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January 2, 2011
Fred Hansen, a current thinker-in-residence in Adelaide, argues that public transport is a key to creating walkable, liveable, urban neighbourhoods in car obsessed Adelaide. It has been a long fight just to extend the tram line though the CBD. Adelaide is not pedestrian friendly.
Gary Sauer-Thompson, bus stop, Currie St, 2010
Hansen is from Portland, which has an excellent public transport system. In this interview in the Adelaide Review he says:
In the Oregon region, about 12 percent of our workers are commuting by bike and that’s in less than hospitable weather. Many young people move to Portland because they can get around without a car, and I think those same opportunities exist here in Adelaide. Every transit trip starts or ends with a pedestrian trip and if you don’t have comfortable, safe places to walk and you can’t cross intersections safely or easily – for example, a light changes and you have three seconds to step off of that curb before it goes against you – it isn’t very pedestrian friendly.
In Adelaide there is often no shade from the summer sun or winter rain for those waiting to catch the tram in the CBD. The public transport facilities are minimal, crude and primitive and they have little connection to the digital world that is in formation.
Hansen spells out an alternative:
It’s not just about a crossing on a street, it’s a setting in which people can linger, look in windows, stop for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine or a bite to eat, it is all those things coming together which make it a pedestrian friendly place. If you have a public transport system that appears to work, but you don’t have a friendly pedestrian environment, no matter how much public transport you put out there, it really won’t work very well.
The “permeability” of the city, the ease with which people can move from one area to another, either on foot, by bike or with public transport, is one element that is crucial to creating a truly people-friendly city.
Such a city is one that is facilitated by people taking public transport and who are more likely to walk and ride their bike than use the car. it is a city in which we leave the car at home--which is possible to do if you live in the CBD. What needs to happen is that in the greater Adelaide, there needs to be little communities and real neighbourhoods where people are proud to live, where they know their neighbours and are able to walk and bike and use public transport for many of their daily activities.
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