Federal Cities Minister Must Promote The Swing To Urban Living With Public Transport
The Urban Taskforce congratulates the new Federal Minister for Cities, Urban Infrastructure and Population, Alan Tudge and believes he must promote the swing that is underway in Australian cities to urban living, says the Urban Taskforce.
The Urban Taskforce congratulates the new Federal Minister for Cities, Urban Infrastructure and Population, Alan Tudge and believes he must promote the swing that is underway in Australian cities to urban living, says the Urban Taskforce.
“Australian cities have been based on a suburban model for a hundred years but must now develop an urban living model as Sydney and Melbourne have populations over 5 million people,” says Urban Taskforce CEO, Chris Johnson. “The suburban model was car based with low densities and single use zonings where people drove from residential to commercial zones. A new urban model is evolving based on ‘turn-up-and-go’ metro rail with higher densities and mixed use zones around stations. The federal government’s role should be to support the swing to the urban model by investment in metro rail systems.”
“The two biggest commitments the federal government can make are to help fund metro rail systems in Australia’s cities and to help fund faster intercity rail from coastal cities to capital cities. These two measures will support growth along coastal strips with good connections to jobs and strengthen major city growth around metro rail systems that also connect to jobs.”
“Linking new growth to public transport infrastructure will enable most of the existing suburbs to be protected in their current form.”
“The concerns of communities about the changing nature of Australian cities is partly due to the tensions of the transition process and the need for public transport infrastructure and social infrastructure to catch up with the change.”
“Former Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Glenn Stevens, in a report to the NSW Government in June 2017, called for more leadership from governments on behalf of future generations. Minister Tudge has a great opportunity to provide this leadership.”
“The Urban Taskforce is keen to work with Minister Tudge in developing a package of policies that lead to sustainable cities in Australia.”
