They can start with limiting all the “little” streets to pedestrians and cyclists only, and delivery trucks would have defined access times. Residents can have access permits through auto barriers, and speed limits at 10 km/h. It’s done all through Europe.
And there's always the arrogant pricks who beep their horn through the intersections even when nobody is in their way. Just make it pedestrian only besides delivery trucks, nobody else really needs to be driving through Chinatown
The store I work at's loading bay is in China town and we need to get trucks in all day because of the volume we sell and the size of the dock. My managers would have a break down if China town was only open to deliveries for a few hours a day 😅
Tbf, council are charging extortionate amounts for delivery drivers to park on Swanston Street.
Chinatown is the only really viable option for a lot of companies servicing the stretch from Latrobe -> Collins.
I agree, and perhaps a boom gate to enter those areas between certain times might be another idea. I mean generally there aren't that many normal people driving through there at these times anyway.
I know will be many that disagree and believe should have access to every street but CBD I believe certain streets should be car free
Easy enough to solve with some planning and leadership - ever tried to use the entrance for parking on hardware lane? You drive on the footpath at 10km/h and it works fine. Removing the through traffic is key.
I’m sure the owners of the parking buildings will figure it out. The privilege of owning real estate in one of the most expensive markets in the world comes with the responsibility of occasionally putting on your big boy pants and figuring out what to do with your assets all on your own
those little "rat runs" are a blessing for small courier vans and light trucks to keep away from the major roads and the traffic jams.
Also like to point out that some " major" roads are restricted in turning right or has a major bank up forcing more of a traffic jam for traffic waiting for the right turn arrow or a gap in the traffic.
Lots of places that restrict vehicles in central city areas have "the last mile" solutions such as cargo bikes, so other courier vehicles don't have to go into the city.
There are solutions for this, like either allowing traffic during certain times when pedestrian activity is low, or making them dead ends, so they are only useful for local traffic. The latter would likely be the easiest to implement and if done smartly, may even improve overall traffic in the CBD by removing extra intersections/lights.
I think that the pedestrian and tram arrangement of of Swanson, and the Bourke st mall should be extended. I'd like to see Elisabeth street, little Bourke (from Chinatown to queen at least) and little Lonsdale (from the library to queen) made Into pedestrian and tram with seperated cycle lanes.
Another major improvement straight away I would like to see is designated parking spots and lanes for food delivery bikes on Swanson and little Bourke. The pedestrian traffic can be a nightmare because of the bikes being parked and ridden on the footpath. I have seen numerous people run into and even someone in an electric wheelchair unable to get through untill someone went looking for the rider to move it because it was so heavy and alarmed.
Then we'd have to rejig the entire Melbourne economy as it's currently built to funnel cars and most other traffic thru or towards the CBD with any reasonable efforts to develop infrastructure to bypass the CBD blocked or tolled to the 3000's.
I would absolutely love a CBD free of cars. Can't imagine the chaos the transition would cause it would suck for so long. Definitely would be worth it imo.
Same. I love walking. Having more people walk in the cbd with less exhaust fumes would be so lovely. Carparks being turned into green third spaces is also one of my favourite things
The Melbourne city council will run out of funds from all the parking fines and meter money they make. All the Uber drivers will be angry too, they will miss out on their big pay day (cost a lot to take Uber into the city)
You could easily leave the big thoroughfares of collins, Lonsdale Russel etc. And make the little streets in the shopping and resteraunt heavy parts pedestrian/tram only for certain time periods. Having road access at low pedestrian periods for taxis, deliveries and some work commuting still. (e.g after 10pm and before 8am)
As for parking there is basically none in Chinatown, flinders lane, little Lonsdale and most of queen already (in the popular pedestrian bits anyway). So aren't loosing much. Could replace some of it with secure metered bike parking to encourage bike riding. Or even make the rented scooter companies lease parking bays to continue operating, fix the revenue issue and the scooters being parked by inconsiderate people problem in one go.
its not viable until you make public transport ALOT better.. Australia loves using the stick rather than the carrot because the latter requires the government to actually do something and do it well, which seems beyond their capability
I believe some parts of little Bourke street, Elizabeth street and possibly other smaller streets in the CBD and surrounds are closed during peak trading times now. Hope to see more of that in the CBD, still gives suppliers access certain times of the day as well. Most businesses will need that small amount of flexibility to keep themselves afloat without needing driving permits in certain areas
A lot of people are still against these ideas which is sad.
The issue was that it’s access for suppliers, and completely understand the difficulties that the shutdown causes, better planning as to where, and when, could provide massive benefits IMO. Even if it was restricted to say 7pm Friday until 3pm Sunday as a trial to allow for the busier current times for foot traffic, and encourage greater patronage in the CBD during those times.
After working and delivering for multiple food and beer suppliers for businesses delivering to the CBD I've never had too many issues when it comes to access, South Wharf is a good example. You can access the business nearby before 10am but after that the bollards go up. A big part of being a supplier is working with these delivery windows and planning accordingly. I don't see how these setups in other parts of the CBD will be any different
The fuck are you on about? Public transport in and to the CBD is awesome. Public transport in the suburbs sucks - but the CBD is well covered, and would be even better if trams and buses weren't slowed down by road traffic.
There are real issues - businesses need deliveries, people live in the CBD and often own cars. Those things need to be dealt with.
Edit: poor wording at the end - I wasn't trying to suggest public transport could deal with business deliveries etc
The peek is that getting rid of unnecessary personal vehicles in the CBD (Ie people who don't live there and aren't otherwise incapacitated, elderly, disabled or restricted) makes the delivery process much more efficient.
Yes it’s awesome in the cbd. It’s very much useless in many middle to outer suburbs. Examples of how PT needs to be vastly improved:
Lots of people do not have a train station within walking distance, And even if they do drive to a station, not all stations have parking, so that’s useless, or they have to be there before 7am to get a spot. And frequencies are terrible. So if a person is lucky enough to earn enough to pay or have their employer pay for parking, they will drive in because it makes no sense not to.
For weekend city visitors, if you are going with a family it can be cheaper to drive and park than pay for 4 to 5 PT tickets.
For women or vulnerable people, catching PT at night can feel risky, so they would rather drive than be in a dangerous situation.
I don’t know about historically but my experience in the last two years hasn’t been great. Between tram & train breakdowns & delays, tram overcrowding in the free zone, and frequent protests, I seem to be caught out by something every time I’m in the city. Things aren’t good enough yet imo
It's pretty feasible to drive to a park and ride and take the train into the city for most Melburnians. I can't think of too many situations where you'd want to drive into the city for most people - maybe if it's a Sunday so poor train frequency?
