If you read the following about the land-use planning policies of the Victorian state government, in relation to Melbourne, what would you guess their politics to be?
The… government is considering plans for a carbon-neutral, high-density suburb of 12,000 on Footscray Road, in West Melbourne.
In the latest long-discussed inner city housing project , work to turn old rail yards into a more than $6 billion neighbourhood known as E-Gate could begin as early as 2014. It would be Victoria’s largest development since Docklands.
The government confirmed E-Gate would be the first big part of its plan to shift urban growth from Melbourne’s fringes to its heart….
…The long-awaited project, commissioned by Major Projects Victoria, and drawn up by consultants Aecom, includes a new tram line along Footscray Road and a bridge to North Melbourne train station, but no big roads or street car parks, in an effort to limit car use.
Mr Napthine said the Aecom plans leaked to The Age was just one option the government was considering for the site.
He said E-Gate would be pedestrian-friendly, rather than car-free as proposed by Aecom, and would include affordable housing.
”Here is a great site, very close to the CBD and next door to public transport,” Mr Napthine said. ”It is a very significant development for Melbourne and for Victoria because we want to grow the population without massively contributing to urban sprawl.”
Contrary to what you might think, the government in Victoria is a centre-right coalition between the Liberals and the Country party. Yet they understand the need for a 21st century approach to urban development, the need to limit urban sprawl, the need to invest in public transport, the need to consider different carbon emissions profiles from different types of urban development.
Why can they get it, but New Zealand be stuck in the 1960s?
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A great as this sounds, it doesn’t sound much different to what they said about the Tank Farm development and already we have buildings like the ASB development which include large numbers of carparks.
The ASB development will contain less carparks than the present building’s ASB allocation. Supposedly there will be another parking building off site. It’s all very well saying that we shouldn’t build carparks, the sad fact is that for many people in Auckland taking public transport is an inferior option. We need to address that fact before we can embark down the road of low carpark developments. Unfortunately for Wynard Quarter we have a situation where it becomes easier to access some public transport while making it harder for others. Buses to the North Shore will be easy to catch. However for people like myself living off Dominion Road, moving to Wynyard Quarter will mean a long walk up the hill to the Civic.
Melbourne seems to be more on the ball with in-fill housing and redeveloping old industrial areas in the inner city for residential housing (not always successfully, the two-dozen-storey blocks don’t sit well next to Victorian public buildings in the CBD. And their PT information is shocking! http://uroskin.blogspot.com/2011/02/melbourne-city-and-public-transport.html
They are generally quite good managing the interface between development and heritage, not always though. You’ll find that Melbourne actually has two skylines, one to the east and one to the west, with a low rise historical central precinct in between.
I agree on the thing with the tram and train maps, they are bullshit. They don’t show what lines go where, what trains stop at what stations, nothing really useful at all! All they really tell you is that a station exists and which of the two zones it is in. Unfortunately it all seems to still be based around the idea that people only go from a home suburban station/stop to work in CBD and back again. It is assumed that everyone assumes that the line go in to the city loop and back again. This is generally true for the trains but obviously not for the trams.
Most Melburnians don’t bother with the official maps and would sooner refer to a Melways or other street map to navigate the system. At least the trams generally just run along one main road so it’s simple to work that out.
Just another update, the Libs have cancelled a program to spend the best part of a billion dollars widening and grade separating the arterial road between the Melbourne CBD and the Eastern Freeway (already six lanes wide as it is), in favour of progressing long awaited plans for a rail line in the Eastern Freeway corridor.
Apparently they can see the answer to congestion is actually less demand for driving, not more.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/4m-hoddle-street-plan-shelved-20110321-1c300.html