Part of a series of posts by Neil Cownie on The Future of Swanbourne Village

The steel footbridge at Mt Lawley Train Station is the only access to the railway platform. What looks to be a temporary structure, is in fact a collection of fabricated parts intended to be a permanent fixture.

Looking more to me like an access-way to a mine site with the compliant bright yellow step and edge warning signage & handrails.

This straight-out utilitarian engineered solution missed one important stage in its fruition . . . that of ‘design’. Surrounded with barriers of all kinds including, cyclone mesh fences, fences capped in barbed wire, open steel railing fences, mesh steel fences over the railway line, reconstituted limestone retaining walls and the occasional concrete pier.

What a jumbled cluttered mess this bridge appears to be. Regardless of what it looks like, what does this bridge not achieve?

There is an indirect long ramp access for people in need of a ramp that places them at a disadvantage as they have to access the base of the ramp a long way away from the central point of the beginning of the bridge. There is a relatively long distance to travel across the bridge and to ramp back down to the platform. There is no overhead cover at all in what is a very exposed location in inclement weather.

We deserve better than this. Such infrastructure should be led by design for the benefit of the community.

Images by Neil Cownie.

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The Bridging Communities Series