Complete Streets

Below is an email from a leading traffic engineer here in Melbourne:


Hi John, Arup, including myself, are doing this work all around the globe.

Re-allocating streetspace and other urban infrastructures to better provide for other users is the new "big thing" in transportation planning. have you heard of the HighLine in new york? you should check it out - really amazing reuse of old freight rail into a public park, and it's been hugely successful by new yorkers. And the time square closure to cars as you pointed out has also been a very successful pilot by nyc dept of transport. In melbourne, there are lots of examples too not least of all is City of Melb's planned upgrade to Swanston St, which gets rid of cars etc.

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/ParkingTransportandRoads/Roads/SwanstonStreet/Pages/SwanstonStreet.aspx

St Kilda Road and, more recently, Albert St has been reconfigured to provide greater service to bikes. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/copenhagen-bike-lanes-cause-chaos-in-melbourne-20100607-xqsl.html

There was a lot of hot air when it started up but it seems to work OK now. Other material easily comes to hand http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/ParksandActivities/WalkingCyclingandSkating/Documents/bike_separated_lanes_factsheet.pdf

Tram superstops are an example of reallocation of roadspace away from cars. There are plenty of them in the CBD. There is the redesign of Harbour Esplanade down at Docklands http://www.vicurban.com/cs/Satellite?c=VPage&cid=1195447200144&pagename=Docklands%2FLayout

An interesting case study is the area of Elizabeth St outside the market. It won an urban design award when it was installed in the 80s, but over a very short time the award-winning bluestone flagstones were replaced by patches of bitumen following maintenance activity on the services. It's now just an ordinary piece of road. Bourke St mall was an early piece of work done by the City of melbourne at closing down cars to public transport and pedestrian space and you can see how successful that is today. It was done in the 1980s from memory. This has been through a number of redesigns over the years. My recommendation for you would be to talk to someone at the City of Melbourne. Maybe Rob Moore. +61 3 9658 9616.

I think that you might also be talking about the complete streets agenda so i'd recommend checking out this link: http://www.completestreets.org/. Hope this is some help to you. Good luck with your study - it's a really interesting piece of work that i look at everyday! Please feel free to contact me whenever you need if you have more questions etc - more than happy to help.

CheersOlivia