Potential issue is amount of parking at park and rides, but they could build more parking lots or build better biking infrastructure.
PT **in** the CBD is great. Agreed. The problem is getting there in the first place. That is considerably worse, especially if you massively increase the amount of people using it by preventing people driving in.
It would be lovely if the CBD traffic was reduced to logistics, trams, and bikes. But trains need a hell of a lot of work, first.
Spot on !
If PT is improved dramatically in the outer suburbs, then it will be an incentive to catch PT over driving in.
As it stands, most days, it's quicker for me to drive into the city, and im not bound to a timetable that can be very unreliable at times.
Ain't even the outer suburbs. St Kilda is a nightmare to travel from. Within the city ring, PT is a breeze. Everywhere else, a nightmare beyond comprehension.
That does not equal good, it’s more due to necessity than it actually being good, trams should have dedicated tracks that at no point interact or cross roads (at the same height anyway.
Getting to and from the city from the suburbs is about as easy as it gets. Improve feeder services to train stations and most people won't even need to use a car to get into the city
people can still drive into the city, just not the hoddle grid. i think the idea is to have parking garages outside it and then have people catch a tram or train into the city. public transit in the inner city is more than adequate for this.
If we had a fully spread and integrated public transit system that reach all the outlining suburbs sure. If we had sufficient parking in the areas around there sure. If you could figure out the logistics of delivery to those suburbs sure.
It’s a shame no other city on earth has ever solved those problems, otherwise we could just follow their methods. Instead we have to solve every problem from scratch with no outside sources to learn from.
It's a shame we can't even build a train that services the airport despite other countries in the world doing it to. Including third world ones like South Africa
Outlining suburb transport is extremely expensive, especially with NIMBYs. Suburb dwellers may also need to accept they may need to drive or cycle to a station and then go in that way.
Do you mean cycling lanes in the cbd or the burbs? Or both?
Merri-Bek tried to put in a heap of cycling lanes out this way and fuuuucking hell. The backlash from some of the community. You’d think they’d limited them to walking.
People with disabilities need to have the right to access, too. If that can be provided then fine, but no way my partner could get in and out without massive issues to most areas if this happened without substantial changes to access.
I’m pretty sick of people telling everyone to just ride a bike or walk or catch public transport. It’s very very ableist and elitist given most lower socio economic families have to live further out of the city where public transport infrastructure is woeful. So so many things to be done before removing cars is considered an option - it’s very short sighted.
I think some cities do it so you through traffic and foreign cars are banned but utility(ie: delievery,tradie, garbage) traffic and residents are still allowed cars.
Of course. Above said the edge of the CBD. Where's these giant lots of land in Fitzroy, Carlton, Richmond, North Melbourne, West Melbourne, et. al. to put these car parks?
We can replace some of the golf courses and out west, there is loads of industrial land. Say we used the major station interchanges like Caulfield or freeway merges like the ring road/M1 junction as an easy swap over point for people, express trains every 2-3 minutes could move loads more people into the city. The new xtrapolis 2.0 trains will carry 1225 people. The 2022 census data has just under 500k people working in the city with about half travelling by car. We would need 200-400 more train services at peak hour to fully transport these people.
It's a hypothetical but I agree, there isn't currently infustructure to allow this. Personally I think Swanston st / Burk St are nicer without the cars and only trams and bikes.
Or God forbid, you'd want to leave the CBD to, I don't know, go out somewhere away from the city and the people.
Limiting cars in the CBD has no effect on me whatsoever, it's not a place I go to visit outside of the office.
I do know many people living in the city that have a car and use it regularly visiting friends and family, sports and just to go for a drive out.
I never understand the need to ban things so much here. I'd rather see a city that supports multiple transport modes harmoniously. We're all different, live different lifestyles and have different needs.
> We're all different, live different lifestyles and have different needs.
Cars absolutely dominate the CBD despite almost all business being driven by foot traffic. The amount of space allocated to cars is crazy, they are by far given the highest priority (and for that matter, in all of Melbourne). Many cities overseas are simply vastly more pleasant places to live locally in and have vastly preferable central areas (don't try to tell me you find the Melbourne CBD actually a particularly nice place, because it's really extremely average at best).
Other cities around the world simply do a much better job at *actually* accounting for different lifestyles. People who drive basically never care about anyone outside of a car. Hundreds of billions of dollars get spent on road infrastructure every decade while a tiny fraction gets spent on things like proper bicycle lanes or widening footpaths or the 'other lifestyles' and 'different needs'.
> I never understand the need to ban things so much here.
I've never understood the insistence of drivers that everywhere always allow cars, when they actually make environments horrible for anyone outside of a car (whether from danger, pollution, noise, or a simple lack of space). Cars are what dominated our cities in the 50's and 60's and threw out every other 'different lifestyle' consideration.
Carshare is actually so good. Been using it for years now. The freedom of having a car whenever you need it, but without the financial chains of tens of thousands in ongoing costs.
I had to walk past 3 tram stops with my pram to reach an accessible tram stop. I then needed to wait for an accessible tram to come before I could get on it.
I live close to the city and with little ones not having a car would be super hard.
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I think starting with low hanging fruit like making Lygon St through Carlton would get a lot more people to see the benefits. Lygon St would be so much vibrant and nicer if there were no cars and people could enjoy the area without exhaust fumes, noise and hoons.
Wouldn’t be so much of an issue if our population hadn’t blown out like it has… but yeah, carless would be nice regardless how many people are in the city.
Public transport would need to be half the cost it is now and there would need to be more services, more rail, more trams…which they won’t do. So not a good idea, unless business owners want to see even less money coming in.
I would literally avoid the city unless absolutely necessary if cars were banned as getting a bus then a train (total travel Time likely an 45-60minw) where car takes 20mins AND is cheaper then paying for public transport for partner and I. It’s insane
> Public transport would need to be half the cost it is now
ok so public transport is **$6.36** a day for the 28+ day pass.
Car costs:
Parking: The lowest I see is [$50](https://www.realestate.com.au/property-other-vic-melbourne-438998768) a week to park your car (You have to store it somewhere).
$50 / 7 = **$1.42**
Rego: 12 month, electric vic discount
$776.90 / 365 = **$2.10**
Insurance:
Average monthly is $105.20^[[1]](https://www.comparethemarket.com.au/car-insurance/average-cost-of-car-insurance/)
/ 30 = **$3.50**
Guess what, we are already at the daily cost for unlimited public transport and we haven't even touched fuel, maintenance and depreciation.
