In the late 1960's in the UK the national rail system was revisited strategically and this lead to a more efficient overall system but the massive loss of many small branchlines that served many communities sitting away from the major conurbations. Post modern efficiency or loss of a valuable community asset ?, I suppose in the late 60's nobody really envisages just how much the car would take over. One great example where this disaster had a positive outcome was the Bristol to Bath branch line. Bristol is a city of circa 0.5m people and Bath is a smaller city of circa 100,000 people and they are separated by 15 miles. Between 1979 and 1985 a cycling organisation called Sustrans (*) with the help of many volunteers converted this disused line into a 3 metre wide cycle path, and it has been hugely popular for cyclists and pedestrians ever since (**). So why is great from a sustainability perspective for urban Bristol ?. It is because it has been used by millions of cyclists since it opened and this clearly has impacted on overall emissions from the car within the area. It promotes a healthy lifestyle, contributes to easing congestion, and provides education at it's many stops, which are located to where the original railway stops were positioned. It is a treasure in the west of England and shows that ill thought efficiency measures carried out nearly 50 years ago can still provide a significant benefit in sustainability terms. In the 1960's sustainability as a concept would have not been taken seriously at all, so the tools and analysis we have today to show impacts of strategic infrastructure would not have been developed. Lets hope now that we have the tools the lessons of the past are learned for the future. (*) http://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/route/bristol-and-bath-path (**) http://www.bristolbathrailwaypath.org.uk/plan-about.shtml
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Much has been written about smart cities since the 1990's and many believe they are the future for all urban areas whilst others have heavily critiqued academic view on this topic. This is too big a topic for a blog so I am going to focus on the The Australian Smart Cities Plan (*). This was launched on the 29th of April 2016. It's objectives at a strategic level is to see Australia rethink how it plans, builds and manages going forward. The key issues within the plan is tackling housing affordablilty, access to jobs, traffic congestion and protection of the natural environment. It has what it calls a 3 pillar vision, which is smart investment, smart policy and smart technology, and has set aside funds for States and Cities to partner the Government in City Deals. An example of this is the Western Sydney City Deal (**). This covers a wide geographical area that has an anticipated population growth of 1m over the next 20 years. The 5 targeted drivers for deliver are as follows 1) transport investment to reduce congestion 2) reduce business regulation to increase employment 3) increasing housing numbers through changes to the planning system 4) Biodiversity and conservation 5) joined up working between the National Government, NSW and the regional Governing bodies on the ground. On the 21st of October 2016 the prime minister of Australia and the premier of NSW signed a memorandum of understanding to formalise a partnership to take this forward. Only time will tell how smart this initiative turns out to be, but the signs are good, as the political will is in place, funds are set aside, and the aims are deliverable if everybody works together to achieve them (*) https://cities.dpmc.gov.au/ (**) https://cities.dpmc.gov.au/western-sydney-city-deal When looking to develop infrastructure within urban environments it is crucial to ensure they are designed in a resiliant manner and are both efficient in terms of functonality and efficient in terms of sustainability principles. Getting this right is the difference between a poor or successful outcome. Many infrastructure projects look to scientific tools to assist in the design of the project to enable as much information to be captured before the project is delivered. There are many tools that assist in this but the 3 most common ones are as follows 1) The Australian Green Infrastructure Council's IS tool (*) 2) The Institution of Civil Engineer's CEEQUAL tool (**) 3) The Institute of Sustainable Infrastructure's ENVISION tool (***) The first is popular within Australia and and provides consistency when evaluating tendering, analysis on the whole life cost of assets, waste reduction and innovation. It is self assessed but independently verified and provides an IS scorecard for the client The second is a global tool which is used predominantly on large key infrastructure projects or masterplans, and has a focus on infrastructure and public realm. It also provides an assessment and rating and has been used on hundreds of projects around the world. The third is more of a free toolkit to developers who can test their designs in terms of sustainable outcomes and would therefore be much more likely to be used on smaller bespoke projects. The role of these tools is to enshrine best practice within new developments and can work as a metric for ensuring the most efficient outcomes of a project in terms of the life of the project beyond construction where is it serving it's functional use. This is clearly key in terms of resiliance going forward (*) http://www.agic.net.au/ISratingscheme1.htm (**) http://www.ceequal.com/ (***) https://sustainableinfrastructure.org |
AuthorGerald Walker. BA Hons Economics and Studying for a Masters at UNSW in Property and Development Archives
June 2017
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