My City

In one of my recent posts, I alluded to one way to alleviate the problem of the Mumbai style bottleneck at the end of the Eastern Freeway is by building a “North-South Link” between The Eastern and the Monash Freeways (even though the purpose of my suggestion was to ease congestion that will be created by the North-East Link on inner eastern suburbs roads).   The East-West Link that will surely eventually be built will no doubt help this bottleneck slightly by creating a free-flowing motorway. But how, for example, would the East-West Link alleviate the rat-running that takes place through the streets of Collingwood and surrounds during peak hour? Additionally, the East-West Link will be a Tollway which would still encourage drivers to exit at Hoddle Street.  Suburban sprawl was designed primarily for cars. Before suburbia there were no motor vehicles. Therefore, in a large span of suburbia like Melbourne, people will always drive, as they do in all Australian and America...

    Melbourne has a few things in common with Vancouver and Chicago. It has a large amount of waterfront close to the city centre thanks to its large bay. It is viewed as an attractive city and hence has had high population growth over the years. Chicago's population has shot up at various times and now stands at over eight million people. Melbourne’s population has grown rapidly and currently stands at around 5 million. Vancouver has grown by approximately 1.4 million residents since 1980 to around 2.6 million people today, almost double the population of that time. All three cities have universities that are ranked among the world’s top 50, hence, they attract talent. Over the years, Vancouver and Melbourne seem to alternate on their number one positions on The Economist’s rankings of the world’s most liveable cities and always seem to be in the top 10. Chicago often ranks among the top 50 ahead of cities like New York. All three cities are not afraid of heights and hence th...

The Western Distributor Project (currently under construction) - which will create an alternative and faster link between the West Gate Freeway and the CBD has the potential to dump a large number of vehicles onto Wurundjeri Way between the Marvel Stadium and the Southern Cross train station. To alleviate such traffic congestion and to take a large number of cars off city streets, I suggest a supersized car park facility to be built with its entrances on Wurundjeri Way right next to the Marvel Stadium. This facility would take many cars off the road heading into the CBD during the weekday mornings. But where could it be built? Perhaps we could learn a lesson from Manhattan’s Hudson Yards, the largest mixed-use private real estate venture in American history, built directly on top of a railyard. It is currently under construction and will soon be completed. The tallest of its sky-scrapers is 395 meters high, significantly taller than Melbourne’s impressive sky-scrapers. Hence, I sug...

Melbourne’s North-East Link (currently under construction) will take thousands of cars and trucks off local roads in the north-eastern suburb's per day (such as the infamous Rosanna Rd which often looks like a truck car park). But not all vehicles will be using this tollway to access the East Link tollway (as designed) and vice versa. Hence, the North-East Link will significantly increase traffic on local roads in the inner-eastern and eastern-suburbs, on top of increasing traffic on Hoddle St, close to the CBD. The more expensive, route option C (through Templestowe) would have been the best option for this link. It would have served the purpose of this motorway nicely, by sending freight vehicles across from areas like Dandenong to the Metropolitan Ring Road as well as onto the Hume Highway.   But perhaps the cheaper route that was chosen by the North East Link Authority - which runs directly south through Bulleen - has opened up other opportunities to better Melbourne's mo...

  With the Melbourne Metro Tunnel Project’s plans for Anzac Station to have three main entrances (One on the Shrine of Remembrance Reserve, another at the Albert Road Reserve and the other at the train/tram interchange on St Kilda Road) there is a real opportunity to do something special here for cyclists who commute to the city. How? I’m sure many cyclists commuting into the CBD find their ride to be enjoyable along the way but quite treacherous as soon as they enter the CBD. Well, here is a possible solution to that cycling stress.  A City Bicycle Park & Ride. There is a small car park in the median strip on Albert Rd between Albert Rd Reserve and Kings Way, right next to the future Anzac Station. I’m guessing its council land owned by the City of Port Phillip. What if the land was developed for the purpose of being a bicycle park & ride? Cyclists would park their bikes there during their morning commute to work and jump onto a train or tram for the final part of the...