Conservationists and cyclists would seem like good bedfellows, but a proposed bicycle overpass which will encroach upon a Forestville reserve pitted the two against each other in a clash of corflutes and Facebook posts. There was a logical solution to what seemed at first like a Southern Suburbs Noir: who stole the Forestville Reserve Friends anti-Mike Turtur Bikeway Overpass posters?
It was a mystery that briefly troubled Don Conner, a member of the Friends, who told CityMag he wanted whoever stole the posters to reimburse the group for the cost of printing them.
As it turns out, it was the Unley City Council who took them down. They’d received complaints about the validity of the information on the posters, and their effect on the visual amenity of the Forestville Reserve. Simple enough.
But the posters’ disappearance revealed a more curious rift in the community, between two seemingly aligned groups: the Forestville Reserve Friends, an environmental conservation group, and Unley Bicycle Users, an active transport Facebook community. One of the missing posters, pre-theft Don Conner, a resident of the Unley council area since 1976, was the man responsible for producing the disappeared corflutes and has been advocating for the reserve, which abuts the Goodwood Railway Station, since it was established in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Prior to the Forestville Reserve Friends’ intervention, the plot of land was fenced off and used as a car park.
“Over the years, we’ve managed to get the reserve to what it is today,” Don says, referencing its willowy […]
Continue reading the original article at: citymag.indaily.com.au