Well, an ex-officio nickname should go with the job of Labor state member for Newcastle.

That nickname should be "Adamstown Gates".

This would be a convenience for Novocastrians, who would not have to remember the real name of the incumbent.

"Who's the state member for Newcastle?" an outsider might ask a local.

"Gates," would be the quick reply. "Adamstown Gates."

More importantly, the nickname would always remind us of the very limited ability of any Labor state member for Newcastle to secure local infrastructure spending.

For, as everyone in town knows, we have been waiting for decades for replacement of the level crossing of the railway at Adamstown.

It seems no Labor state member for Newcastle has a hope of getting the traffic bottleneck solved, because both sides of politics know the seat won't change hands.

The person who can currently be nicknamed Adamstown Gates is Tim Crakanthorp, who has held the seat since 2014. Importantly, the nickname mocks his job, not him personally.

Mr Crakanthorp is in fact a nice bloke who has campaigned to fix the Adamstown crossing. In 2021, for example, he pursued the then Liberal transport minister Andrew Constance about it. "Does the minister have any plans to remove the Adamstown level crossing?" Mr Crakanthorp asked in parliament.

But he had won his seat in the 2019 election with 68 per cent two-party-preferred support. Unsurprisingly, the minister brushed him off, saying the crossing was a council, not state, matter.

The answer implied not that the council could build a bridge or tunnel if it wanted one - it obviously couldn't afford to do so - but that such infrastructure was not even contemplated. Mr Constance did, however, say the government was helping the council with a traffic-lights project at the gates. Well, thanks.

Now Labor is in government and there's still no interest in replacing the level crossing with what engineers call grade separation - a bridge or tunnel.

We've been waiting for more than 70 years. The Northumberland County District Plan, the key planning document for Greater Newcastle completed in 1952, included a bridge from Glebe Road to St James Road. And the state government duly responded by buying the necessary land - which has now been sold again.

In fact, there's been advantage in that particular bridge not being built.

In keeping with the public finances and construction technology of the early 1950s, it was to have been a crooked structure, somewhat like the one at Broadmeadow, using a lot of land and not ideal for driving.

Soon enough, however, the state could have built a modern straight bridge that, over the years, would have saved tens of millions of hours of waiting time for road users.

Transport for NSW says there's still no plan for grade separation.

Answering questions, it raises two main objections.

"Grade separation at this location would create a substantial impact on surrounding properties and the broader community, including a local school and numerous residential properties," it says.

And that would be a fair point if the only solution were to build a bridge that would loom over nearby streets. But in 2024 we should expect a tunnel, even though it would cost more.

Helpfully, the railway is about 2 metres higher than the surrounding land, reducing the dive needed for a tunnel, whose ramps could therefore be short. Fairly steep ramps and a low height clearance, just enough for buses, might be considered to further reduce the depth, length and cost of the engineering.

Conversely, the elevation of the railway increases the height and intrusiveness of any bridge at the location.

So give us a tunnel, please.

It could extend under the intersection with Park Avenue, from which drivers would freely turn eastward. Westward access from Park Avenue would be trickier, however.

All this needs to be examined in a scoping study, which would work out what's possible and at what approximate cost.

The Labor member for Charlestown, Jodie Harrison, asked Mr Constance in 2021 whether a scoping study had been done.

He didn't directly respond, so we can guess the answer would have been "no".

And it's clear that no scoping study is being done under the current transport minister, Labor's Jo Haylen.

Transport for NSW's other main objection is that replacing the level crossing would increase traffic on Glebe and St James roads and "reduce the performance of other intersections in the area," meaning they'd become clogged.

But even the intersection of Glebe and Brunker roads is hardly the busiest in NSW for streets of such width. If it had to handle more traffic, improvements in managing the flow surely could be applied.

Inner Sydney doesn't retain a lot of old level crossings just to create traffic obstructions for the benefit of nearby intersections. Of course it has no level crossings at all.

Asked about the crossing, Mr Crakanthorp now cites Transport for NSW studies showing upgrading intersections around it would lift road-network performance more than upgrading the crossing itself.

We should note that waiting times at Adamstown will be reduced as a spin-off benefit of the proposed Lower Hunter Freight Corridor, a railway from Fassifern to Tarro that will serve as a Newcastle bypass for freight trains.

But there's no timetable for building that line, and it won't be a complete solution for Adamstown, anyway.

We must not accept it as reason never to get a replacement for the level crossing.

We have waited too long. Until the crossing is replaced, let's use that nickname for the Labor state member for Newcastle, whoever he or she may be.

"Adamstown Gates".