Merry Christmas to those I know and those I don’t.

Does anyone know where I can purchase one of these?

A city cop was on his horse waiting to cross the street when a little girl named Mary stopped beside him on her new shiny bike. “Nice bike” the cop said “did Santa bring it to you?”.

“Yep,” the little girl said, “he sure did!”.

The cop looked the bike over and handed the girl a $20 ticket for a safety violation, saying “Next year tell Santa to put a reflector light on the back of it.”

The young girl looked up at the cop and said, “Nice horse you got there sir. Did Santa bring it to you?”.

“Yes, he sure did,” chuckled the cop.

The little girl looked up at the cop and said, “Next year tell Santa the dick goes underneath the horse, not on top.”

The Roads and Traffic Authority is proposing to widen the Spit Bridge to six permanent traffic lanes and replace the existing western footpath with a shared pedestrian/cycleway.

The Spit Bridge was constructed in 1958 to cross Middle Harbour between Mosman and Seaforth. It is an essential transport link between Sydney’s northern beaches and the city, and is used by approximately 69,000 vehicles per day.

The existing bridge has four traffic lanes. The approaches to it from both directions have six lanes. The number of lanes changes with peak traffic times, with 3 lanes for city-bound traffic in the morning and 3 lanes for north-bound traffic in the evenings. This traffic configuration, called a tidal flow, causes delays for traffic in the contra-peak direction and impacts on the reliability of bus services.

The RTA called for tenders on Monday, 21 August 2006. Construction is scheduled to start in 2007.

Questions and answers for the options considered:

Why widen the Spit Bridge?

• The Spit Bridge will be widened from 4 to 6 lanes. The lanes on the Bridge will line up with the 6 lanes on either side which will speed up the flow of traffic.
• The widening will enable the creation of a dedicated bus lane travelling over the Bridge in each direction, which will obviously improve bus travel times.
• During the morning peak hour it will give the capability of four lanes travelling from the intersection of Sydney Rd and Burnt Bridge Deviation across the Bridge to Mosman.
• Vechicles travelling against the peak hour traffic flow will not be restricted to one lane as is now the case. This will be of particular benefit to the buses which currently get caught up in the congested single lane.
• Outside of peak hours motorists will no longer have to put up with orange poles sticking out of the road squeezing traffic from three lanes to two.
• It is the only option that will improve the flow of traffic while not having a devastating impact on the character and integrity of the Spit and its surrounding area.

Why not build a new high bridge?

• This option was proposed and considered in detail in 2005 and found to contain vey significant drawbacks which rule it out as an option.
• Such a Bridge would need to be built either to the east or west of the existing Spit Bridge to avoid the situation where there is no bridge while a new one is being built.
• It will either wipe out all of the existing commercial business on the eastern side of the Spit Road, or if it were built on the western side it would require the demolition of the Norfolk Pines, the Marina, the townhouses at the water’s edge and the tounhouses at Battle Boulevarde. The entry to Battle Boulevarde would be blocked off.
• It would need to be at least twice the height of the existing bridge to accomodate tall masted yachts.
• A high bridge would have devastating impact on the Spit and its surrounding area.
• The cost of building a new high bridge would be far greater than is required to widen the existing Spit Bridge. The resumption of properties alone would cost more than the full cost of the Bridge widening project.

Why not build a tunnel?

• Tunnels cost $400 million per kilometre. The proposed tunnel from Manly Vale to Cammeray is 6.5 kilometres long. It would cost well ove $2 billion. In order to pay for the tunnel there would be a very high toll each way.
• The tunnel would terminate in Manly Vale which means thousands more cars would spill out onto local streets on the weekend. It would require large ventilation stacks in Balgowlah or Seaforth.
• Any government that spends huge sums of money on such infrastructure would demand a higher population density on the Northern Beaches to justify this expenditure. This will involve high rise developement similar to that in the Chatswood and Bondi Junction areas.

Some of my favourite TV shows (free-to-air) from 2006 in no particular order.

Teachers, The Loop, Scrubs, Greys Anatomy, ER, Glass House, 24, Lost, Top Gear, Boston Legal, Drawn Together, That ’70s show, The West Wing, Whose’s Line?, OZ, Mythbusters, Will & Grace, The World Game

Got a favourite? Think I should be watching a particular show? Feel free to let me know in the comments. Also, do you think Foxtel is worth it?