Watevs...

Whyyyy does it take so long…

For years now, the locals who walk to our local mall have had to trot down a steep, grassy hill to get from the footpath, to the mall car park (the orange line on the map). There is a footpath you can follow, but it adds close to 300 meters of walking to your journey (the green line on the map). It’s just much faster to go down the grassy hill. There is even a path stamped out down the hill from the years of popular use of this shortcut. The only people who opt not to take the hill/car park shortcut would be elderly people and those who cannot cross a steep slippery decline.

Once you are down the hill, you have to walk through a car park, not ideal, and then down to one of the mall entrances.

About a year ago I was pleasantly surprised to see that the grassy area had been roped off with construction site tape. Finally, they are putting a path here. It’s about time!

They started to dig around a few weeks later.

Nothing happened for a few weeks after that.

Some wooden stakes were put in, which seemed to take about a month.

Then I moved to Japan for six months.

I came back. The path was starting to take shape; I could see it lead along the grassy slope, not down it. Whatever, it must be leading to the other entrance, I thought. Still good.

Over the following two months, the cement was laid making the path, but the construction tape remained there.

Then they removed some of the cement that they had laid.

Then a few weeks later they replaced the cement.

Then finally, around a year after starting the project of making a 200 meter footpath, the project was complete. The red line on the map depicts the path. Notice that it doesn’t actually lead to the mall at all. It swoops by the mall, but not down the grassy slope, then it crosses the highway, and takes you to a petrol station. Which is great, for all those times you need to get petrol for your car, but you want to do it on foot.

The fact that it took one year to complete the physical work, plus whatever planning time went into this, just about sums up everything that makes me so angry at the way construction work happens in Australia. Let’s not forget the fact that the mall was built in the late 70’s, so it’s been a problem for thirty plus years now. Now, compare that to the way shit works in Japan, and you can understand my frustrations.