Tim the Yowie Man: Do you use Canberra's underground 'white elephant'?

“Recent arrivals to Canberra, and the younger generation, would not be aware of the story behind the pedestrian tunnel-come-underpass underneath Commonwealth Ave, near Albert Hall”, reports Michael Adler of Gungahlin.

According to my 92-year-old correspondent, the rationale for the underpass “began one day in the mid-1960s when a rather portly Senator Shane Paltridge decided to by-pass the Parliamentary dining room, and instead eat at the up-market Hotel Canberra (now The Hyatt).”

Apparently on his return to Old Parliament House, the Senator encountered Prime Minister Bob Menzies in a corridor, where, according to Adler, “the PM asked if he had an enjoyable lunch”.

“Paltridge responded in the affirmative, but remarked on the difficulty of crossing Commonwealth Avenue, because of the ‘heavy traffic’, reports Adler, adding, “of course being rather corpulent, the Senator would not have been able to dash quickly across the road.”

With Canberra’s mid 1960s population about one-sixth of what it is today, one can only imagine just how ‘heavy’ this traffic was, but nonetheless, according to Adler, “Menzies called in the Minister for Works and ordered him to rectify the problem, and hence the construction of the underpass.”

Adler thinks of the underpass every Floriade, “when thousands of pedestrians cross Commonwealth Avenue on the Civic side of the lake from buses and the lakeside car park at the traffic lights”.

“I often wonder that if a tunnel could be provided for one portly Senator, why we could not have one for the rest of Canberra’s flower-loving populace, and at the same time, not having to inconvenience motorists by having to stop at lights,” ponders Adler.

While your Akubra-clad columnist is yet to uncover any official records that support Adler’s account, a sift through past editions of The Canberra Times reveals the rationale for the underpass is murky to say the least.

The Canberra Times editorial of 1 May 1970, titled ‘An Underground White Elephant’ states “no satisfactory explanation has ever been given for the building of a pedestrian walkway under Commonwealth Avenue opposite the Albert Hall.”

The editorial articulates some of the reasons for its unflattering headline. “One would then assume, in the light of what applies in other parts of the city, that the lavish provisions for pedestrians in Commonwealth Avenue presumed an extraordinary increase in foot traffic”, however, “for the past five years, however, the number of pedestrians crossing Commonwealth Avenue has been minute … and even with future building in the area it is impossible to visualise it as a major pedestrian area.”

The editor concludes, “apart from the doubtful usefulness of this refinement in traffic engineering in Commonwealth Avenue, one must question also the apparent waste of money it represents.”

If the amount of pedestrian traffic is any measure as to its success, almost half a century since its construction, the underpass must surely still deserve its white elephant status. During the 90 minutes I snooped around the underpass earlier this week (around lunchtime), not one single person used it, or even came within cooee of it. That said, the pungent odour of human urine would suggest the it serves a purpose for at least a handful of unsociable citizens.

One Canberran who has been intrigued by the underpass since first walking through it as a child on the way to visiting exhibitions at Questacon is artist Mel G.

“The space is Narnia-esque, except, rather than passing through a cupboard in a cottage you descend down the stairs into a dimly lit, almost timeless, liminal space befitting of an English crime novel,” reports Gryglewski, adding “it feels like the fabric of time is thin and you could be walking shoulder to shoulder with a trench-coated individual from a different era, perhaps even be caught there forever.”

So taken with the deserted subway’s other-worlde qualities, in 2013 Gryglewski temporarily transformed the entire length of it into a magical world featuring goblins and performance artists who took on creepy, fantasy world personas and interacted with audiences as they walked through the tunnel.

Despite her long association with the underpass, Mel G agrees, “it definitely has the back alley murder feel as it frequently smells like urine, there is never very much traffic or noise, and recently someone was assaulted there.”

Oh, and with our Federal politicians firmly ensconced in the big house on the hill since 1988, I doubt a Senator has walked through the underpass in over thirty years, or possibly ever — for Senator Paltridge died in 1966, three years prior to its completion.

Do you regularly use the Commonwealth Avenue underpass? If so, please let me know at the address at the end of this column.

Double-Drop

Several readers have pondered the design of the ‘double-seater loo’ at historic Coolamine Homestead in northern Kosciuszko National Park which recently featured in this column’s photo quiz.

Matthew Higgins, renowned high-country historian reports he once heard Ted Taylor (1936-2017), son of Tom and Mollie of Coolamine and later of nearby Currango Homestead fame, say “it was due to the risk of children falling into pit toilets, so a parent accompanied the child.”

“While this may sound farcical, I do know of incidents where children ‘drowned’ in pit toilets,” reports Higgins.

Oh, dear, what a terrible way to go.

Railway Musings

Although unable to confirm a buried locomotive in Civic (Trapped Train, July 14), long-term Canberra resident Luke Wensing remembers the railway easement that ran through Civic for several decades following the closure of the Kingston to Civic line in 1922.

“When at school in St Patricks in Braddon in the mid-1950 we got into trouble for playing in the railway easement behind the old The Canberra Times offices in Mort Street because of the various dangers including the old steel tracks and snakes that were in there,” recalls Wensing, adding “we also got into trouble for dropping pine cones on the nuns from up in the pine trees.”

Meanwhile, Belconnen railway aficionado, Justin Bush reports that “the 1971 design of Belconnen Mall fronts to Benjamin Way because the median strip was meant to house the heavy rail station between the precinct and Margaret Timpson Park.” According to Bush, “the line would have swung somewhere to the west along the foreshore before descending beside Ginninderra Drive to Latham and out to Murrumbateman via Charnwood or somewhere west of Belconnen out of Wallaroo.”

Further, Bush reveals, “early Belconnen property owner James Legge, whose Cranleigh Homestead foundations can still be found today in Latham, had looked forward to the proximity offered by a potential Yass-Canberra rail-link”.

“The southern boundary of Legge’s property would have offered a loading stop for sheep livestock to be transported by train via Yass to Sydney,” he explains.

Contact Tim: Email: timtheyowieman@bigpond.com or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, 9 Pirie St, Fyshwick. You can see a selection of past columns online.

Clue: No traffic snarls.

Degree of difficulty: Easy

Last week: Congratulations to Daniel Hiew of Weetangera who was the first reader to correctly identify last week’s photo (inset), as the landmark hay shed located beside Kosciuszko Road, near the Gaden Trout Hatchery turnoff, about 6 kilometres north-west of Jindabyne.

Hiew, a regular skier at Perisher, who just beat Leigh Palmer of Isaacs and David Evans of Fadden to the prize reports, “you pass it early in the morning as you drive to the snow for the day and late afternoon as you drive back home to Canberra.”

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to timtheyowieman@bigpond.com. The first email sent after 10am, Saturday 28 July, 2018 will win a double pass to Dendy - The Home of Quality Cinema.