Get on board the in2CHANGE

yeah, good riddance. It’s such a gloomy place, one that looked like you’ll be mugged anytime and no one will bat an eyelid. But I can’t wait to see the arty-farty stuff in April. Will be interesting.

Hells_Bells74 said :

Okay, amazing was a little much. I still have to give dagger looks and keep my composure of an afternoon trying to get past mountains of high school kids acting cool in the middle of the walkway. I meant basically speaking, despite the ugliness and moral kept down round there, the ACTION staff are friendly and out there assisting when they can and the majority of travellers also polite, friendly and colourful.

we never stood in the walkway, when i was a teenager. that would earn you a clip on the ear from a very large guy who lurked in wait for you to do it. action used to ignore him….

it was an easy shortcut from the mall to labor club after work, on a friday night. The sights, the sounds, the people, the things that were also people…

The smell, sights and sounds of Belco interchange….. Good riddance I say. Like someone else said, mall was supposed to be all the way down at the lake and the interchange on the other side and more integrated. I’m looking forward to the new place though, but yea I’ll miss it in some morbid way.

Okay, amazing was a little much. I still have to give dagger looks and keep my composure of an afternoon trying to get past mountains of high school kids acting cool in the middle of the walkway. I meant basically speaking, despite the ugliness and moral kept down round there, the ACTION staff are friendly and out there assisting when they can and the majority of travellers also polite, friendly and colourful.

It’s butt ugly!

It’s seats are so uncomfortable and you are left to dangle on half the seat.

It has no toilet whatsoever, it was already on shocking lockdown practises 20 years ago when I was a teenager and must’ve closed shortly after that, cause by the time I was a young mum letting my hubby take the car to work and ferrying up to 3 small children on the buses, there was no toilet when we were waiting, so you gotta use the Labor Club (if you’re adult), the community centre or the mall, the latter two useless after shopping hours almost, nor real close if your bus is nearing.

It was put in the wrong spot too, the whole kit and kaboodle was meant to be on the other side of the mall.

I noticed in the last few years that they hardly if ever open those little closed room areas when I’ve been almost blown away or frozen solid.

But in it’s defence, I will say.. the people are amazing, a stint in Woden interchange will cement that one. Oh look at the crap that came over to Belco when they were trying to disperse it from Woden recently. Plus I was recently impressed somewhat with their musical additions, very nice for when I haven’t got my mp3 player or my son is with me and can’t use headphones. Music is your only sanity saver in bus travel.

All of which can still function in a nice new home, cause let’s be honest, was there anyone who looked at it back in the day and thought, oh what a lovely place, they oughta heritage list it? No, we all thought it a monstrosity like the rest of Cement City, known as Belconnen.

Oh, I went to school with that young bloke that was pushed off in front of the bus, he was in a year below me at Kaleen High, but some of my friends were his and he used to wait for me everyday to catch up and we’d walk home to the shops together then go seperate ways. Then when I was working at Franklins Woden a few years later, I used to take home his girlfriend everyday coincidently. A sad loss to his family and friends, he was a great guy! But… even he would say.. DOWN with the interchange, im sure!

Lady_from_Holt said :

I for one am excited!

It does seem nice, except there will be 4 bus stations rather than one interchange. Bus trips will take longer, there’ll be more traffic congestion and less parking for all.

For those of you interested, here is the design concept for the Belconnen Town centre public transport improvements and transit oriented development if you would like to see what the new interchange will look like.
http://www.actpla.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/9827/btc_concept_report.pdf (its a bit big)

I for one am excited!

I’m glad they’re doing something like this before the interchange gets smashed.

Although it’s pretty much an eyesore now, the idea of futurstic tunnels over the road has always been pretty funky.

Here’s hoping that whatever they replace it all with, works just as well. Somehow I doubt it will.

I remember going to a similar thing a few years back. Not sure if it was part of the Fringe Festival or a Belconnen Arts Festival or what, but it was pretty cool. It was kind of a tour through the interchange with little performance pieces along the way (inlcuding a group of people dancing inside a bus). It was a freezing cold Winter night so there weren’t many people there watching, but it was well worth it.

As for stories and memories of the interchange – sadly, they mostly relate to some kind of violent, racist or antisocial behaviour (quite often all at once) I’ve witnessed (usually involving a group of young kids from the public housing up the road).

Can’t say I’ll miss the Belconnen interchange really.

I remember it when it was new. We thought it was amazingly funky. We’d go off for a swim in Lake Ginninderra then come back and sit around in our swimmers and towels on the warm asphalt while we waited for our bus home.

Bumming cigarettes before school on wintry mornings in our trench coats with the belts tied behind at the back.

Kissing someone amazing on the top of the mall and carrying home the flower he picked for me, now crumbling away in an album.

Innocently teetering along in stiletto heels and eighties glam on our way to meet a visiting soccer team.

Nearly getting thrown off the bus at the interchange with my boyfriend because we could hardly wait to get home.

Lugging bags, bottles, babies. Mean, spiteful comments. Kind gestures and smiles.

Free rides.

Wheeling kids along in prams while others straggled front and rear. Having to run all the way back to the other end when somebody needed to go to the toilet now. Sitting cross-legged on the ground when we couldn’t get a seat. Being really, really tired.

The smell of the exhaust. Smoke blowing all over me wherever I sat.