21 October 2013

Behold the Draft City Plan

| johnboy
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city plan

Chief Minister Gallagher and Simon Corbell have this morning unveiled their draft city plan, which has it’s own website and the draft plan as a snapshot pdf and a full report.

The draft City Plan sets a vision for the development of the city centre, including improved public spaces, transport choices and opportunities for growth.

“This draft plan looks at how growth and change can happen across the city and identifies ways to achieve this change while keeping with its natural settings in line with Griffin’s plan 100 years ago,” the Chief Minister said.

“People want a city that has a real identity, a place people can gather in and celebrate in that is vibrant and alive at all times of the day and night. What people want is the centre to be less about traffic and cars and more about walkable connections across it and to Lake Burley Griffin.

The Draft Plan will look at ways to connect the city centre with the foreshore including the lowering of Parks Way and a new interpretive boardwalk as part of the City to the Lake proposal.

Mr Corbell said it was impotant for the government to focus on increasing the residential population of the city centre to deliver a day and night economy, which requires changes to the way the city operates and moves at all times of the day.

“We need to remove the barriers that make it hard for people to access the whole of the city centre including accessing the lake. When we do that, we open up opportunities to develop and revitalise the city centre to make the places like City Hill Park a truly people-friendly place,” he said.

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steveu said :

thebrownstreak69 said :

Some good ideas here that could be explored further. We could also investigate putting in some overpass pedestrian crossings to reduce the need to stop traffic for pedestrians. This would also allow for the possibility of additional lanes down the middle, perhaps a bus lane and dedicated cycle lane (separated from cars and buses).

For sure – however they would have to be pretty large, and tasteful as to not ruin the asthetic whilst also having barriers up the side etc. Someone with style and smarts would have to be brought it to design such a structure I would think.

At least one pedestrian overpass on Northborne between Barry Dr and London Cct would be great – substituting for one set of traffic lights (probably Alinga St) where you’d make it only left turn on and off Northborne. Buses could take an alternative route instead of heading down Alinga St. In fact, the ridiculous amount of space we dedicate for the bus interchange should be reduced and East Row opened up for general traffic to flow more freely and as an alternative route to Northborne.

A pedestrian and bike overpass/underpass would also be really beneficial on Barry Dr at the entrance of ANU – heaps of car/bike collisions happen there, mainly because there are so many bikes and so much traffic congestion.

All these things would be quick and inexpensive to implement before heading down the path of huge and costly infrastructure projects that won’t benefit the majority of Canberrans.

thebrownstreak69 said :

Some good ideas here that could be explored further. We could also investigate putting in some overpass pedestrian crossings to reduce the need to stop traffic for pedestrians. This would also allow for the possibility of additional lanes down the middle, perhaps a bus lane and dedicated cycle lane (separated from cars and buses).

For sure – however they would have to be pretty large, and tasteful as to not ruin the asthetic whilst also having barriers up the side etc. Someone with style and smarts would have to be brought it to design such a structure I would think.

thebrownstreak691:42 pm 23 Oct 13

chilli said :

Agree a tunnel under the city bit of Northborne would be very convenient – but also a rather over-engineered (and expensive ++++++) solution to what should be a fairly minor problem for the size of Canberra’s population.

What about having a left-turn only rule on to and off Northborne that operates from Macarthur Ave onwards to London Cct (with the exception of the Barry Drive/Cooyong St intersection) in force between 8am and 9am in the morning, and 5pm and 6pm in the evening? Traffic lights would only operate for pedestrians who want to cross Northborne. I reckon most of the car congestion would evaporate with a system that allowed better traffic flow.

And maybe look at having a two way bus lane down the middle of Northborne so that navigating the bike lane (and the curb-side traffic lane) is easier. Or else narrow the median area down Northborne so that the road can be 4 lanes each way, with the curb-side lane being dedicated to buses and bikes.

Then once Northborne is solved, we can look at Barry Dr (between ANU and Northborne) and Cooyong St (yes, it is possible to have a safe driving and pedestrian environment without traffic lights every 100 metres!).

As for planner’s and politician’s obsession with ‘making available’ the little park on City Hill – really?? We have no shortage of parks! Leave it alone in it’s splendid isolation ! Maybe send in the evolutionary scientists every 100 years or so to see if anything interesting is happening.

Some good ideas here that could be explored further. We could also investigate putting in some overpass pedestrian crossings to reduce the need to stop traffic for pedestrians. This would also allow for the possibility of additional lanes down the middle, perhaps a bus lane and dedicated cycle lane (separated from cars and buses).

steveu said :

Took them 7 years to build a stretch of road (GDE) so somehow I don’t think we would ever see a tunnel successfully completed in the next 20 years. I have no confidence in the local council being able to manage such a program of work.

