Watching the public service inaction

FROM MY CORNER .... with Ann Brunswick

It’s no mystery to me that the state government’s reputation is so low among voters. A colleague recently offered me an insight into the offhanded attitude government departments take to the people they are supposed to serve.
He lives in an area that has been under study for some possible changes in traffic flows, road widths, and car parking. He contacted the Main Roads Department’s badly named consultation team by email at the end of January to discuss the proposals.
He waited for a response that still hasn’t arrived. But in the meantime, after 15 working days without even an acknowledgement, he thought he would drop a line to the director-general of the department to alert him to the lack of responsiveness among his underlings. That was in late February, also more than 15 working days ago. Maybe the director-general and all his staff should grab a dictionary and look up the words “public” and “service”.

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Are you, like me, in a state of excitement about the imminent opening of the new Clem 7 tunnel?
The stepped-up advertising campaign on TV telling us to buy a new toll tag for our dashboards also tells us that the new tunnel will take millions of cars each hour, allowing them to miss something like 457 sets of traffic lights, and enabling them to go from the Gabba to Bowen Hills in less than 14 seconds.
I may have misheard some of the statistics. Nevertheless, as one with routes all over town including between those two points, it will be a great relief when the Clem 7 takes its first vehicles. All those cars being funnelled underground and off our roads should really clear the way for motorists like me who plan to continue using the old roads. I just can’t wait.
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Speaking of my routes, last week a social engagement took me to Mitchelton during the past-work rush hour. Trundling outbound along Waterworks Road from Red Hill in my trusty Land Rover, it was quite noticeable how many drivers abuse the rules of the peak-hour T2 lane.
The lane is meant to be reserved in certain hours for people with at least two people in a vehicle. Yet while my lane was making slow but steady progress, cars were zipping by in the T2 lane to my left. A quick and unscientific count revealed about three in every five vehicles using the T2 lane had only a driver inside.
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This column was not going to make mention of Michael Clarke and Lara Bingle, but scanning other media in the past week it seems there must be some sort of law mandating coverage of the two. So now I have no fear of arrest.