Smashing stuff - update

Someone - I am assuming Council - cleaned up this smashed pay phone very quickly. I reported it after 5pm on Thursday, and by 7am on Friday, the pay phone had been wrapped in warning tape and all the glass on the footpath had been swept up.

They didn't get all the glass - some was left on the road and in the bike lane - but the turnaround time was quite amazing.

Smashing stuff

A Telstra pay phone tonight - a car went over the kerb and smashed the advertising screen on the back of it. Might have been an impatient driver who didn't want to wait for someone turning right, went around them and found that the road wasn't wide enough. The police turned up, and a tow truck took the car away.

Result - broken glass all over the footpath and road.

The impact must have been fairly hard, as glass was sprayed a good 10 metres down the road.

The owner of the car isn't going to clean up all that glass. The police won't do it either, or the tow truck driver. Lot's of people had a look at the glass when I went past, but no one seemed inclined to do anything about it.

I've emailed these photos to Council, along with the location. They'll probably have it cleaned up tomorrow. If you don't tell them about it, how can they take care of it?

How a rubbish trap is supposed to work

We've had good rain for the last few days - the run off has flushed plenty of rubbish down the local canals and into the rubbish traps that line the harbour. This trap in Lilyfield has come adrift twice so far this year - when it's floating around aimlessly, it isn't collecting rubbish like this.

When I see all this rubbish being scooped up by the trap, it makes the minor hassle of reporting it all seem worthwhile.

Pot holes filled - success

The pot holes in Lilyfield that I reported on Wednesday have all been filled in.

See - all you have to do is report them.

Testing, testing...

John Rolfe, the "public defender" at the Daily Telegraph has started a campaign to get councils to fix basic services - like pot holes in our streets.

Good on him.

Canada Bay Council is generally pretty good at fixing pot holes - if you bother to tell them where they are. When I spot a pot hole, I try and photograph it, then email it to Council along with the location and approximate size. In some cases, I've reported one I've seen on the way to work and then found that it's been fixed by the time I've headed for home. The key thing is letting Council know they've got a problem - they can't be everywhere at once.

We've had some heavy rain around here lately, and possibly as a result, at least a dozen pot holes have opened up in Perry Lane, Lilyfield (near Le Montage). Most are the size of dinner plates or larger, and a few inches deep.

By the look of all those tar patches, plenty of pot holes have opened up here previously.

I emailed the top photo to Leichhardt Council on Wednesday morning, and got a response just after lunch. The pot holes have been logged. I go past here every few days - I'll keep an eye on how long it takes them to fill them in.

Destruction of public property

Vandals just love smashing up our local bus shelters. This is the 2nd or 3rd time that I've reported this particular one in Abbotsford. Last time, the glass panel was completely smashed and there was glass all over the footpath. This one is right outside a primary school and day care centre- big chunks of broken glass and little kids don't go well together.

Bus shelters are owned and maintained by our local Councils, not the bus companies. So ratepayers are paying for this damage directly.

I've emailed this photo to Canada Bay Council, along with the address of the bus shelter. Council are generally very good at getting onto problems like this - once they know about them. If there is glass all over the footpath, they'll have someone out straight away to clean it up. Replacing the glass panel usually takes a little longer.

Unfortunately, a lot of people (including bus passengers) look at the broken glass and think that somebody else will take care of fixing it up. No they won't - if you want it fixed, you need to do something about it. Something as simple as emailing Council to tell them about the problem.

Beautifying our streetscapes

The Leichhardt Council area has had them for some time - artistically decorated RTA traffic light cabinets. Normally, these cabinets are a dull grey, enlivened quite regularly with a variety of graffiti tags. Rather than endlessly paint them to cover the tags, the RTA allows Councils to decorate them with public art.

There are a lot of these cabinets around Canada Bay - every set of traffic lights has one. Council made a start this week by working on half a dozen of them in an area that is high visibility (in terms of passing traffic) and high impact (in terms of the amount of graffiti applied).

It's a great start - I hope to see more of it in future.

Who does what around here?

I received a response from NSW Maritime last week regarding a broken rubbish trap in Rodd Point. It turns out the trap is owned by Sydney Water, even though NSW Maritime removes the rubbish. Ah, what a tangled web our government departments weave.

The good news is that next time the trap fails, I know who to report it to - NSW Maritime were kind enough to give me the direct phone number and email address of the person responsible at Sydney Water. I suppose they are sick of me writing to the Chief Executive, and want me to annoy someone else. And I can do it for free - sending an email beats paying for a letter and stamp.