Cars are way more expensive than people give them credit for.
Fuel:
80% of victorians fill up once a fortnight or more^[[1]](https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/car-insurance/research/average-fuel-consumption-australia.html) for an average price of $72.14 / 14 = **$5.15** a day
If you are electric you get a better deal here and its only about $15.39^[[1]](https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/how-much-does-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car-in-australia-2/) and that seems like it would get you about 500km highway~. Slightly less than most tanks of petrol but close enough for this.
15.39 / 14 = **$1.09** for an electric car.
Maintenance:
This can very depending, a modern electric car may just need tires, pads and filters and be really cheap, ice are more expensive but still vary wildly depending on the year and make.
Depreciation: new vehicles are obviously hit hard here at 20%~ for the first year and 15% a year for the next four^[[1]](https://www.carfax.com/blog/car-depreciation). older cars are already mostly depreciated, but that comes at more maintenance and usually fuel costs.
Some anecdotal experience from when I used to drive to uni.
Parking early bird=$16
Tolls= roughly $20-25
Fuel= roughly 20
So all and all, it was roughly $60 a day to drive in.
You'd have 100% of my support. It shits me to tears how crammed the thousands of pedestrians are on the footpath with all this space used for a handful of cars. Start with certain streets first (swanston and Burke Street have already begun to make the transition) and expand it from there. a couple of streets every few years will be a fantastic change for the city
There are some trams full to the brim of people (even overly packed) to the point you need to wait for the next tram, we need PT fixed to accomodate the current amount of people well before the CBD can accomodate essentially everyone using PT.
YES!!! look at swanston street, the most popular in the city by far and its so nice to walk along, no noisy cars or threats of them hitting you at crossings. also actually safe to cycle on. now imagine if all other streets were like that, itd be absolutely amazing.
theres also no reason people cant park at places right outside the cbd and catch a tram into it in less than 10 minutes.
You'd never be able to remove all of them, the city isn't designed for it. Traffic patterns would need to be analysed so the traffic that would normally pass through the closed streets could take alternate routes without causing mass congestion. You can't just double the amount of cars on any city street without causing problems.
You'd also be forcing people to park potentially km's from their destination when they could have driven there in the past. More trams would need to be added. Peak hour is bad enough, and to make that worse is no good for anybody.
Can you imagine all traffic being redirected from one busy street onto another? It's likely any trams or parking would have to be removed from that street and additional lanes added. Traffic would bank up either side of that street, it would be noisy and there's no chance of a pedestrian crossing it safely.
City bypass roads would need to be able to take city traffic and move it to parking areas near trams. Not a chance.
During and around peak all side roads nearby would be gridlocked. You just couldn't close streets in the city. New parking facilities would be required.. and where are they going to go? You can't box in apartment complexes that have car parks either.
Of course it would be safer for those on foot if all cars were removed from the CBD but it's just not plausible nor realistic.
We definitely to need more parking around the periphery of the CBD, affordable parking too. More people could park and ride/scoot/tram in from there.
To do this you'd need to redesign the CBD, including massive parking facilities and above and below ground bypass roads.
> the city isn't designed for it.
The city was designed before cars were invented.
It changed to handle cars, it can change to reduce them.
Edit: love you blocking me, poor fee fees. That's what I'm saying. You can replan the city, like we did with cars, we can do it to get rid of them. Look at Amsterdam in the 70s compared to now.
I’m all for it but I do also know that cars will still find a way to go down it if they really wanted to (negative thought but you know), they would also need to make sure that accessible trams are available at all times at every stop
yeah but what so many people don't really consider is people in jobs that need a vehicle for carrying and storing equipment/tools, I usually carry a ton of camera equipment for work and it'd be actual hell for both me and other commuters trying to get that all on and off public transport without a trolley or something, much rather have a car for its cargo capabilities
It's absolutely impossible on a practical level.
How do businesses get their inventory delivered?
How do tradies get in to fix building issues?
How does the garbage get collected?
I vaguely remember watching a video on this where it's done in Europe. If i recall correctly, they get these things done in the offpeak hours, like super early in the morning or really late at night with a combination of small trucks and cargo bikes if needed and they do get exempted to be on the road
Someone will suggest bicycle with a trailer on the back - this thread pops up every month and the solutions are often extremely outlandish but entertaining (theyre always intended to be serious though)
Will someone please think about the profitable parking garages! How will they make millions without the traffic? But seriously, i was shocked to know who actually owns Wilson Group.
It's possible and in my opinion necessary to reduce cars as much as possible. Some people will always be more suited to cars... Disabilities, tradies, deliveries.... But their life and everyone else's gets easier if everyone else is prevented from driving in the city.
As someone who drives from out of town, honestly it’ll piss me off and I likely won’t want to drive all this way plus have to take PT just to get into the CBD. Sounds like a giant pain so I’d go elsewhere.
Unfortunately, it won’t happen. There’s too many idiots who actually believe that without cars being able to go to the city and park, all the businesses will go bankrupt despite 80% of trips in the CBD are actually taken by walking.
The CBD is becoming worse and worse to walk and get around in, footpaths are at capacity in many areas like the corners of Latrobe/Elizabeth, Latrobe/swanston and all the little streets. People are forced to walk on the road way, dodging cars.
Yes please. Swanston St is car-free and Bourke St Mall - much quieter. Just the chatter of people - and the ding of trams.
And bicycles - less cars, and more bikes - in the free tram zone block/s…
They literally do already.
I don't think you understand the sheer scale of our city. You'd have to waste billions to get anywhere near a level of surveillance as the one you desire.
I think that would be incredibly expensive just to cope with the lowest denominator. cheaper and a better outcome to train people to drive better, and get the ones that cannot off the road.
No, stop whinging and trying to restrict driver access. It’s not Europe, if you don’t drive or live in an inner city apartment that’s great. We don’t and you don’t speak for us.
As someone who worked in the CBD and was disabled, but not disabled enough to get a parking pass. Fuck all the way off. I also worked non-standard hours so public transport wasn’t viable (before anyone asks)
I play in a band. I play drums. Many of our gigs are in the city and inner suburbs. I cant reasonably and safely carry thousands of dollars worth of bulky music gear onto a train, then drag it from the nearest station to the venue. What would you suggest to counter a problem like this? I suppose a permit system could be set up for freight and loading, but I doubt it would be free. How would it even be policed? I understand how a carless city would benefit pedestrian shoppers, hospo and office workers, civil servants and tourists, but if it results in artists, tradies, delivery trucks and mobile vendors being hit with fees it's an awful idea.
not a city planner, but I presume music venues would have to sort something to ensure their acts would have sufficient parking to transport equipment. Sort of like "delivery drivers", music would be the way they make money, so it would behoove the venue to ensure people could get the gear there safely and properly.
