Time for change? Creating a sustainable transport city
How can Melbourne, a city known for its car dependency - with an
estimated 3.6 million private vehicles – foster a culture change
that will inevitably create a sustainable transport city?
A sustainable transport city that gets people out of their cars,
and onto public transport, walking and cycling.
In Melbourne, prioritising and providing for cars for over 100
years has meant that personal forms of transport are deeply
ingrained in our culture.
This hot topic kick-started the first of GHD’s three part Moving
Melbourne seminar series.
In response to the recent changes to government and Victorias
evolving transport strategy, GHD bought together Victoria’s
brightest transportation professionals and policy setters to
discuss and challenge the status quo.
Enrique Peñalosa, former Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia and
influential thought-leader on urban challenges opened the first
Moving Melbourne seminar, Time for change? Creating a sustainable
transport city.
In his time as mayor, Enrique created radical improvements to
the city and its seven million people – transforming a
car-dependent city to one that prioritises and encourages public
transport, walking and cycling.
The Peñalosa administration introduced a number of sustainable
transport initiatives to the city of Bogotá.
TransMilenio, a bus rapid transit (BRT) provides residents with
a faster, more efficient service that compensates for
Bogotá’s lack of subway and rail system.
Thanks to the Peñalosa administration Bogotá is now home to one
largest bike path networks in the world. Construction of the bike
paths has quintupled bicycle use in the city, with an estimated
350,000 trips made daily in Bogotá by bicycle.
Enrique captivated the attention of the audience as he shared
his experiences in Bogotá,
"Just as with any new vision, the vision I had for Bogotá wasn’t
one that started with majority support. As Bogotá’s elected
official I was willing to act against opposition, because I
represented everyone in society particularly its most vulnerable
members: children, the elderly and the poor."
Enrique shed light on how other cities have
embraced sustainable transport principles and created places for
people,
"An advanced city focuses on how to reduce car
use as opposed to how to facilitate car use. The most successful
cities in the world, such a London, Paris and Manhattan have taken
this approach by finding ways to prioritise for people rather than
cars."
A culture shift like Bogotá’s is what Jonathan
Daly, GHD Travel behaviour change team leader, envisions for the
city of Melbourne.
Following on from Enrique, Jonathan addressed
the need for a physically and socially supportive environment that
will then foster a culture of walking and bicycling.
He drove home the point that cultural change
cannot and should not be forced upon people,
“Forcing someone simply makes them more
intractable to change as it goes against the grain of human nature.
Rather we need to develop a deep understanding of the internal and
external barriers people face, and then develop environments that
both enable and motivate change.”
So what’s the alternative? Jonathan
suggests,
“Inject some empathy, humour and fun into
change, captivate people’s attention to get them talking positively
among themselves. The use of social influence is powerful to help
change perceptions about how we travel, to help lift walking and
bicycling out of the margins of society to become a normal activity
in Australian culture.”
The first seminar closed to resounding
applause and struck a cord with several in attendance, including
Metro Trains Melbourne, Wayne Lewis,
"I was really impressed by the seminar as it
provided a lot of interesting ideas …with Melbourne being one of
the most liveable cities we all need to get on board and strive for
sustainable infrastructure"
Anticipation is growing for the second Moving
Melbourne seminar – Build it and they will come? Managing demand on
our transport infrastructure. In this seminar we'll turn our
attention to how Melbourne can get the most out of its transport
infrastructure capacity – both now and in the future.