A good National Urban Policy should have a vision and be a coordinated framework for urban development, ensuring efficient use of resources across states and cities. It should align investments in infrastructure, transport, services, and housing, enhancing access to funding. A good urban policy would prioritise sustainable, inclusive growth and investment that supports the development of climate-friendly, people-friendly, liveable urban spaces. Unfortunately, the draft National Urban Policy for Australia, which is out for consultation now until 4 July 2024 (A National Urban Policy for Australia | Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts), lacks many of these qualities. Better Streets has a set of recommendations to improve the policy and will be meeting the Cities and Suburbs unit at the Australian Government to share with them. Feedback from individuals and organisations is highly recommended. TLDR: Pages 34, 35 and 41 are the most important to read from a Better Streets perspective. We suggest you read these and comment specifically on those pages. Better Streets president Sara Stace explains the Recommendations: 1. Create an Implementation Plan As recommended in the UN guide on How to Formulate a National Urban Policy, it needs to have an Implementation Plan setting out what the government will do, when, the baseline data and how it will be monitored. Progress then needs to be reported annually. Currently, each chapter includes ‘discussion’ about what the Australian Government is currently doing, muddled into the policy sections. 2. Provide clear, unequivocal recommendations for the Australian Government to action The policy also needs to be absolutely unequivocal about what it considers to be best practice (e.g. mixed-use infill with good public transport and amenities) and worst practice that should be strongly discouraged (e.g. unfettered urban expansion that will be car-dependent for decades). The Australian Government has a number of levers it can pull, such as:
3. Provide evidence and remove the platitudes The 2011 policy was accompanied by detailed evidence - in the form of discussion papers and the annual State of Australian Cities reports. This draft includes a wide range of platitudes, such as ‘Adequately housing our workforce will support productivity and growth in our cities, improving our lives and ensuring we can adapt to future challenges’, and unsubstantiated claims, such as ‘areas with greater childcare availability have higher female workforce participation rates’. 4. Focus solely on urban areas, and differentiate between demographic and spatial issues
The Principles are the strongest section of this draft:
For more information, Better Streets President Sara Stace wrote a LinkedIn post about the drawbacks of the draft policy. Having written the original 2011 version, and the global guide for the UN on How to Formulate a National Urban Policy, you can read them here: link).
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Better Streets welcomes the Transport for NSW Implementation review of the TfNSW Road User Space Allocation policy. In January 2021, when the Road User Space Allocation (RUSA) policy was released, it marked a monumental step in the organisation’s growth in strategic planning. The two-page policy was short, but achieved its purpose in allowing the organisation to have real conversations about Road Space Allocation. The principles of the policy are:
The review found, there have been enormous challenges with actually implementing the policy or holding anyone accountable and seeing changes in projects provisioning for more space for people walking, riding to improve sustainable transport options on our roads. Some of the findings were:
Better Streets encourages Transport for NSW to adopt these recommendations as soon as possible and ensure the transition process is adequately funded and well resourced. This is a massive change management exercise that will require a strong team and committed leadership. We can’t afford to build more road space for private motor vehicle use if we want to live in healthy, sustainable, liveable places. Stronger policies like this RUSA policy (with measurable targets) are required to ensure we build safer, more enjoyable places for people to walk and ride a bicycle, and operate businesses. |
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