News & Discussion: Adelaide City Council

[Nathan]

Traffic lights and a signalized pedestrian crossing have been set up at the entrance to the Rundle Place carpark, similar to the one on North Tce out of the DJs carpark.

You mean to cross Grenfell St, or to cross the car park entrance? Terrible if it's the latter—we should be making walking easier, not putting up barriers.

[metro]

Traffic lights and a signalized pedestrian crossing have been set up at the entrance to the Rundle Place carpark, similar to the one on North Tce out of the DJs carpark.

You mean to cross Grenfell St, or to cross the car park entrance? Terrible if it's the latter—we should be making walking easier, not putting up barriers.

yep, it's across the car park entrance.

[david]

Councillor David Plumridge's Notes - Issue No 99

- Decisions made at Council Meeting held on 8 October 2013.

Notes from Councillor Issue 99.pdf

(154.49 KiB) Downloaded 291 times

David Plumridge AM
Area Councillor
City of Adelaide

[monotonehell]

Welcome back DP, your contributions here are always welcome.

[mattblack]

Welcome back DP, your contributions here are always welcome.

I guess there was plenty of time after a record 7 minute Council meeting which included the big ticket Connector Bus project!

[Vee]

Long article, worth a read:
Lord Mayor, Stephen Yarwood's vision for the city in 2023.

TRAMS buzz around a broad city loop, delivering thousands of new apartment dwellers between a completely remodelled Victoria Square, a thriving Little India and new restaurants in the parklands.

More than 300,000 people visit the Adelaide CBD each day, but the streets are quieter because most cars are hybrids or electric.

Mid-sized technology companies fight over office towers to set up their headquarters, above streets where LED lights and sensor-controlled parking bays are operated through the city's wi-fi system.

More, including videos.
Messenger Press via news.com.au
http://www.news.com.au/national-news/so ... 6739569650

[AdelaideAlive]

here we go again

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/messenger ... 6741118985

[Maximus]

I liked this little article about Melbourne being "well behind" Adelaide and Perth in the provision of free Wi-Fi in the CBD.

It seems Mr Yarwood is giving as good as he gets when it comes to a little bit of friendly interstate rivalry...

City set for free Wi-Fi trial, but lagging behind other capitals
Date October 18, 2013 - 10:30AM
Aisha Dow

Melbourne City Council is set to trial a free public Wi-Fi service in the city, but it will need to act fast to catch up to smaller capital cities racing ahead with bigger plans.

*************

In 2009, Melbourne's lord mayor famously declared that Adelaide should be ''shut down'', so devoid was the South Australian capital of redeeming qualities.

This week his Adelaide counterpart shot back, offering to give Cr Doyle advice on the benefits of Wi-Fi as a member of the ''more technology-literate'' Generation X.

full article

[Vee]

The Festival of Ideas has brought US City Planner and Urban Designer, Jeff Speck, to Adelaide to provide a keynote address 'The Walkability Imperative' and participate in a forum, 'Breathing Life into City's Corners'.

US city planner talks the walk

The guru of “walkability” has picked an interesting time to be in Adelaide.

The Adelaide City Council and the State Government are engaged in a public relations battle to convince people to leave their cars at home and take public transport into the city; they’re spurred on by the revolution currently sweeping urban planning, which is for walkable, human-scale cities.

Jeff Speck, author of the recently published Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time, is standing on the forefront of that revolution.

When InDaily Design spoke to him yesterday, he’d spent only four hours in Adelaide – one of those ensconced inside the Lord Mayor’s electric car.
“I’m still scratching my head as to why I’m in Australia, in a certain sense, because my expertise is so much America,” Speck says.

Perhaps it’s because he’s a passionate advocate for the case that Adelaide’s civic leaders have been trying to make: cities are healthier when there are fewer cars in them. It’s good for people, and it’s good for business, he says.

“Merchants often fear bike lanes, thinking that bike lanes instead of car lanes will bring down their revenue. The only studies that have been done have shown that the bike lanes have increased revenue.

