BURN FAT NOT OIL

Grafton's peak-hour traffic solution needn't be an expensive major bridge construction. There are alternatives.

It's an opportunity to improve our health. Shocking new obesity statistics keep appearing. We all know exercise improves our health, reducing the chance of heart disease and stroke. It can also reduce your risk of bowel cancer by 40%, breast cancer by 30% as well as prostate, lung and endometrial cancers. And it overcomes depression by releasing endorphines into your brain, making you feel good naturally. Three of our major health issues, heart disease, cancer and depression, could be helped by simply walking or cycling to work instead of driving. The problem is motivation. How to get up that half hour earlier? Social contact could be the icing on the cake. Organise a walking group with friends or co-workers. Walk your kids to school for a chance to talk to them away from TV, telephones and computer games. Grandparents and retirees could start the day escorting the grandchildren or neighbour's kids. Doctors should advise less car usage.

Traffic would be speeded up if drivers were taught to merge properly. A smoothly flowing merge using the zipper principle is faster, less polluting, less wearing on cars and less frustrating for drivers than stop/start pushing in.

63% of cars on the bridge have no passengers. A car pooling noticeboard and/or website could introduce two or more commuters to share a car.

Structural integrity and heritage listing permitting, an outrigger on the inside of the bridge bends would straighten the lanes cheaply, reducing stoppages caused by heavy vehicles.

Better planning. The horrendous (unless you have land for sale in the area) decision to site the new Catherine McAuley campus at Clarenza means students in town can't walk or cycle to school because of the dangerous Pacific Highway crossing. Parents will have to drive them, adding to peak-hour congestion.

For those out-of-towners, a secure carpark in South Grafton would leave them a 10 minute walk across the bridge to town.

A new bridge would encourage more heavy traffic through Grafton. Construction money would be better spent on the railway system to keep Countrylink and boost rail freight. If they must build a bridge, the logical (yes, but more expensive) location would be somewhere between Grafton and Swan Ck to connect to the Summerland Way and provide alternative access to the CDB, especially for Lower Clarence residents.

Government spending is needed in health, education and railways, not to prop up our addiction to the motor car. A petition to this effect is available at the Clarence Environment Centre, 29-31 Skinner St South Grafton.

-Mark