Transport Planners Out of Step on Walking

The Age – 1 February, 2006

A better deal for pedestrians would be a smart way to ease Melbourne's transport woes

The debate over solutions to transport and liveability in Melbourne focuses on multibillion-dollar road and public transport projects and ignores one obvious solution - making all of metropolitan Melbourne more ‘walkable’.

Walking, the forgotten transport mode, needs to be a focus of the Government's forthcoming ‘transport and liveability’ statement. For the equivalent price of about four or five kilometres of EastLink it would be possible to make it safe for many more children to walk to school, more people to walk to their station, tram or bus stop, the elderly and those with disabilities to walk (or scooter) safely to local shops and for people to walk to local jobs.

If we make our suburbs and local centres more accessible to pedestrians, it will help improve their health, end high-polluting short car trips, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save everyone money as car operating costs, parking and road construction needs are reduced.

At this point many people dismiss walking as simplistic - it can't be done; I live too far away; it rains; it's dangerous - until they realise that more than 25 per cent of all car trips in metropolitan Melbourne are less than two kilometres. Walking is healthy and kids enjoy it, the poor and elderly have to do it, and if we all did it more, the streets would be safer, local business would benefit, congestion would be reduced and we would live in the type of suburb most people really want. Around the world, cities and suburbs that are walkable are liveable and are doing well economically and socially.

But it is harder to make the changes we need than it sounds. We have to make it possible for people to walk more, with better-planned suburbs, well-maintained footpaths, appropriate speed limits, safe road crossings, responsive traffic lights, seats, signs, more ‘local’ shops - all of those important things that often get forgotten when the focus is on getting vehicles to their destinations.

We need to encourage people to make the choice to walk. Walking is the big recreation activity for people throughout Melbourne, but far fewer people are ‘functional’ walkers. Why not get healthy by walking your children to school, accompanying an older person to the shops or walking to your public transport stop?

VicHealth's Walking School Bus and other innovations, the TravelSmart projects and other local council programs show that when people are encouraged to walk more, they will do so. However, government effort and support for these programs is overwhelmed by the countervailing subsidies for car use, road construction and the constant advertisements promoting the car culture.

We need to better make the case for walking. We all know its benefits, but when speed is king, how can we show that slower is often better, that the health benefits of a 15-minute walk, with less pollution, less congestion, more safety and a better place to live outweigh getting there in two minutes in a four-tonne four-wheel-drive? If lifestyle is important, why do transport economists and planners seem to marginalise important considerations and encourage us to race in cars to the gym to get fit or for coffee to relax?

Finally, we need to make it happen - to give politicians and bureaucrats the ‘courage’ to really support walking, liveability and a civilised city.

Walking is sensible, equitable, it's good for the economy, the environment and people, it has no downside, yet big-dollar support is lacking. Perhaps it's not expensive enough to give the appearance of real investment in infrastructure. That could be remedied by providing every school, rail station, tram and bus stop, shopping centre and other major destinations with safe-walking access routes, good directional signs and local maps and information.

The triple bottom line benefit/cost ratio of such a program would far outweigh that of any other major transport project. What is good for walkers is also good for people with disabilities, and usually helps cyclists too.

Melbourne is potentially a very walkable, liveable place. Above all, we need to recognise that most people want to live in a place where the car is not the only travel option, where children and the elderly can walk in safety, and people rather than vehicles are the dominant species in their streets.