Thu 2 October 2008 - Just in case
Because you can never have too much redundancy redundancy.
(During last Friday’s Grand Final parade.)
Archive for October 2nd, 2008
Thu 2 October 2008 - You’re welcome, but your car isn’t
Neil Mitchell in the Herald Sun last week, has some strange ideas about the City:
Second, there’s transport.
It is difficult to get into the city and difficult to move around it.
As Jeff Kennett said this week, those monster tram stops have clogged traffic and undermined the principle behind the magnificently simple design of Melbourne. It’s in the handbook that councils hate cars, and the MCC follows the book.
Traffic problems and parking restrictions are killing the city.
What’s the plan? What’s the vision?
How do we bring people back?
Errr, no. Wrong. Actually the city is thriving. It’s busy every day of the week until late.
And the number of daily visitors has been growing every year.
(Source: City of Melbourne: City User Estimates and Forecasts)
The problem appears to be that Neil expects to be able to drive his car down Collins Street at 60 kmh and park outside his favourite cafe.
Too bad. When you’ve got this kind of demand, not everyone can come by car. And most don’t. CBD car users are outstripped by public transport users 4-to-1.
(Source: City of Melbourne: Central City User Survey)
The tram superstops haven’t clogged traffic. They’ve made very little difference. In just about every case, on each of the streets they’re on, there was one lane of traffic before, and there’s one lane of traffic now. What’s blocking the cars is… other cars.
Neil and his car are welcome at the suburban shopping centres such as Southland, Chadstone, or Highpoint. Good luck finding a park though.