I was reading an article in the Globe and Mail yesterday that discussed contemporary city planning issues in Melbourne, Australia and Toronto, Canada. The article, structured in a question and answer format, featured two urban experts discussing what their cities have done and what their cities need to do on the urban planning front. Robert Adams, director of city design for Melbourne is a huge proponent of pedestrian traffic and bike lanes (Don Cherry would call him a pinko). Mr. Adams vehemently lobbied to make public transit in Melbourne free before 7 am and cars were banned from the city's busiest street. A really progressive and visionary leader who has made Melbourne the third most livable city in the world, according to The Economist.
The urban expert interviewed from Toronto is Gary Wright, the current chief planner for the City of Toronto. In my undergrad, Gary spoke as a guest lecturer in one of my geography courses (summary of that lecture found here). Gary is very proud of what the Dundas Square has become (under his leadership) in terms of a public open space in which people can appreciate and gather together to enjoy the city's culture, night life and artistic events. This is what some would call experiential consumption whereby citizens and tourists can experience and enjoy the culture and vitality of the city through public spaces and not through shopping and material consumption.
He also commented on the planning of the forthcoming Pan Am Games in Toronto in 2015. He says that the athletes' village is going to require close collaboration with developers to ensure that everything goes well. The city's waterfront reinvention plan is underway and will have many implications for waterfront development in the coming years. In sum, he supports greater involvement of the developers because of their knowledge and expertise. Last and unsurprisingly, he is a big advocate for better transit in Toronto. Transit is a very salient issue these days but in a time of financial uncertainty, and with a new mayor, we'll have to wait and see how things play out on the transit agenda.
The rest of this post will focus on the great city planning work of Robert Adams and what other cities could learn from him. To begin, as a design enthusiast and supporter for greater pedestrian traffic, Adams recognized the importance of widening sidewalks. Trees were planted along the widened sidewalks which eventually led to a proliferation of sidewalk cafes.
From the Globe: "Adams closed Melbourne's main thoroughfare, Bourke Street, to cars before 7 p.m., transforming it into wide lanes for pedestrians, bikes, streetcars and buses. More than 35,000 pedestrians now walk the street each day, up from 12,000 ten years ago and businesses have returned as well."
Adams says we need more residential development around existing transit lines (something Hong Kong has mastered). He also thinks that municipal plans are too technical and thus non-transparent to the public. Plans need to have more visual components to show people how their communities are going to change in the coming years due to urban development and population growth. Finally, Adams, as a designer and planner, is really effective and engaging and leveraging public sentiment. One example from the article is a time when he announced his desire to pull down a freeway standing between the city centre and the Yarra River. Many thought this was not possible. He slowly developed green spaces around the freeway and Melbourne's citizens, quite some time later, saw the benefits of this and demanded that the road be pulled down.
City planning can drastically transform our cities into healthier, more transit friendly and enjoyable places. Both Adams and Wright have done remarkable things for their respective cities. Planning is inherently a political process with multiple stakeholders and multiple perspectives. This mix of interests is healthy but challenging for the planner who must consult and facilitate disparate and contested views.
Finally, Melbourne and Toronto are unique in that they have historic streetcar systems. Personally, I have come to appreciate streetcars not only because they have contributed to Toronto's identity, but also because they effectively complement other transit forms such as subways, buses and walking. For you transportation nerds out there, I would encourage you to read a paper by Currie and Shalaby on the successes and challenges in modernizing streetcar systems in Melbourne and Toronto. For the paper, click here.
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