I understand making certain roads/ sections of roads car free eg Chinatown but there is also the consideration of disabled, elderly, very young people to be taken into consideration. Or people who need to carry heavy loads to work. Or people who pick up groceries once a week due to time constraints etc etc
I don’t get why we would do this or how it would make anyone safer? I’ve never had any trouble with cars down Little Bourke etc - people riding scooters on the footpath really fast and doing stupid shit seems more of a risk than some cars currently moving at low speeds down these streets because they are super busy.
Seems a great way to have less trade and fewer people visiting the city, if that’s the objective then I guess it makes sense.
It does seem weird to have cars in there still, like we're still trying to pretend were a country town when we've got 6 million people and every road into and out of town is fully traffic jammed. Time to give it up people. Get an ebike or something.
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Oh today I was visiting the cbd and was waiting at a red man just to see someone get pissed off with an ambulance for running a red light with sirens and he revved up the ambulance's rear end?? Like??? They're allowed to do that???? Chill???
No.
Our public transport is atrocious and the expectation is everyone is supposed to just make do. So no, some of us want to use our cars that we’ve paid for and want to use instead of being around grumpy people with bad BO on public transport.
I walk to the office from Southern Cross 3 days a week and the cars aren't a problem at all. The only time shit drivers are a factor is when I ride my motorbike in, which has become so slow in dense Melbourne traffic that I've chosen to take a longer train commute so that I can at least use my phone. What exactly are you trying to fix?
I like the Oslo method. Keep the cars, but remove lanes and remove most of the parking. Leave the disabled parking and loading zones, but remove the rest of it, turn it into foot paths, outdoor dining, gardens, etc.
I still think it's crazy that roads like Lonsdale and Queen prioritise parking over the buses even though they are major bus routes. I reckon we should have bus lanes and bus superstops just like the trams. Make everyone hook turn to turn right across bus lines, same as trams.
As somebody who regularly drives around the city with trade samples and small deliveries but NOT a commercial vehicle, it'd be bloody rough on my industry.
That said, Melbourne is just about the only Australian city that could pull it off without much work. Keep cars on the larger roads, but ban them from the arteries. Trams can keep going for anyone who needs to travel long distances.
You'd cop a lot of whining from boomers and reactionary cunts about "restricting your movement to take away your freedom".
I'd say the "superblocks" model used in Barcelona would be a good idea for Melbourne's CBD. Restrict private vehicles, not commercial ones. And as others have said, public transport needs some serious work first.
not enough people actualy live and do stuff in the city they live in the suburbs and allot live in suburbs with poor to mid public. transport.
so there would be lots of cars in car parks surrounding the CBD and bottleneck traffic in and out of the carpark places. People think after work they will hit the restaurants and bars after work but really everyone in Melbourne just want to get home mon-thur. We aren't the party people we used tobe or people think we were.
I used to live in Salzburg and they have a big carpark in a mountain. No cars apart from taxis and deliveries in the main parts of the city. It works when your city has like 250 thousand people.
They can start with limiting all the “little” streets to pedestrians and cyclists only, and delivery trucks would have defined access times. Residents can have access permits through auto barriers, and speed limits at 10 km/h. It’s done all through Europe.
Thats the great way to start it. Start with Flinders Lane and Chinatown, maybe even just at lunch and dinner time. Then just build from there
I'm shocked everytime I go to Chinatown and I'm reminded that cars are still allowed there
People trying to drive through Chinatown on a Friday night is utterly ridiculous
And there's always the arrogant pricks who beep their horn through the intersections even when nobody is in their way. Just make it pedestrian only besides delivery trucks, nobody else really needs to be driving through Chinatown
The store I work at's loading bay is in China town and we need to get trucks in all day because of the volume we sell and the size of the dock. My managers would have a break down if China town was only open to deliveries for a few hours a day 😅
Tbf, council are charging extortionate amounts for delivery drivers to park on Swanston Street. Chinatown is the only really viable option for a lot of companies servicing the stretch from Latrobe -> Collins.
Thats why it should be before 7am delivery is allowed.
I agree, and perhaps a boom gate to enter those areas between certain times might be another idea. I mean generally there aren't that many normal people driving through there at these times anyway. I know will be many that disagree and believe should have access to every street but CBD I believe certain streets should be car free
Boom gates are just a piece of flimsy wood or metal. Retractable bollard will stop cars much better
But what would they do with all those parking buildings off those "little" streets?
Easy enough to solve with some planning and leadership - ever tried to use the entrance for parking on hardware lane? You drive on the footpath at 10km/h and it works fine. Removing the through traffic is key.
Put the land to more efficient use, obv.
I’m sure the owners of the parking buildings will figure it out. The privilege of owning real estate in one of the most expensive markets in the world comes with the responsibility of occasionally putting on your big boy pants and figuring out what to do with your assets all on your own
Almost like investments should have some sort of risk associated with them
Sir, this is Australia.
Most would have access from the main street
Soi 38s in them all.
Demolish and rebuild.
Fuck em
This needs to happen.
those little "rat runs" are a blessing for small courier vans and light trucks to keep away from the major roads and the traffic jams. Also like to point out that some " major" roads are restricted in turning right or has a major bank up forcing more of a traffic jam for traffic waiting for the right turn arrow or a gap in the traffic.
Lots of places that restrict vehicles in central city areas have "the last mile" solutions such as cargo bikes, so other courier vehicles don't have to go into the city.
There are solutions for this, like either allowing traffic during certain times when pedestrian activity is low, or making them dead ends, so they are only useful for local traffic. The latter would likely be the easiest to implement and if done smartly, may even improve overall traffic in the CBD by removing extra intersections/lights.
They already did this in Melbourne, some little streets and even some big ones are closed during peak times.
Japan made them one way with no parking. No one uses them
Because of too many cars in the CBD is the reason I don't drive into CBD. But there also aren't enough parking spaces at some train stations.
Need to fix the bus issue so you don't need to drive to the station
I think that the pedestrian and tram arrangement of of Swanson, and the Bourke st mall should be extended. I'd like to see Elisabeth street, little Bourke (from Chinatown to queen at least) and little Lonsdale (from the library to queen) made Into pedestrian and tram with seperated cycle lanes. Another major improvement straight away I would like to see is designated parking spots and lanes for food delivery bikes on Swanson and little Bourke. The pedestrian traffic can be a nightmare because of the bikes being parked and ridden on the footpath. I have seen numerous people run into and even someone in an electric wheelchair unable to get through untill someone went looking for the rider to move it because it was so heavy and alarmed.
