For what reason no one seems to know? Over the 50 years I've lived here I can recall maybe three accidents and none of them fatal. 

None of the residents were asked about the change and the first anyone knew about it was when the signs went up. 

It seems Pru Goward was lobbied by one or two people and summarily decided it was a good idea! 

Even the more heavily trafficked Moss Vale to Bowral road is 90kph. 

The catchcry of ''speed kills'' makes no sense on a road that is safe and virtually accident-free. 

There are only 10 driveways on the 5km stretch, less than on the 100kmh stretch out to Robertson! 

So what possible reason are we now saddled with 80kph? 

This ''Nanny State'' attitude will have us riding horses soon. This reduction also affects Exeter, Bundanoon, Penrose and Wingello residents who all travel this road. 

There is a petition underway to reinstate the 100kph limit. It's your opportunity to have your say. 

The capricious way that developers and politicians set housing targets is not how Sydney is meant to be “planned”.  

In 2009 COAG told NSW to prepare a “City Plan” before putting up any more silly ideas. The Planning Institute and Property Council supported COAG and Sir Rod Eddington. PIA said “ad hoc, project-by-project decision-making does not constitute planning… Decisions significantly affecting the development of Sydney… cannot be made without an overall long-term metropolitan plan”. The Property Council said “It’s time to bite the bullet, admit past mistakes and develop an integrated long term transport plan for Sydney”.

Wran’s Planning Act in 1980 had community involvement and public inquiries. They disappeared progressively (such as with Part 3A) and in 2012 the government switched to secret cabinet submissions, misleading and heavily redacted “summary business plans”, and two unelected agencies which exercised forced-densification powers much greater than Labor’s Part 3A. This all means “broken democracy”.

The Greater Sydney Commission was set up to ensure “orderly development” but it is subject to government plans (without amendment) and dismissal for no cause. Its area is limited and not “greater” and its structures exclude local government from planning roles. Its “plans” don’t contain solutions to known problems. Its executive structures are replete with developers’ consultants and representatives of the agencies that negated O’Farrell’s promises to return planning powers to communities.

GSC’s own roles are conflicted – it plans (executive), it supervises (adjudicative), it persuades (politics) and decides/interferes (judicial). It has no financial abilities.  Indeed, its drafters learnt nothing from the failures of the Transport Commission in 1950-52, the Cumberland County Council, or Craig Knowles’ Ministry of Urban Infrastructure Management – that to succeed, we must finance “plans” rather than have “broken promises”, and out-smart well-resourced city lobbies.

Worst, though, GSC is over-ridden by capricious ministerial announcements, broken promises and blocks on communities. Next – how this can be repaired.