Melbourne: A Pedestrian's Paradise ?

StreetFilms has a very enthusiastic look at inner-city Melbourne, dubbing it a "pedestrian's paradise" and looking at the impact that efforts to make the streets more pedestrian friendly have had on the city (hat tip Glenn).

How far these sorts of initiatives extend out into the suburban sprawl is an interesting question. I must admit I never get the impression that Melbourne is particularly sustainable on my occasional visits to the city (which are usually confined to the Tullamarine - Docklands - CBD corridor) - but I'd be interested to hear what you Mexicans think - what say you ?

Finally cajoled into taking the long trip to Melbourne, I was told to expect a city where walking abounded, where the streets were flowing with energy, where the quality of public space would blow my mind. Little did I know my already high expectations would be pleasantly exceeded.

Melbourne is simply wonderful. You can get lost in the nooks and crannies that permeate the city. As you walk you feel like free-flowing air with no impediments to your enjoyment. For a city with nearly 4 million people, the streets feel much like the hustle and bustle of New York City but without omnipresent danger and stress cars cause.

There is an invaluable lesson here. In the early 90s, Melbourne was hardly a haven for pedestrian life until Jan Gehl was invited there to undertake a study and publish recommendations on street improvements and public space. Ten years after the survey’s findings, Melbourne was a remarkably different place thanks to sidewalk widenings, copious tree plantings, a burgeoning cafe culture, and various types of car restrictions on some streets. Public space and art abound. And all of this is an economic boom for business.

This Streetfilm is vitally important in another way: Melbourne is a new world city, it has a modern grid much like a typical American metropolis. Naysayers who do not believe a city can be radically transformed say that the already narrow streets of many European cities make it easier to have good pedestrian environments there. Melbourne proves that isn’t necessarily so.

For about 75% of people living in Melbourne, they don't have to own a car. Public transport covers that much of the city. For the other 25%, public transport is not available, or would require too many changes - there are a few places where a journey of just 10km can take 90 minutes and two buses and one train.

Almost every suburb has pavements and lots of trees, and shops and schools never more than 3km apart, so that anyone can walk to them.

In general the city is unfriendly to biking.

So on balance the city has decent public transport, is walkable, but is poor for cycling.

Our public transport's strength is its infrastructure, and its weakness its management. We have about 450km of railway lines and 400km of tramlines. In 1969, long before anyone worried about sustainability, some report was made saying that the current 92 train services a day would have to be 180 to meet demand, and they reckoned the main in-city station Flinders St couldn't handle that. So they built the Loop. The idea was that the current 90-odd services would go to Flinders, and another 90 through the Loop. But by 1985 the Loop had gone billions over budget, so to justify it they decided that they wanted them all to go through the Loop, so that we now have... 95 services a day.

In the 1990s they privatised the system, probably hoping it would stop people using it and lessen demand for improvements. But patronage doubled in the last few years anyway. So now they've struck upon the brilliant idea of increasing the number of services and... having some just go to Flinders and not around the Loop.

In 1950 we had twice the train services as today. In 1925 we had more train passengers than we do today. That was with manual signalling - the "stop" and "go" signs were a guy with a stick pushing them up or down, the track changes were a guy with a crowbar. So we manage less services and passengers with our electronics costing zillions than did guys with sticks and crowbars.

It's simply poor management, bad business sense. Rather than thinking, "how can we increase our patronage?" they think "what is the least service we can provide without losing the contract?"

The latest brilliant idea is to remove some of the carriage seats to accomodate more people standing up. By this reasoning, we could fit even more people in if we just stacked them like cordwood. Fat guys on the bottom, please.

Nonetheless, most individuals don't have to own or use cars. Not everyone can use public transport as we don't have the capacity, but anyone can.

I saw that video the other day, too. My woman and I found it interesting in that... well, we reckon it's all relative. Melbourne doesn't seem very impressive when you live in it. But if you spend some time in Sydney or Brisbane or - God forbid - an American city, it looks pretty good.

Well it is all relative of course but I think a car makes one's life in Melbourne FAR more pleasant than to not have one. Especially having a family.

I have no intention of going without personal transportation.

