Is Wagga in danger of becoming a victim of its own success? The early settlers who put down roots along the river probably never envisioned the burgeoning city it would one day become, but as more and more people switch on to the benefits of regional living, we’ll be faced with having to make room for them.
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There are only a few options for growth and each of them have their advantages and pitfalls.
If we continue our spread to the north, through Brucedale and out towards Coolamon, we’re going to need to upgrade the Gobba Bridge. Regular readers will be familiar with the many reasons why this vital piece of infrastructure needs to go ahead. But the long-story-short version is that crashes or heavier traffic will create a choke point for transport and the only alternative is to go through flood-prone North Wagga.
If we go west, we’ll need to get farmers to surrender valuable agricultural land around Collingullie and San Isidore; the same problem is present to the east. Brunslea Park is going ahead in leaps and bounds, but there’s only so much land between Forest Hill and East Wagga’s commercial and industrial zone.
To the south, we could grow out through Uranquinty and towards Mangoplah, but that also comes with some significant infrastructure hurdles. The Glenfield Road overpass is already in need of duplication and the rat runs through Mount Austin and Turvey Park are beginning to get a “big-city feel”. And that’s not to mention a potential southern bypass of the city: The last thing we want is to repeat Sydney’s debacle of pulling down houses to build highways because no one bothered to preserve transport corridors.
All of this growth, all of this urban sprawl, would mean more cars on the roads and increased congestion in the city. That would mean more parking required in the city, more lanes of traffic and more sets of traffic lights, or a massive upgrade to our public transport capabilities.
To be fair, we’ve seen this sort of thing happen before many times in the bigger coastal centres. Our former rival for the biggest inland city title – Maitland – has effectively become a suburb of Newcastle as housing estates bridged the cities, while Newcastle itself isn’t far from becoming North-North Sydney. Similarly, Wollongong is pretty much South-South Sydney now.
Growth is the price of success, but hopefully we can minimise the lifestyle cost.