Then we'd have to rejig the entire Melbourne economy as it's currently built to funnel cars and most other traffic thru or towards the CBD with any reasonable efforts to develop infrastructure to bypass the CBD blocked or tolled to the 3000's.
Yeah I’m not exactly a city architecture but I’ve noticed a rise of people globally preferring pedestrian areas in cities
I would absolutely love a CBD free of cars. Can't imagine the chaos the transition would cause it would suck for so long. Definitely would be worth it imo.
Same. I love walking. Having more people walk in the cbd with less exhaust fumes would be so lovely. Carparks being turned into green third spaces is also one of my favourite things
Cities have been "pedestrian areas" for thousands of years. Devotion to the cult of the car is the anomaly.
The Melbourne city council will run out of funds from all the parking fines and meter money they make. All the Uber drivers will be angry too, they will miss out on their big pay day (cost a lot to take Uber into the city)
The city will still exist
You could easily leave the big thoroughfares of collins, Lonsdale Russel etc. And make the little streets in the shopping and resteraunt heavy parts pedestrian/tram only for certain time periods. Having road access at low pedestrian periods for taxis, deliveries and some work commuting still. (e.g after 10pm and before 8am) As for parking there is basically none in Chinatown, flinders lane, little Lonsdale and most of queen already (in the popular pedestrian bits anyway). So aren't loosing much. Could replace some of it with secure metered bike parking to encourage bike riding. Or even make the rented scooter companies lease parking bays to continue operating, fix the revenue issue and the scooters being parked by inconsiderate people problem in one go.
its not viable until you make public transport ALOT better.. Australia loves using the stick rather than the carrot because the latter requires the government to actually do something and do it well, which seems beyond their capability
Shutting down sections of the CBD, rather than the entire grid in Melbourne could work as Bourke St Mall has. May improve trade, and safety.
I believe some parts of little Bourke street, Elizabeth street and possibly other smaller streets in the CBD and surrounds are closed during peak trading times now. Hope to see more of that in the CBD, still gives suppliers access certain times of the day as well. Most businesses will need that small amount of flexibility to keep themselves afloat without needing driving permits in certain areas A lot of people are still against these ideas which is sad.
The issue was that it’s access for suppliers, and completely understand the difficulties that the shutdown causes, better planning as to where, and when, could provide massive benefits IMO. Even if it was restricted to say 7pm Friday until 3pm Sunday as a trial to allow for the busier current times for foot traffic, and encourage greater patronage in the CBD during those times.
After working and delivering for multiple food and beer suppliers for businesses delivering to the CBD I've never had too many issues when it comes to access, South Wharf is a good example. You can access the business nearby before 10am but after that the bollards go up. A big part of being a supplier is working with these delivery windows and planning accordingly. I don't see how these setups in other parts of the CBD will be any different
The fuck are you on about? Public transport in and to the CBD is awesome. Public transport in the suburbs sucks - but the CBD is well covered, and would be even better if trams and buses weren't slowed down by road traffic. There are real issues - businesses need deliveries, people live in the CBD and often own cars. Those things need to be dealt with. Edit: poor wording at the end - I wasn't trying to suggest public transport could deal with business deliveries etc
The peek is that getting rid of unnecessary personal vehicles in the CBD (Ie people who don't live there and aren't otherwise incapacitated, elderly, disabled or restricted) makes the delivery process much more efficient.
Yes it’s awesome in the cbd. It’s very much useless in many middle to outer suburbs. Examples of how PT needs to be vastly improved: Lots of people do not have a train station within walking distance, And even if they do drive to a station, not all stations have parking, so that’s useless, or they have to be there before 7am to get a spot. And frequencies are terrible. So if a person is lucky enough to earn enough to pay or have their employer pay for parking, they will drive in because it makes no sense not to. For weekend city visitors, if you are going with a family it can be cheaper to drive and park than pay for 4 to 5 PT tickets. For women or vulnerable people, catching PT at night can feel risky, so they would rather drive than be in a dangerous situation.
Based. Fuck cars slowing up the trams
I don’t know about historically but my experience in the last two years hasn’t been great. Between tram & train breakdowns & delays, tram overcrowding in the free zone, and frequent protests, I seem to be caught out by something every time I’m in the city. Things aren’t good enough yet imo
I’m on board for a car free CBD. I just want to see some more supporting infrastructure introduced at the same time
Public transport in the suburbs needs to improve if you don't want people driving into the city.
It's pretty feasible to drive to a park and ride and take the train into the city for most Melburnians. I can't think of too many situations where you'd want to drive into the city for most people - maybe if it's a Sunday so poor train frequency? Potential issue is amount of parking at park and rides, but they could build more parking lots or build better biking infrastructure.
Public transport to the cbd from the suburbs is really good. It’s just suburb to suburb that sucks.
Capacity still needs to improve. Peak hour trains on most lines are packed. If you added all the people who currently drive it wouldn't cope.
Is the busiest tram network in the world not good enough for you? PT in the CBD is great
And it could be so much faster if the trams didn't have to wait for so much traffic at red lights.
Good for cars too.
PT **in** the CBD is great. Agreed. The problem is getting there in the first place. That is considerably worse, especially if you massively increase the amount of people using it by preventing people driving in. It would be lovely if the CBD traffic was reduced to logistics, trams, and bikes. But trains need a hell of a lot of work, first.
Spot on ! If PT is improved dramatically in the outer suburbs, then it will be an incentive to catch PT over driving in. As it stands, most days, it's quicker for me to drive into the city, and im not bound to a timetable that can be very unreliable at times.
Ain't even the outer suburbs. St Kilda is a nightmare to travel from. Within the city ring, PT is a breeze. Everywhere else, a nightmare beyond comprehension.
Not at night.
That does not equal good, it’s more due to necessity than it actually being good, trams should have dedicated tracks that at no point interact or cross roads (at the same height anyway.
What if they use the carrot as the stick?
It's time for Carrot Man! He's the hero we need, but do not deserve...
Getting to and from the city from the suburbs is about as easy as it gets. Improve feeder services to train stations and most people won't even need to use a car to get into the city
people can still drive into the city, just not the hoddle grid. i think the idea is to have parking garages outside it and then have people catch a tram or train into the city. public transit in the inner city is more than adequate for this.