I think you are like most people in wanting to maintain your own sense of personal travel choices and having a car in the garage gives you that individual freedom. It is going to be very difficult for anyone to have the same sense of freedom derived from having a train or tram stop nearby, when that system can anever deliver the same experience as car ownership.

I think cars will be with us for a long time yet and there will be plenty of things people will give up, before their freedom that comes with owning a car. The usage of the car could be one of those things, where the family car is used only on special occasions and for special trips. Daily life may revolve around working and living locally either within walkable suburbs or supplemented with public transport.

In this scenario it really doesnt make much difference if your car is a monster gas guzzler or not. The overall cost of trips in it will no longer be a large part of your income, therefore the big SUV might be the way to go.

Example:

Raod Trip from Melbourne to the Gold Coast.

Driving in Large 4WD (SUV) with trailer and 7 people inc driver
assume 15L/100km @ $5.00/L = Total one way cost $1012.50
or $144 per person.

Driving a small car (Corrolla?) with 4 peopel inc driver
assume 6L/100Km @ $5.00/L = Total one way cost $405.00
or $101.25 per person.

The large SUV is probably going to be more comfortable, definitely more powerful, and arguably safer than the small car. Particularly for Australian road trips it may also be far more versatile, especailly post peak when the raods may not be so good.

For the sake of $43 extra per person, I'd go with the 4WD (SUV) every time. Each trip I made in it would be carefully planned to maximise passenger cost efficiency of course and the vehicle would be gargaed for most of its life meaning I could get three or four decades out of it. That would see me out.

In 1925 we had more train passengers than we do today.

This would be on a per capita basis, presumably?

Lots of things you say are very true (particularly regarding the chronic mismanagement of the system by Connex (the operators), and the lack of business-like vision. The system feels old, and it makes it a lesser experience - with the exception of Southern Cross Station, which has a genuine big-city modern vibe about it.

I would take issue with the question of Melbourne not being bicycle friendly. It depends what one compares it to of course, but my biking friends think Melbourne is much superior to say Sydney. Perth is a bike city for sure, while Brisbane and Adelaide are distinctly not. In Melbourne, a major (non-freeway) artery such as Mt Alexander Road, carries cars, bikes, trams, and buses, all with some level of harmony - and it's not the only major road of that type.

The inner 8-10 km of Melbourne is pretty good for a large city, however there are two major issues (at least): firstly, the major arteries into the city simply do not cope with the car traffic at peak hours (in a ring 0-20 km from the centre); and secondly, the city is sprawling with new outer suburbs, and a number of major exurbs. That is where the unsustainability is being sown, fertilised, watered.

We have the public transport infrastructure (as noted above) - we now need the political will to "in-fill" the inner ring of suburbs - say 0-12 km from the centre - allow, and in fact encourage, the increasing of density as older single houses age, and medium density living could be economically replacing it progressively and sensibly. Currently however, local councils put a lot of barriers in the way of medium density re-development - they have an old paradigm relating to "amenity", services, and land values that really needs to be questioned forensically.

If such a controlled increase in density can be achieved - along with the necessary infrastructure required (utilities are ageing badly as well), then Melbourne has every chance of being a pretty good example of a medium-sized city for another generation. Sadly, in too many places, all I am really seeing is the destruction of farmland for McMansions.

If Melbourne is bicycle friendly, why are only 2% of trips taken by bicycle?

I misremembered the numbers and dates. Per capita we had far more passengers in 1929, in absolute terms we have slightly more now, but not as many as in 1950.

According to the PTUA,

Train patronage was 159 million in 1929, 204 million in 1950, 170 million in 1964, 118 million in 1981 and 135 million in 2004. Since current rail patronage is approaching 170 million, quick decisive action needs to be taken to get more trains on the rails to alleviate overcrowding and allow continued growth.

I don't know what the population of Melbourne was in 1929, but in 1950 it was 1.3 million, compared to 3.8 million now.

So in 1950 the system managed 20% more passengers in absolute terms, the equivalent of each Melburnian taking 157 trips a year; today we manage 45 trips a year. As I said, these 20% more passengers were achieved with old bakelite rotary dial telephones for communications, and guys with sticks and crowbars - and also without the Loop.

