A Centenary Review of Transport Planning in Canberra, Australia

Progress in Planning 87 (2014) 1–32

www.elsevier.com/locate/pplann

A centenary review of transport planning in Canberra, Australia

Paul Mees

School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia

Abstract

For the most important periods in its 100-year history, Canberra, Australia, has been planned around the car, with eliminating

trafﬁc congestion the number one planning goal. During the last decade, this vision of Canberra has been increasingly questioned,

with both Territory and Commonwealth planning bodies advocating a more ‘transit-oriented’ urban form. Trends in transport usage

rates and mode shares have not, however, followed the new planning directions: the car remains dominant, while public transport

usage rates remain much lower than those achieved in Canberra in past decades.

The 2013 centenary of Canberra offers an opportunity to review the development of one of the world’s few comprehensively

planned capital cities. This paper explores the reasons behind Canberra’s apparent ‘love affair’ with the car, and corresponding poor

public transport performance. It traces trends in policies and usage rates over the last half-century. In particular, it explores the

remarkable, but largely forgotten, transport turnaround that took place in Canberra between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s.

Transport policy changes introduced by a reformist federal government saw public transport usage rates double in a decade, while

car usage stopped growing.

For a time it appeared that the national capital was leading the way towards a transit-oriented future. Signiﬁcantly, the turnaround

was achieved without any substantial change to Canberra’s density and urban form. However, road-oriented planners reasserted

control and the gains of the mid-1970s to mid-1980s were lost. Also lost was memory of the transport policies that produced these

gains: the period was ‘written out’ of histories of Canberra’s planning.

The paper concludes by considering the extent to which transport policy and urban form have contributed to the changes in

transport performance in Canberra over the decades. It examines current government policies designed to create a less car-

dominated city in the light of these ﬁndings, concluding that present policies are based on a misunderstanding of the factors

contributing to the dominance of the car and public transport’s current poor performance. The story of how Canberra, a city

planned for the car, could change direction so rapidly is important for Australian and international cities seeking to shift

towards sustainable transport, because it suggests that urban form may not be an insuperable barrier to improved transport

outcomes.

Keywords: Australia Built form Canberra; Public transport; Transport policy; Urban density

Abbreviations: ACT, Australian Capital Territory; ACTION, ACT Internal Omnibus Network (Canberra bus system); ANU, Australian

National University; CATS, Canberra Area Transportation Study; CLUTS, Canberra Land Use and Transport Study; DURD, Department of Urban

and Regional Development; NCA, National Capital Authority; NCDC, National Capital Development Commission; URU, Urban Research Unit

(ANU).

2 P. Mees / Progress in Planning 87 (2014) 1–32

Contents

1. Introduction ...... 2

2. Two Canberras ...... 3

2.1. Canberra as a car city ...... 3

2.2. Canberra as a public transport city ...... 4

3. The car city ...... 5

3.1. Destroying Grifﬁn’s city in order to save it ...... 5

3.2. An essential and dominant consideration ...... 6

3.3. Building the car city: the NCDC’s ﬁrst transport plan...... 8

3.4. Balanced transport: the ﬁrst challenge to the car city ...... 9

3.5. The linear city and the Y Plan ...... 10

4. The transit city ...... 11

4.1. The Whitlam government and a new transport policy ...... 11

4.2. Beyond laissez-faire: the Canberra short term transport planning study ...... 13

4.3. Meanwhile, down at the depot ...... 14

5. Revenge of the road planners ...... 17

5.1. La Trahison des Clercs: Canberra’s planners suppress the transit city ...... 17

5.2. Distracted by density: the transit city buried and forgotten ...... 20

5.3. Towards a less sustainable Canberra? ...... 21

5.4. ACTION’s career goes bung ...... 22

6. Planning by forgetting ...... 24

6.1. A European city with an American transport system? ...... 24

6.2. Bellingham to the rescue...... 25

6.3. Applying the Bellingham model to Canberra ...... 27

6.4. A culture of forgetting?...... 28

7. Conclusion: and now for the good news ...... 29

Acknowledgements ...... 31

References ...... 31

1. Introduction Australian Capital Territory (ACT) in 1988, current

Canberra is largely the NCDC’s creation (Fig. 1).

The 2013 centenary of Canberra presents an The NCDC’s planning of Canberra is marked by

opportunity to review the development of one of the three distinct features. Firstly, the Commission was the

world’s few comprehensively planned capital cities. modernist planning agency par excellence, relying on

While the city’s early growth was strongly inﬂuenced the best ‘rational-comprehensive’ advice, particularly

by the 1912 plan of the American architect Walter transport modelling, from leading national and inter-

Burley Grifﬁn, the most critical period in the city’s national consultants. Secondly, the NCDC gave land-

development was the reign of the National Capital scape architects a major role in the design of Canberra’s

Development Commission (NCDC), from 1958 to neighbourhoods; extensive tree planting, combined

1988. Canberra was governed directly by Australia’s with the low-rise built form, has produced a ‘bush

national government until 1988, which granted the capital’ where ‘landscape is pre-eminent’ (Vernon,

NCDC, a national agency, unprecedented powers. 2006). Thirdly, the Commission adopted from its outset

Although it only covered three of Canberra’s 10 an uncompromising focus on creating a city which

decades, the NCDC’s period of control saw Canberra would never experience trafﬁc congestion, even where

grow from a town of 39,000 residents scattered across this meant sacriﬁcing other objectives in favour of the

Burley Grifﬁn’s expansive street network to a metro- no-congestion goal.

polis of 270,000 comprising the original town built on This last goal was so important that it guided the

Grifﬁn’s design, plus the ‘new towns’ of Woden, basic structure of the metropolis: the linear form of the

Belconnen and Tuggeranong, arranged in a linear Y-Plan was adopted not for aesthetic or symbolic

pattern according to what came to be known as the ‘Y reasons, as in many other planned cities, but to avoid

Plan’. Despite the granting of self-government to the trafﬁc congestion in the city centre. Similarly, Download English Version: https://daneshyari.com/en/article/1050861

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