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The public transport advocacy group for Victoria, Australia
Lord Mayor and Councillors,
City of Melbourne,
Town Hall,
Swanston Walk,
Melbourne, 3000
Wednesday, 14 April, 1999
Tram Users Demand Swanston Walk Improves
Tram passengers will suffer from the reopening of
Swanston Street. More than half of shoppers, workers and visitors
to the CBD arrive by public transport (according to a Melbourne
City Council report), and many of these use Swanston Street trams.
The three busiest tram stops in Melbourne are all in Swanston
Street; all are busier than the busiest suburban railway station.
Will this enormous number of tram passengers once again be
corralled into so-called 'safety zones' to inhale the exhaust fumes
from passing cars? Putting cars back in Swanston Street at any time
by day or night is a recipe for confrontation between motorists and
tram passengers. The intersection with Collins Street will regain
its reputation as the worst in Melbourne for pedestrian
fatalities.
Rather than wind back the clock on the improvement
of the city, we should look again at what the closure of Swanston
Street was meant to achieve. At present Swanston Street looks like
half a street and half a mall. In other transit malls throughout
the world, pedestrians happily coexist with tram and bicycle
traffic, while motor vehicles are excluded. Experience in other
cities, and with Bourke Street here in Melbourne, has shown that
the exclusion of trams is not necessary to a viable mall. Swanston
Walk can be improved considerably with high-intensity lighting,
better tram waiting facilities (including cafes?) and stronger
controls on vehicular traffic presently allowed to enter.
Since new Lord Mayor Costigan was so quick to
revisit the issue of Swanston Walk, the time has perhaps come to
confront the issue of further city pedestrianisation. Planning
Subcommittee chair Kevin Chamberlin has suggested the extension of
the Bourke Street mall, as well as pedestrianisation of the
southern part of Elizabeth Street. these are good ideas which will
benefit tram passengers (who will be able to board and disembark
conveniently), make more walking space available, and improve the
street environment for CBD workers and patrons. Both streets carry
low volumes of motor traffic already, yet are important city retail
and entertainment precincts.
Public transport users are the backbone of the
city's user profile, to ignore their needs in favour of the
intrusion of more motor traffic is to condemn the city to a
declining future.
Yours sincerely,
(signed)
Paul Mees,
President, PTUA
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