Mayor Jaime Lerner was elected in the 70s and faced a proposal to demolish buildings on his main street to east traffic congestion. Instead he did the opposite, he turned the city’s main spine over to a pedestrian mall and busway. Most inspiring though is his problem solving approach to all the city’s problems - including their lack of funds. Jaime says “Creativity starts when you drop a zero from your budget”. He solved a flooding problem by creating a giant city park, then grazed sheep on it to save mowing costs. His bus network is self funding. The city’s poor were paid in food to clean their neighbourhoods. Here more from Jaime at below.

Hundreds of The Greens’ “No Road Tunnel” triangles made their way to Melbourne City Council’s Planning Committee meeting last night, in the hands of angry Kensington, North Melbourne, Carlton and Parkville residents. (Above: residents in the council chambers building foyer queuing to get into the meeting)

The Planning Committee met in the packed-out Yarra room at the council chambers building, after having moved from its initial location due to the size of the crowd, to consider the city’s response to Rod Eddington’s East-West Link Needs Assessment (EWLNA) report.

The outcome of the meeting was hard to predict: all councillors, apart from Greens Cr Fraser Brindley and Cr Brian Shanahan, had previously given their in-principle support to the East-West tunnel. But the 400-strong capacity crowd made it abundantly clear that they expected council to overturn its original support for the tunnel.

Disappointingly and unsurprisingly, the Lord Mayor did not attend the meeting.

After hearing from the council’s Manager of Strategic Planning and Sustainability, who presented a draft submission for council which included the recommendation that the city “support an East-West city tunnel bypass” and contained no mention of the blatant inconsistency between the city’s goals to tackle a global warming emergency and the tunnel’s disastrous environmental consequences, the meeting heard from city residents.

Kay Oddie, Julianne Bell (convenor of the Royal Park protection society), and members of the Kensington Association were among those who spoke against the draft submission and implored councillors to distance themselves from the EWLNA report’s recommended road tunnel and embrace alternative solutions to Melbourne’s transport woes, such as a decent investment in public transport.

As soon as the verbal submissions to the meeting had concluded, Greens Cr Fraser Brindley immediately moved that the committee recommend that the council abandon its support for the road tunnel, and he duly received the largest applause of the evening. After some discussion and alteration of the wording of the motion, and an abandonment of Cr Clarke’s foreshadowed motion to defer the decision for 5 weeks, the committee meeting eventually agreed to Cr Brindley’s motion.

Cr Brindley mentioned in closing that in his time as Melbourne City Councillor, he had never before seen quite so much community concern into council deliberations, and he praised the democratic process which saw the passionate arguments of Melbourne’s inner north communities essentially overturn the stances of four of the six present councillors.

Exactly what Lord Mayor John So makes of this outcome will be very interesting to see. An enthusiastic supporter of the tunnel, he will now have to cope with the political reality that three of his own alliance (Singer, Jetter and Wilson) have just voted to abandon their support for the road tunnel.

The motion will now go to a full council meeting for endorsement on June 24th. If at least five of the six councillors present at yesterday’s committee meeting maintain their stance, council will officially voice their opposition to the East-West road tunnel at that meeting, and the state government will have yet another political hurdle to overcome. Cr Brindley closed his remarks by encouraging residents to keep the pressure on the Lord Mayor and the state government.

Meanwhile, the Greens Lord Mayor Candidate for Melbourne for November’s elections, Adam Bandt, has pledged, if he wins, to stand in front of the first bulldozer in his mayoral robes and chains if the Brumby government insists on forging ahead with their plans to build the greenhouse gas polluting East-West tunnel.

Rohan Leppert 4/6/08 from Make Melbourne Green

The impacts that clearways have on congestion are not straightforward.  Clearways are often used to tackle congestion problems in inner areas where the latent demand for travel is likely to be strong. However, they may induce additional traffic movement, offsetting the short-term congestion alleviation benefits. An additional clearway may, therefore, not make a big difference to congestion, although it may be useful if driving on the additional traffic lanes has a higher social value than parking cars on them during peak hour.

The congestion-reduction benefits of clearways may diminish over time as traffic increases, whereas any residual effects on local traders are likely to be ongoing.

We agree.

“The Westgate Bike Punt is the missing link in this plan.”

“It would take peanuts to run, and could potentially be self-funding after a few years,” said Ms Hartland

” I welcome the new shared bike and walking path along Whitehall and Hyde Streets in Yarraville, but it’s a missed opportunity not to have included funding for the Westgate Bike Punt to run on weekdays,” she said.

“The current bike path along Whitehall Street is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen. Trucks park in it. I would feel unsafe using it.”

“If the new path is off the road, it will attract lots of new cycle commuters, so why doesn’t the government fund the Westgate Bike Punt to take those riders across the Maribyrnong River to Sth Melbourne in safety? Otherwise they’ll have to use the hazardous Shepherd Bridge over the Maribyrnong River, not to mention ride an extra half hour each way.”

For more information, go to The Punters website.

Extended clearways will not reduce road congestion or assist trams or buses or their passengers to get to their destinations more quickly or more safely. 

Clearways will simply attract more cars and while clearway times are in place, cars will just race up beside trams in order to pass them and stop in front of them at traffic lights.

This will hold up trams and getting on and off them will become even more dangerous.

During clearway times, the cars roar by when people are trying to get on and off. There is little that tram drivers can do about it.

Funding for roads outstrip public transport funding by three to one in the recent state budget.

