A Centenary Review of Transport Planning in Canberra, Australia
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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. # 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 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). 0305-9006/$ – see front matter # 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2013.03.002 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. 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