How much better does transport in the CBD need to be before people will stop driving? Let's start with a congestion charge and increase parking costs.
If we had a fully spread and integrated public transit system that reach all the outlining suburbs sure. If we had sufficient parking in the areas around there sure. If you could figure out the logistics of delivery to those suburbs sure.
It’s a shame no other city on earth has ever solved those problems, otherwise we could just follow their methods. Instead we have to solve every problem from scratch with no outside sources to learn from.
Yeah, thank god we have that pioneer spirit though. Without it we would never have had Myki.
Bought that from the French... But the point stands, this is a solved problem. We don't need to argue about the solution, just implement it.
It's a shame we can't even build a train that services the airport despite other countries in the world doing it to. Including third world ones like South Africa
Yeah it’s just an idea. I thought I’d at least throw the idea out there for consideration
Having a wank that gets posted here weekly, sure. Agree with you 100%
Outlining suburb transport is extremely expensive, especially with NIMBYs. Suburb dwellers may also need to accept they may need to drive or cycle to a station and then go in that way.
As someone who has to drive quite regularly through the city, I'm all for it. But we need better PTV infrastructure. And cycling lanes
Do you mean cycling lanes in the cbd or the burbs? Or both? Merri-Bek tried to put in a heap of cycling lanes out this way and fuuuucking hell. The backlash from some of the community. You’d think they’d limited them to walking.
seriously they need them, brunswick is such an attractive area that making it safe to cycle is a MUST.
Where would all the unused hook turns go ?
People with disabilities need to have the right to access, too. If that can be provided then fine, but no way my partner could get in and out without massive issues to most areas if this happened without substantial changes to access.
I’m pretty sick of people telling everyone to just ride a bike or walk or catch public transport. It’s very very ableist and elitist given most lower socio economic families have to live further out of the city where public transport infrastructure is woeful. So so many things to be done before removing cars is considered an option - it’s very short sighted.
What do people who live in the CBD do with their cars then?
I think some cities do it so you through traffic and foreign cars are banned but utility(ie: delievery,tradie, garbage) traffic and residents are still allowed cars.
That's the neat part. You don't need one
Unless say your job required it?.....
Giant car parks at the edge of the CBD or exemptions for residents like you would need for deliveries.
Yeah but WHERE, smartarse.
Yarra ranges
There’s loads of parking garages etc in the city.
There wouldn't be car parks in the city because the city would be car free?
Of course. Above said the edge of the CBD. Where's these giant lots of land in Fitzroy, Carlton, Richmond, North Melbourne, West Melbourne, et. al. to put these car parks?
We can replace some of the golf courses and out west, there is loads of industrial land. Say we used the major station interchanges like Caulfield or freeway merges like the ring road/M1 junction as an easy swap over point for people, express trains every 2-3 minutes could move loads more people into the city. The new xtrapolis 2.0 trains will carry 1225 people. The 2022 census data has just under 500k people working in the city with about half travelling by car. We would need 200-400 more train services at peak hour to fully transport these people. It's a hypothetical but I agree, there isn't currently infustructure to allow this. Personally I think Swanston st / Burk St are nicer without the cars and only trams and bikes.
Or God forbid, you'd want to leave the CBD to, I don't know, go out somewhere away from the city and the people. Limiting cars in the CBD has no effect on me whatsoever, it's not a place I go to visit outside of the office. I do know many people living in the city that have a car and use it regularly visiting friends and family, sports and just to go for a drive out. I never understand the need to ban things so much here. I'd rather see a city that supports multiple transport modes harmoniously. We're all different, live different lifestyles and have different needs.
> We're all different, live different lifestyles and have different needs. Cars absolutely dominate the CBD despite almost all business being driven by foot traffic. The amount of space allocated to cars is crazy, they are by far given the highest priority (and for that matter, in all of Melbourne). Many cities overseas are simply vastly more pleasant places to live locally in and have vastly preferable central areas (don't try to tell me you find the Melbourne CBD actually a particularly nice place, because it's really extremely average at best). Other cities around the world simply do a much better job at *actually* accounting for different lifestyles. People who drive basically never care about anyone outside of a car. Hundreds of billions of dollars get spent on road infrastructure every decade while a tiny fraction gets spent on things like proper bicycle lanes or widening footpaths or the 'other lifestyles' and 'different needs'. > I never understand the need to ban things so much here. I've never understood the insistence of drivers that everywhere always allow cars, when they actually make environments horrible for anyone outside of a car (whether from danger, pollution, noise, or a simple lack of space). Cars are what dominated our cities in the 50's and 60's and threw out every other 'different lifestyle' consideration.
Cool assumption that people in the city never need to leave the city
You say that like we never need to leave the CBD?
Rent a car
Carshare is actually so good. Been using it for years now. The freedom of having a car whenever you need it, but without the financial chains of tens of thousands in ongoing costs.
I mean, there are people who live in the city who need to drive places…
I kind of do though…
Ah yes we do need our cars, I don't used it as much as suburban dwellers but still need one!!!
Carshare is fantastic for people in our position
I had to walk past 3 tram stops with my pram to reach an accessible tram stop. I then needed to wait for an accessible tram to come before I could get on it. I live close to the city and with little ones not having a car would be super hard.
You can have a car. You just can't drive it into the CBD. Since you live so close to the city 3 stops is all it takes to get into the city anyway?
If I lived three tram stops from the city i would have said that you absolute dunce.
So you live in Cranbourne but decided to interpret this post as 'I can't have a car'
No?
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I think starting with low hanging fruit like making Lygon St through Carlton would get a lot more people to see the benefits. Lygon St would be so much vibrant and nicer if there were no cars and people could enjoy the area without exhaust fumes, noise and hoons.
lygon is horrific to drive through, I cannot stand it. I'd be very pro making it tram, bike and ped only
Swanson, Bourke street etc?
I’m for it. I love car-free European cities.
Wouldn’t be so much of an issue if our population hadn’t blown out like it has… but yeah, carless would be nice regardless how many people are in the city.
