“When streets are for people, everyone wins” was the clear message from our recent transport forum on 2nd November.
Our guest speaker for the event was Jan Scheurer, an urban design and transport planning expert from RMIT University, Melbourne. An advocate of car free cities, Jan has been involved in community campaigns on sustainable transport in Melbourne, Perth, Copenhagen and Hamburg since 1989.
The event was extremely well attended and it was great to see so many councillors there. In the council elections the public clearly voted for a greener transport future for Auckland. Now we have a real opportunity to get Auckland moving in the right direction.
In his talk Jan highlighted the importance of integrated policies, including measures such as travel demand management. He also stressed the critical role of rail in providing a fast effective alternative to car travel. People are only likely to abandon their cars if public transport is cheaper, quicker and as reliable as driving.
Jan illustrated his talk with numerous case studies from cities where he has worked in Europe and Australia. Particularly inspiring were his examples of successful pedestrianisation projects in Copenhagen, Karlsruhe and Strasbourg. Clearly Auckland City Council should be looking to these cities for inspiration in its plans for Queen Street, rather than pandering to the pr-roading lobbyists.
Minutes from the meeting and a PDF version of Jan’s powerpoint presentation are available at
www.greens.org.nz/campaigns/transport/aucktrans.htm
or from Louise (09) 361 5975,
transport
[at]
greens [dot] org [dot] nz
.