“It’s much easier to get off a bike and shop. Bikers tend to spend more money locally because they don’t go as far.”

When people catch public transport, the effect is much the same – they’re likely to engage much more strongly with their city.
“Taking the bus out of town gives you the comfort to have a couple of drinks at the bar and then go home.”

It’s a devil’s bargain – the more room you give a car, the more people change their behaviour.
But none of that is the real game to Speck.
“When you really hit that sweet spot isn’t when more people are coming into town via [mass] transit – which is good – but it’s when more people spend their entire days and nights in one neighbourhood. And that’s a renaissance of your city, if you can pull that off.”

Adelaide’s glut of car parks – we’ve got more than any other capital city, despite our small size – could be exploited as an opportunity for cheap city-centre, high-density housing, Speck says. Building apartments nearby and then linking them to the existing parking would enable the building of cheap homes which would suit residents who need a car, but without adding to Adelaide’s carpark numbers.

On roads, planners can often be split into two broad camps – those who see merit in building roads to ease congestion, and those who see the whole argument as a fallacy. Speck falls into the second camp.
He argues that investment in roads to ease congestion encourages more drivers to use them – therefore doing nothing to ease the problem. The solution: public transport and cycling.

“If you think about the amount of space that a cyclist takes up and the amount of space that a driver takes up, clearly converting a driving lane to a cycle lane is going to make the road carry more people.”

InDaily
http://indaily.com.au/design/2013/10/18 ... -the-walk/

Here is a Ted Talks video of Jeff Speck on 'The Walkable City'.
http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_speck_the ... _city.html

[metro]

Also on the topic of walkability, 730SA also had a report on how walkable the Adelaide CBD is.

More than a quarter of a million pedestrians make their way through Adelaide's CBD each day.
But those people need to be careful where they tread, with thousands of jay walking fines being handed out each year.
Leah MacLennan takes a look at the psychology of a pedestrian and how their walk through life could be made a little bit easier.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-18/p ... section=sa

[david]

Notes from Councillor David Plumridge - Issue No 100

-An extract from Issue No 1 - March 2008.
Decisions from Council Meeting held on 22 October.

Notes from Councillor Issue 100.pdf

(247.89 KiB) Downloaded 279 times

David Plumridge AM
Area Councillor,
City of Adelaide

[david]

Notes from Councillor David Plumridge - Issue 101

Decisions made at Council Meeting 12 November 2013

Notes from Councillor Issue 101.pdf

(155.8 KiB) Downloaded 255 times

David Plumridge AM
Area Councillor,
City of Adelaide

[david]

Notes from Councillor David Plumridge - Special Issue

- Re-launch of Aurora Heritage Action Inc

Notes Special Aurora Action.pdf

(101.02 KiB) Downloaded 301 times

David Plumridge AM
Area Councillor,
City of Adelaide

[david]

Notes from Councillor David Plumridge AM - Issue No 102

- Death in the Park Lands
- The High Cost of Parking
- Naming of Recognition Plaza

Notes from Councillor Issue 102.pdf

(216.77 KiB) Downloaded 263 times

David Plumridge AM
Area Councillor,
City of Adelaide

[mshagg]

Thanks David. For what it's worth, you're not alone in supporting the idea behind the car park tax. No doubt there could/should be some tweaking around the rate and the way it's implemented (and spent!) but the idea itself is sound.

Unbelievable that vested interests complain about parking in Adelaide being too expensive. I've seen two pay and display carparks open in the last 12 months around the part of the city where I live (one on ranelagh st and another on morphet st at the old "emacord" car lot), both of which offer around $12/day earlybird... and neither of which appear to be fully utilised on any given day?

Are people so lazy they only want to park within spitting distance of Rundle Mall? Heck the city loop bus goes straight through light square, you dont even have to walk!

P.S. "death in the parklands" is a little scary/concerning at first... I thought you were going to report a death in the parklands, not the death OF the parklands.