment, and hopefully coming to us in the foreseeable future, and there has been conversation about how to address the bike facilities in Douro Road,” he said.
“I have emphasised that it is just not really practical or possible to have a dual-use path running off the road along Douro Road.
“The only way you can successfully get that through this section, where the crossing is … is if the majority of the median strip is lost, so that cycle lanes can be put on the edges without knocking the trees down on the verges, which are even more significant than the two trees that we’re talking about in the median strip,” he said.
Two more century old Norfolk Pines sit on the verge at the end of Douro Road where it becomes Marine Terrace, but Sullivan was not for getting rid of those, despite the recommendation in the proposed plan.
“I looked at the safety report with regard to the two Norfolks on the verge … and I have consistently had the view that if we can’t resolve that issue by simply dealing with the speed of traffic coming both into that corner and by the time they get to the roundabout or the crossing point … by modifying the speed, then we shouldn’t be in this business,” he said.
The City recently applied to Main Roads to reduce the speed limit along Douro Road from Hampton Road to Marine Terrace from 50 kilometres per hour to 40 kilometres. This went into effect on June 24.
A report on the community engagement is due in the coming months.