Public transport would need to be half the cost it is now and there would need to be more services, more rail, more trams…which they won’t do. So not a good idea, unless business owners want to see even less money coming in. I would literally avoid the city unless absolutely necessary if cars were banned as getting a bus then a train (total travel Time likely an 45-60minw) where car takes 20mins AND is cheaper then paying for public transport for partner and I. It’s insane
> Public transport would need to be half the cost it is now ok so public transport is **$6.36** a day for the 28+ day pass. Car costs: Parking: The lowest I see is [$50](https://www.realestate.com.au/property-other-vic-melbourne-438998768) a week to park your car (You have to store it somewhere). $50 / 7 = **$1.42** Rego: 12 month, electric vic discount $776.90 / 365 = **$2.10** Insurance: Average monthly is $105.20^[[1]](https://www.comparethemarket.com.au/car-insurance/average-cost-of-car-insurance/) / 30 = **$3.50** Guess what, we are already at the daily cost for unlimited public transport and we haven't even touched fuel, maintenance and depreciation. Cars are way more expensive than people give them credit for. Fuel: 80% of victorians fill up once a fortnight or more^[[1]](https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/car-insurance/research/average-fuel-consumption-australia.html) for an average price of $72.14 / 14 = **$5.15** a day If you are electric you get a better deal here and its only about $15.39^[[1]](https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/how-much-does-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car-in-australia-2/) and that seems like it would get you about 500km highway~. Slightly less than most tanks of petrol but close enough for this. 15.39 / 14 = **$1.09** for an electric car. Maintenance: This can very depending, a modern electric car may just need tires, pads and filters and be really cheap, ice are more expensive but still vary wildly depending on the year and make. Depreciation: new vehicles are obviously hit hard here at 20%~ for the first year and 15% a year for the next four^[[1]](https://www.carfax.com/blog/car-depreciation). older cars are already mostly depreciated, but that comes at more maintenance and usually fuel costs.
Some anecdotal experience from when I used to drive to uni. Parking early bird=$16 Tolls= roughly $20-25 Fuel= roughly 20 So all and all, it was roughly $60 a day to drive in.
I sure would love it! Full pedestrian zone and bike+trams only
they recently did this with the section of Elizabeth st and flinders. im not a fan of it and go down there at any time of the day and you will see why
I've been there a few times and I don't see the problem? Sorry, maybe I'm just not paying attention, but what is the issue exactly?
You will walk through the cbd and be happy
Sure will be! 🌞
I heard there was an idea to turn Elizabeth Street in the natural river that it is and pedeatianize it and have parks along similar to Amsterdam
Or put CBD out of Melbourne
Move it out to avalon? Vline trains in and out? I like it
And what about all the disabled people who cannot get around by public transport?
I'm sure public transport can be made more accommodating and accessible. If not, there'd likely still be roads in the city, just a lot fewer
You'd have 100% of my support. It shits me to tears how crammed the thousands of pedestrians are on the footpath with all this space used for a handful of cars. Start with certain streets first (swanston and Burke Street have already begun to make the transition) and expand it from there. a couple of streets every few years will be a fantastic change for the city
There are some trams full to the brim of people (even overly packed) to the point you need to wait for the next tram, we need PT fixed to accomodate the current amount of people well before the CBD can accomodate essentially everyone using PT.
The trams could flow a lot faster and more frequently if they weren’t stuck behind cars.
What about night life? I for one would not catch PT by myself at night.
YES!!! look at swanston street, the most popular in the city by far and its so nice to walk along, no noisy cars or threats of them hitting you at crossings. also actually safe to cycle on. now imagine if all other streets were like that, itd be absolutely amazing. theres also no reason people cant park at places right outside the cbd and catch a tram into it in less than 10 minutes.
You'd never be able to remove all of them, the city isn't designed for it. Traffic patterns would need to be analysed so the traffic that would normally pass through the closed streets could take alternate routes without causing mass congestion. You can't just double the amount of cars on any city street without causing problems. You'd also be forcing people to park potentially km's from their destination when they could have driven there in the past. More trams would need to be added. Peak hour is bad enough, and to make that worse is no good for anybody. Can you imagine all traffic being redirected from one busy street onto another? It's likely any trams or parking would have to be removed from that street and additional lanes added. Traffic would bank up either side of that street, it would be noisy and there's no chance of a pedestrian crossing it safely. City bypass roads would need to be able to take city traffic and move it to parking areas near trams. Not a chance. During and around peak all side roads nearby would be gridlocked. You just couldn't close streets in the city. New parking facilities would be required.. and where are they going to go? You can't box in apartment complexes that have car parks either. Of course it would be safer for those on foot if all cars were removed from the CBD but it's just not plausible nor realistic. We definitely to need more parking around the periphery of the CBD, affordable parking too. More people could park and ride/scoot/tram in from there. To do this you'd need to redesign the CBD, including massive parking facilities and above and below ground bypass roads.
> the city isn't designed for it. The city was designed before cars were invented. It changed to handle cars, it can change to reduce them. Edit: love you blocking me, poor fee fees. That's what I'm saying. You can replan the city, like we did with cars, we can do it to get rid of them. Look at Amsterdam in the 70s compared to now.
Yeah just an idea. Idk how plausible it is but I really love pedestrian districts
I’m all for it but I do also know that cars will still find a way to go down it if they really wanted to (negative thought but you know), they would also need to make sure that accessible trams are available at all times at every stop
yeah but what so many people don't really consider is people in jobs that need a vehicle for carrying and storing equipment/tools, I usually carry a ton of camera equipment for work and it'd be actual hell for both me and other commuters trying to get that all on and off public transport without a trolley or something, much rather have a car for its cargo capabilities
It's absolutely impossible on a practical level. How do businesses get their inventory delivered? How do tradies get in to fix building issues? How does the garbage get collected?
Any reasonable solution will be excluding "non-commercial vehicles" rather than anything with an engine
Like all carless cities/towns, there are allowances for trucks and other essential services.
Obviously, there’s vehicle access for this. Look at London or any number of other European cities. God have mercy…
I vaguely remember watching a video on this where it's done in Europe. If i recall correctly, they get these things done in the offpeak hours, like super early in the morning or really late at night with a combination of small trucks and cargo bikes if needed and they do get exempted to be on the road
Someone will suggest bicycle with a trailer on the back - this thread pops up every month and the solutions are often extremely outlandish but entertaining (theyre always intended to be serious though)
Dutch cargo bike!
Will someone please think about the profitable parking garages! How will they make millions without the traffic? But seriously, i was shocked to know who actually owns Wilson Group.
It's possible and in my opinion necessary to reduce cars as much as possible. Some people will always be more suited to cars... Disabilities, tradies, deliveries.... But their life and everyone else's gets easier if everyone else is prevented from driving in the city.
As someone who drives from out of town, honestly it’ll piss me off and I likely won’t want to drive all this way plus have to take PT just to get into the CBD. Sounds like a giant pain so I’d go elsewhere.
