Comment – Sustainable Advice on Cities
Posted in Uncategorized by fedwards on April 24th, 2008
The section below is republished with permission from the Going Solar Transport Newsletter #56, 22 April 2008, compiled by Stephen Ingrouille. Going Solar, www.goingsolar.com.au/transport.
Sustainable Advice on Cities
“A leading international city planner is calling for the 2020 summit to consider radical changes to the way Australians live, work and move around their cities. Prominent Danish urban designer Professor Jan Gehl says Australia’s obsession with cars comes at the expense of the liveability of its big cities and the health of its citizens. … But he says it is not too late to change. ‘Originally, we made the cities for people but then, in the past 50 years, gradually we’ve forgotten more and more about that and now many of them have been made more and more for cars’, he said. ‘I remember a big sign in Perth saying, “Your car is welcome to the cityâ€, but we always whispered, “You’re not†… Australian cities – the suburbs and right down to the city centres – have been very, very influenced by traffic engineer thinking, absolutely too much compared to other places in the world.’ … ‘When we started recently in Sydney, we found that in certain streets, half the walking time was spent waiting to cross the street … We are suggesting that it should become much more easy to walk in the cities and that cars generally are parked at a longer distance from where you work or where your shopping opportunities are. Everybody would like a lively city, an attractive city, a safe city, a sustainable city and a city which invites more healthy lifestyles. By being sweet to the pedestrians and sweet to the bicyclists, you can actually accomplish quite a bit of all these goals’… Professor Gehl says Australian cities will undergo a ‘very marked change’ over the next 10 to 15 years because of concerns about petrol prices, climate change, obesity and its cost to the health system.â€
Ref ABC News Online 18/4/08
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/17/2219693.htm