The PTUA discusses this here. Essentially the problem is atrocious management, rather than lack of infrastructure and the like.

Rather than spending $9 billion on some tunnel under the city - as is being talked about now - it'd be better to take $1 billion to Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Zurich, hire 50 competent people at $1 million a year each, and allow them $150 million a year for retrenchments of the current useless managers, retraining of the traffic managers, putting in bike lanes, and so on - with the goal of changing the transport mix from car 80% / PT 10% / walk-bike 10% to car 60% / PT 20% / walk-bike 20% within 5 years. $4 billion of the remaining $8 billion can be performance bonuses, $1 billion to pay Connex and Yarra Trams to bugger off back home, and $3 billion can return to taxpayers. Alternately we could abolish Myki (the overdue overbudget ticketing system that doesn't work) and use the $1 billion from there.

What percentage is required to reach friendly status? It was a comparative comment - cycling from Footscray to the City is quite pleasant (I am advised) - I don't think it is as pleasant cycling from Leichhardt to Sydney CBD.

In relation to historical rail numbers, another meaningful stat might be passenger kms per year - are there more people doing long rail commutes than in 1929? Were the vast majority of those trips from stations relatively close to the City? I am actually surprised the numbers are as they are - I would have thought the decline from 1950 would have been more dramatic (even with steady population growth) - given the enormous impact of the 1-2 car family and the migration to outer suburbs.

Anyway - whatever the numbers, Melbourne is a great place to walk around and in - but my train from Moonee Ponds is always packed, and the station is a sad mess.

Well, I dunno what precise percentage we'd need to call it "bicycle friendly" - but surely more than the 2% we have now.

If you talk to people in Melbourne about transport, a common thing said is, "I'd like to ride but it's dangerous, the cars don't watch out for you." And this ties in with the experiences in other cities, where they made a deliberate effort to get more people cycling and as they did the rate of accidents dropped. This is common sense - one cyclist along a car's road is viewed as an annoyance and an obstacle, fifty are viewed as just part of driving, like roadworks slowing you to 40km/hr and so on.

Now, that cycling is dangerous doesn't mean you have to drive. I'm too cowardly to ride but I walk and use public transport instead. But that's a conscious decision to not drive if I can possibly avoid it, and it's the habit of a lifetime for me.

There are no figures available for passenger-kms on the train system over the decades. However, there have been no new rail lines since 1880, only single-station extensions. I mean, just look at the three maps below, the system in 1891, 1929 and today.

We've got the same tracks as a century ago, basically. So that gives us a qualitative idea of the passenger-kms - they didn't lay down those tracks for the hell of it, people were using them. The difference is that in 1891 you'd go from the town of Dandenong, past the town of Oakleigh and then to Flinders St station in the city, and pass a lot of paddocks in between - but now it's suburbs all the way, so we've got more potential passengers. That is, demand for public transport is higher than in 1891, 1929, or 1950 - we've got more people living near the stations than in those days.

So if people aren't using public transport much, it's not because they don't really want to, it's because the management is too useless to make space for the new customers.



Does anyone know why this thread is centre justified? Or is it just me?

Hmmm - I can't think of any half-credible excuse so I'll just admit to an editing error - now fixed.

Can't say I'd noticed though - maybe I'll make it the default style in future :-)

There's no doubt the Melbourne CBD is now a more pedestrian friendly environment than a lot of other big cities - it's certainly more pleasant and easier to walk around than the CBD in Sydney. However, it would be pretty easy to portray a very different image with footage of bumper-to-bumper traffic in streets all around the CBD in peak hour (indeed all hours of the day).

While there are many nice inner suburban areas, outside the 1-2km zone of the CBD Melbourne is a vast, sprawling suburban city totally dominated by the car like any other U.S. city. Beyond the CBD, Melbourne (100km from one edge to the other) bears no comparison with anywhere in Europe.

And what about all those bloody gas heaters?! Our cafe culture is kept on artifical life support by burning invaluable natural gas to heat outdoor spaces. This is one of the most egregious examples of energy wastefulness. Outdoor gas heaters should be banned, but that of course would not be popular.