Damon Rao, a Melbourne boy, passes on a view of Vancouver from a fellow Aussie who came here to see if we lived up to our reputation.
The verdict?
Yes, Vancouver seems like a good place to live. But would I emigrate? Not in the foreseeable future. Yes, it might have more consistent weather than our southern capitals – but it’s consistently worse. And I’ll take Melbourne’s ACDC lane over Blood Alley any time.
So, no, I wouldn’t want to live there – but it’s a nice place to visit.
Full text here.
Melbourne, of course, is consistently ranked with Vancouver as one of the world’s most livable cities – and, with respect to its appeal for pedestrians, has us beat. Proof? Check out this video from Streetfilms:
Melbourne is simply wonderful. You can get lost in the nooks and crannies that permeate the city. As you walk you feel like free-flowing air with no impediments to your enjoyment. For a city with nearly 4 million people, the streets feel much like the hustle and bustle of New York City but without omnipresent danger and stress cars cause.
i noticed that homelessness is discussed under the section called “crime.” hmm.
In Australia, like Britain, sleeping in public or begging people for money is a crime.
I think the difference between the two cities is that here we have a lot of rhetoric but not much actual on the ground improvement. The Burrard bike lane is such a minor improvement in the scheme of things, and yet look how difficult it was for Vancouver to pull off.
As I mentioned in the comments in the above post, increasingly I see the planning efforts all over the lower mainland essentially as nothing more than hot air. Many municipalities talk the talk, but make very little one the ground commitment. And if they do, the Province bungs it up by installing a 8 lane highway to screw over all our efforts in increasing transit use.
Not a Melbourne example, but a Perth one. The recently completed Mandurah rail line came about through the cooperation of the state and local governments coordinating their public transit policy (they actually have a state department of public transportation!) for an entire region. Here TransLink and the Ministry of Highways, oops I mean Transportation and Infrastructure are basically competing, one expanding the highway system and the other desperately trying to fund decent transit.
In summary, I think Australia coordinates policy at all levels (national public transit policy please Mr Harper!) better than we do, and as a result they see more results.
Something we should think about.
The video shows off central Melbourne, which certainly is very pedestrian friendly. But the reality for most residents is life in the suburbs, which varies widely. Many of the middle and outer suburbs are very car-dependent.
Steve, I’d love to tell you that Australia has a well-coordinated transport policy, but it’s simply not the case. There’s finally big investment in upgrading Melbourne’s rail system, but the state and federal governments are playing catchup after decades of neglecting public transport while they concentrated on motorways.
You certainly are leaps and bounds ahead of us. After researching the process which brought about the Mandurah Line extension in Perth, I doubt we even have the governance structure to make that happen here in BC.
the video shows many great things, and definately Melbourne benefits from a vast network of light rail and streetcar style lines, but I think they both also suffer from the same problem. That is, we both have an amazing core city, surrounded by car-dependent suburbs where that form of car dependence is continuing.
Melbourne is currently adding to its highways and has the proposed Peninsula Link and North-East Link highways on the drawing board. As well, public transport only accounts for nine per cent of trips in greater Melbourne, lower than the 12 per cent of trips in Metro Vancouver taken by public transit.
That’s not to say they don’t do some things better, but people often have a tendancy of making the other group seem better than they are.
hi there, just needed to say thankyou for this article, it let me pick out something I hadn’t given a lot of deliberation to it before.