More public transport services during the peaks and more services around the peaks will provide a real solution.  It benefits existing users, it will attract more users and those who still have to drive will suffer less congestion.  There is no reason why Melbourne can’t have an extensive, reliable and convenient public transport system like Vancouver, Amsterdam or Copenhagen, except for a total lack of vision from the government.

Strip shopping traders know full well what this will do their business.  The renaissance of strip shopping will be reversed and the big box centres like Chadstone will be the winners.  Here’s the list.  Sorry, no suburb, as many roads extend across more than one.  We’ll provide a map soon.

For more information about local action on this threat to our safety, our economic viability and liveability, see Matt Holden’s No More Clearways

1. ALEXANDRA AVENUE
2. ASCOT VALE ROAD
3. MILLEARA ROAD
4. RALEIGH ROAD
5. WOORITE PLACE
6. BARKERS ROAD
7. BEACONSFIELD PARADE
8. ESPLANADE
9. MARINE PARADE
10. ORMOND ESPLANADE
11. BEACH ROAD
12. BLACKBURN ROAD
13. BRIDGE ROAD
14. BRUNSWICK STREET
15. BURKE ROAD
16. BURKE ROAD NORTH
17. DENMARK STREET
18. BURWOOD ROAD
19. TOORAK ROAD
20. CAMBERWELL ROAD
21. GRIMSHAW STREET
22. MAHONEYS ROAD
23. CANTERBURY ROAD
24. CEMETERY ROAD EAST
25. CENTRE ROAD
26. CHURCHILL AVENUE
27. COMMERCIAL ROAD
28. COTHAM ROAD
29. FRANKSTON-DANDENONG ROAD
30. STUD ROAD
31. DAREBIN ROAD
32. DONCASTER ROAD
33. CLAYTON ROAD
34. STEPHENSONS ROAD
35. DYNON ROAD
36. ELGAR ROAD
37. FLEMINGTON ROAD
38. STATION STREET-ALBERT STREET
39. SUNSHINE ROAD
40. WRIGHT STREET
41. QUEENS PARADE
42. THE CIRCUIT
43. HIGH STREET ROAD
44. HIGH STREET (BOROONDARA)
45. HIGH STREET (STONNINGTON)
46. HODDLE STREET
47. PUNT ROAD
48. BARKLY STREET
49. HODDLE STREET
50. HOPKINS STREET
51. HOTHAM STREET
52. JOHNSTON STREET
53. KING STREET
54. LIVINGSTONE STREET
55. LOWER PLENTY ROAD
56. HEIDELBERG ROAD
57. LOWER HEIDELBERG ROAD
58. MALVERN ROAD
59. MANNINGHAM ROAD
60. ASHLEY STREET
61. HAMPSTEAD ROAD
62. WESTS ROAD
63. WHITEHORSE ROAD
64. MELVILLE ROAD
65. MILLERS ROAD
66. MITCHAM ROAD
67. MT ALEXANDER ROAD
68. MURRAY ROAD
69. BRIGHTON ROAD
70. NEPEAN HIGHWAY
71. NICHOLSON STREET
72. ORRONG ROAD
73. PASCOE VALE ROAD
74. PEEL STREET
75. DANDENONG ROAD
76. PRINCES STREET
77. RIVERSDALE ROAD
78. SPENCER STREET
79. SPRING STREET
80. SPRINGVALE ROAD
81. ST ALBANS ROAD
82. ST GEORGES ROAD
83. ST KILDA ROAD
84. BANKSIA STREET
85. BELL STREET
86. CHELTENHAM ROAD
87. FOSTER STREET
88. STUDLEY PARK ROAD
89. SWAN STREET
90. SYDNEY ROAD
91. UNION STREET
92. UPPER HEIDELBERG ROAD
93. VICTORIA PARADE
94. VICTORIA STREET
95. WARRIGAL ROAD
96. WATTLETREE ROAD
97. WAVERLEY ROAD
98. WHITEHORSE ROAD
99. PLENTY ROAD
100. WILLIAMS ROAD
101. WILLIAMSONS ROAD
102. MELBOURNE ROAD

In 1986 a public referendum sponsored by the then Mayor, narrowly failed to force demolition. But the controversy continued; and for freeway foes the 1989 earthquake — greatly damaging the city elsewhere, and causing the collapse of a similar freeway in Oakland and of a span of the Bay Bridge — ironically was the spur to victory.

The mammoth demolition project — about a mile and a quarter of double-decked freeway and its ramps has been torn down — cost only about $3.25 million. One good reason is that the contractor recycled all the steel and concrete. Reinforcing rods and construction beams were melted down; concrete was crushed into small chunks between the size of marbles and baseballs and used elsewhere for fill.

It was replaced with a seven-mile long stretch of waterfront parks, plazas, and public access to the piers 

Before:

After:

Here’s our first youtube video

We’ve obtained the report and you can download it here:  Part 1    Part 2

They say the strategy of “outrage mitigation” is to “engage and involve the identified strategic external stakeholders”.  Never mind the jargon - when i hear ’stakeholder’ i think Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

“Outrage mitigation”, though, is one that some of us have heard before.  It’s the science of managing an angry community developed by a guy from the US called Peter Sandman.  you can read all about it at Sourcewatch.

If you speak up, get organised or even write a letter to the paper, it won’t be long before you end up on a list in a piece of software designed to track community opponents, to work out who can be brought inside the fold, who should be frozen out, and who can be safely ignored.

How’s your outrage right now?