Festival of the Forests complaint

3Jane said :

Last time I attended this event with my child, I parked in the disabled pparking way away at a park near the river, and got the shuttle bus to the arboretum.

Arboretums also do not mix with people in a hurry. It doesn’t sound like you would have been impressed with a shortage of parking, either.

I assume you have an appropriate permit for parking in a disabled zone.

I always thought it was a little weird that with all the space that the arboretum covers, they didn’t seem to include provision for event parking.

Maybe they can put the monorail track out to it?

Public transport needs to be more frequent. It would be convenient to incorporate the Arboretum with the Zoo/Aquarium, and Botanic Gardens bus service. Unfortunately, the existing service (to Zoo and B Gardens) only runs in ACT School Holidays (which defeats the purpose for out of towners, as their school hols are different). I found this out when my daughter did work experience at the Zoo and Aquarium recently.

Last time I attended this event with my child, I parked in the disabled pparking way away at a park near the river, and got the shuttle bus to the arboretum.

Arboretums also do not mix with people in a hurry. It doesn’t sound like you would have been impressed with a shortage of parking, either.

Might be just me, but I didn’t think traffic was “terrible”. “Terrible” would be a bad day around Sydney Airport or at Paddy’s Market Homebush on a Sunday. And even if you thought that traffic was terrible, you were traffic.

Walking is something that you do at an arboretum, and walking from the car is a ritual associated with using a car. Setting time aside for that would help.

For the benefit of those attending upcoming events, we parked at the newish carpark around (-35.29197, 149.08005) and walked up Forest Drive. It looked like a challenging bicycle ride up, but there were many bicycles too, with kids trailers etc. We might try that next time.

Arboretums and cars don’t mix. Vehicle access to this site is bad enough and a private developer would have never have obtained approval. It will get worse (like the chaos on Commonwealth Avenue at Floriade time) but the endless supply of taxpayers money for this fantasyland will fund a solution I am sure.