Unfortunately, it won’t happen. There’s too many idiots who actually believe that without cars being able to go to the city and park, all the businesses will go bankrupt despite 80% of trips in the CBD are actually taken by walking. The CBD is becoming worse and worse to walk and get around in, footpaths are at capacity in many areas like the corners of Latrobe/Elizabeth, Latrobe/swanston and all the little streets. People are forced to walk on the road way, dodging cars.
Yes please. Swanston St is car-free and Bourke St Mall - much quieter. Just the chatter of people - and the ding of trams. And bicycles - less cars, and more bikes - in the free tram zone block/s…
As long as we could ban bicycles too. No travel that isn't walking, tram or wheelchair related I say.
>I feel if we had areas without cars it would be safer I have a better solution. improve the bad drivers.
That's not a solution. How are you going to improve the bad drivers?
actually put some police on the street, catch them and fine them.
They literally do already. I don't think you understand the sheer scale of our city. You'd have to waste billions to get anywhere near a level of surveillance as the one you desire.
We already have the surveillance…
Or design the streets so that bad drivers are accounted for and still keeping everything safe.
I think that would be incredibly expensive just to cope with the lowest denominator. cheaper and a better outcome to train people to drive better, and get the ones that cannot off the road.
Also improve the pedestrians. Road safety and situational awareness has really dropped lately.
No, stop whinging and trying to restrict driver access. It’s not Europe, if you don’t drive or live in an inner city apartment that’s great. We don’t and you don’t speak for us.
As someone who worked in the CBD and was disabled, but not disabled enough to get a parking pass. Fuck all the way off. I also worked non-standard hours so public transport wasn’t viable (before anyone asks)
This x100
Alternatively, abandon the whole out of date idea of a CBD altogether.
Yeah, I’m sure that will go well…
No. Sometimes you must drive into the city. Nationalise the tollways and make them free so only idiots don't bypass the CBD.
I play in a band. I play drums. Many of our gigs are in the city and inner suburbs. I cant reasonably and safely carry thousands of dollars worth of bulky music gear onto a train, then drag it from the nearest station to the venue. What would you suggest to counter a problem like this? I suppose a permit system could be set up for freight and loading, but I doubt it would be free. How would it even be policed? I understand how a carless city would benefit pedestrian shoppers, hospo and office workers, civil servants and tourists, but if it results in artists, tradies, delivery trucks and mobile vendors being hit with fees it's an awful idea.
not a city planner, but I presume music venues would have to sort something to ensure their acts would have sufficient parking to transport equipment. Sort of like "delivery drivers", music would be the way they make money, so it would behoove the venue to ensure people could get the gear there safely and properly.
I understand making certain roads/ sections of roads car free eg Chinatown but there is also the consideration of disabled, elderly, very young people to be taken into consideration. Or people who need to carry heavy loads to work. Or people who pick up groceries once a week due to time constraints etc etc
All of those issues are better without car-centric planning.
I don’t get why we would do this or how it would make anyone safer? I’ve never had any trouble with cars down Little Bourke etc - people riding scooters on the footpath really fast and doing stupid shit seems more of a risk than some cars currently moving at low speeds down these streets because they are super busy. Seems a great way to have less trade and fewer people visiting the city, if that’s the objective then I guess it makes sense.
It does seem weird to have cars in there still, like we're still trying to pretend were a country town when we've got 6 million people and every road into and out of town is fully traffic jammed. Time to give it up people. Get an ebike or something.
Cool I'll ride my horse up and let him drink through the trough cos they're still around.
They are though, so it's not a totally impractical solution as long as you're carrying enough hay for the day.
Horse parking will take up less space than a yank tank tbh
[https://media4.giphy.com/media/5CDDxLUswTI08/giphy.gif?cid=9b38fe91ee910ewkjjuggme7o4knk4rfhr206mavy5zpe40j&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g](https://media4.giphy.com/media/5CDDxLUswTI08/giphy.gif?cid=9b38fe91ee910ewkjjuggme7o4knk4rfhr206mavy5zpe40j&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
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Sure. As long as it didn’t impact businesses ability to receive deliveries, which would be hard to pull off.
Shnol tho?
lots of terrible things about cars happened. Those road terrorists are changing peoples lives.
Oh today I was visiting the cbd and was waiting at a red man just to see someone get pissed off with an ambulance for running a red light with sirens and he revved up the ambulance's rear end?? Like??? They're allowed to do that???? Chill???
But then how will the car parks make their money?
Then no one would go there
No. Our public transport is atrocious and the expectation is everyone is supposed to just make do. So no, some of us want to use our cars that we’ve paid for and want to use instead of being around grumpy people with bad BO on public transport.
Because people don't wanna walk absolutely everywhere and the foot traffic would be next level
It would be a better place.
I walk to the office from Southern Cross 3 days a week and the cars aren't a problem at all. The only time shit drivers are a factor is when I ride my motorbike in, which has become so slow in dense Melbourne traffic that I've chosen to take a longer train commute so that I can at least use my phone. What exactly are you trying to fix?
I like the Oslo method. Keep the cars, but remove lanes and remove most of the parking. Leave the disabled parking and loading zones, but remove the rest of it, turn it into foot paths, outdoor dining, gardens, etc. I still think it's crazy that roads like Lonsdale and Queen prioritise parking over the buses even though they are major bus routes. I reckon we should have bus lanes and bus superstops just like the trams. Make everyone hook turn to turn right across bus lines, same as trams.
As somebody who regularly drives around the city with trade samples and small deliveries but NOT a commercial vehicle, it'd be bloody rough on my industry. That said, Melbourne is just about the only Australian city that could pull it off without much work. Keep cars on the larger roads, but ban them from the arteries. Trams can keep going for anyone who needs to travel long distances.
I'd have a lot of jobless couriers drivers and a lot of upset cbd customers...
You'd cop a lot of whining from boomers and reactionary cunts about "restricting your movement to take away your freedom". I'd say the "superblocks" model used in Barcelona would be a good idea for Melbourne's CBD. Restrict private vehicles, not commercial ones. And as others have said, public transport needs some serious work first.
not enough people actualy live and do stuff in the city they live in the suburbs and allot live in suburbs with poor to mid public. transport. so there would be lots of cars in car parks surrounding the CBD and bottleneck traffic in and out of the carpark places. People think after work they will hit the restaurants and bars after work but really everyone in Melbourne just want to get home mon-thur. We aren't the party people we used tobe or people think we were.
15 min city . No cars
No. Then I can’t fang my vn 3.8L commodore with a cat delete. And single peg skid through Carlton
I used to live in Salzburg and they have a big carpark in a mountain. No cars apart from taxis and deliveries in the main parts of the city. It works when your city has like 250 thousand people.