No, infrastructure and services seem to be less important to them than political grandstanding.

Innovation said :

There would still be big costs relocating underground services and managing traffic during roadworks but a lot of the costs from supporting overhead structures, lighting and ventilation would be avoided.
.

Do you know how many services run down and across Northbourne avenue? Expensive would be an understatement.

You’d be talking in the hundreds of millions just for that part of the project without even starting to build the tunnel. Unless you made the tunnel extremely deep of course, which would then have it’s own massive cost implications.

Took them 7 years to build a stretch of road (GDE) so somehow I don’t think we would ever see a tunnel successfully completed in the next 20 years. I have no confidence in the local council being able to manage such a program of work.

Depending on the design, I suspect that a short “tunnel” – for want of a better description – along Northbourne in the City would not be as expensive as many think. For example, lower the road, but keep it open to the elements still, with a single lane at street level and street level overpasses at each intersection. Entrances to the lowered road could be at Barry Dr/Cooyong St and at the other end of Vernon Circle.

There would still be big costs relocating underground services and managing traffic during roadworks but a lot of the costs from supporting overhead structures, lighting and ventilation would be avoided.

I like the idea of prohibiting right turns off Northbourne at certain times of the day except for a couple of roads. Another idea would be to change the lights and line markings at some intersections to operate more like traffic light controlled roundabouts.

Agree a tunnel under the city bit of Northborne would be very convenient – but also a rather over-engineered (and expensive ++++++) solution to what should be a fairly minor problem for the size of Canberra’s population.

What about having a left-turn only rule on to and off Northborne that operates from Macarthur Ave onwards to London Cct (with the exception of the Barry Drive/Cooyong St intersection) in force between 8am and 9am in the morning, and 5pm and 6pm in the evening? Traffic lights would only operate for pedestrians who want to cross Northborne. I reckon most of the car congestion would evaporate with a system that allowed better traffic flow.

And maybe look at having a two way bus lane down the middle of Northborne so that navigating the bike lane (and the curb-side traffic lane) is easier. Or else narrow the median area down Northborne so that the road can be 4 lanes each way, with the curb-side lane being dedicated to buses and bikes.

Then once Northborne is solved, we can look at Barry Dr (between ANU and Northborne) and Cooyong St (yes, it is possible to have a safe driving and pedestrian environment without traffic lights every 100 metres!).

As for planner’s and politician’s obsession with ‘making available’ the little park on City Hill – really?? We have no shortage of parks! Leave it alone in it’s splendid isolation ! Maybe send in the evolutionary scientists every 100 years or so to see if anything interesting is happening.

Primal said :

enrique said :

Potentially quite costly

That’s putting it mildly.

🙂 True.

Back to the idea though, imagine Northbourne Ave, City Hill, and the rest of civic only having local traffic, how much quieter would it be! It would be so much easier and peaceful getting around the town centre. And imagine not having to stop at any city traffic lights if you were just passing through.

Many cities eventually find that as they grow they need a tunnel system or major bypass road system for cross city traffic… why not start planning now for an elegant and well designed long term solution rather than implementing a series of ridiculous half measure solutions that together cost more overall (Gunghalin Drive single lane for instance, the Molonglo River bridge additional lane for instance, Glenloch Interchange anyone…).

This government has a poor record when it comes to designing and building road systems. Once again, they are putting out an idea so ridiculous it’s almost laughable…”Let’s divert all cross city traffic from Northbourne around to City West and then back to Commonwealth Avenue. That way people will have less cars to deal with when they want to use City Hill”. Think about how ridiculous that sounds… imagine what that will do to city traffic congestion. You only need to look at what happens already around Cooyong Street to get an idea.

Canberra CBD appears to be On Message.

This is so inaccessible to a screenreader that the Wave Tool won’t even analyse it for errors. Yet another accessibility fail, ACT Government!

enrique said :

Potentially quite costly

That’s putting it mildly.

At the last local election, Chic Henry had a simple solution to a lot of what they are proposing in this plan…. Create a tunnel system for commuter traffic crossing the city. i.e. From Northbourne through to Commonwealth Ave & Parkes Way and a branch off to Belconnen Way.

Need to get through the city quickly and avoid the congestion? Simple, take the tunnel.

Potentially quite costly but the long term benefits would be significant from so many aspects.

$2.50 gain for every dollar on capital metro… what are they on?

Are they going to look at the economy. Its fun to have a place to go after work, but its also nice to have job diversity

Now with a link to the full report

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