Street space allocation vs. utilisation in Melbourne’s activity centres

Chris De Gruyter & Seyed Mojib Zahraee

RMIT University, Victoria

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ABSTRACT

The allocation of street space is strongly contested in many cities, particularly in locations such as activity centres where high traffic flows conflict with popular places and key destinations in their own right. Yet despite the importance of allocating street space in an equitable manner, few studies have explicitly measured how much street space is allocated to and used by each mode of transport. Using a case study of Melbourne, the aim of this research was to understand how much street space is allocated to each mode of transport and how this compares to the use of each mode of transport. A total of 57 sites located in major activity centres within 10 km of Melbourne’s CBD were selected for the study. Each site was measured in terms of the amount of street width provided to each mode of transport, including shared space. Observational person counts, classified by transport mode, were then undertaken at each site. Adjustments were made to the person count data based on average travel speeds by mode. When averaged across all sites, space for pedestrians was significantly undersupplied – footpaths accounted for 33% of total street space, yet pedestrians accounted for only 56% of all users. Exclusive tram lanes were only slightly oversupplied (22% of total space vs. 18% of total people), as were shared general traffic/tram/bus lanes (35% of total space vs. 30% of total people). However, other street elements were greatly oversupplied, particularly bicycle lanes (12% of total space vs. 2% of total people), car parking (21% of total space vs. 13% of total people) and shared general traffic/bus lanes (42% of total space vs. 29% of total people). Considerable variation in the results was found across the sites.

Author(s)

Chris De Gruyter | RMIT University

Chris De Gruyter is a Vice-Chancellor's Research Fellow in the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University. He conducts research in the area of transport and land use planning, with a focus on understanding the transport impacts of new residential development.

Prior to joining RMIT University, Chris was a Research Fellow and Deputy Director in the Public Transport Research Group at Monash University. He also worked in transport planning for 12 years, both with the Victorian government and in consulting. Chris’ wider research interests span the areas of travel demand management, public transport and land use planning.

Seyed Mojib Zahraee | RMIT University

Seyed Mojib Zahraee is a PhD research candidate at the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, Australia, and a research assistant in the RMIT Centre of Urban Research. Seyed is a member of the RMIT Cyber-Physical and Autonomous Systems Group, RMIT Transport Research Group, and the Australian Maritime Logistics Research Network. His research interest areas are supply chain management, transportation and logistics, sustainability, optimizing operations, computer simulation modeling, statistical analysis, lean manufacturing, and biomass renewable energy production and supply system.

Seyed has published over 50 research papers in multidisciplinary fields, includes industrial and mechanical engineering, transportation planning, information technology, supply chain management, chemical engineering, and construction management. He has reviewed more than 100 papers for reputational journals and international conferences.