Over the last 30 years, the City of Melbourne has improved the quality of our streets creating vibrant, productive, inclusive and enjoyable places. Our streets are critical to the city’s liveability, environmental sustainability, economic prosperity and international reputation. We have created more places for walking, shopping, sitting, connections for business and dining by repurposing excess road space.

These improvements to our city have not happened by accident - the City of Melbourne has taken a number of deliberate actions to enhance the quality of our streets, including:

• Introducing a consistent design palette of high quality bluestone paving, street furniture and landscape in our pedestrian spaces
• Activating our laneways and building frontages via the introduction of exemplary policies, transforming our city into a wonderful place to live, work, do business and visit.
• Prioritising walking as the number one mode of transport, supported by public transport and cycling. Improvements have seen these modes grow strongly while the importance of cars has declined.

The City of Melbourne has led the way in prioritising walking as the number one mode of transport in our city, supported by cycling and public transport. Key strategies include Transport Strategy 2012, Walking Plan 2014, Places for People 2015 and Bicycle Plan 2016. This will continue to be our focus as we refresh the Transport Strategy in 2018.

While much has been achieved, Melbourne is facing significant change over the next 30 years including substantial population growth. In the next three years, the number of people in our municipality on an average weekday will exceed 1 million and is forecast to grow to approximately 1.4 million by 2036. By 2051, Greater Melbourne’s population is expected to grow by almost 80 per cent, from today’s 4.5 million to eight million people.

The city’s growing population presents unprecedented pressure on our public spaces, streets and transport system, including:

• Overcrowding of footpaths, particularly at major traffic intersections. People struggle to fit on the footpath in a number of places. This presents a major safety risk and negatively impacts the city’s liveability, reputation and economic prosperity. More time waiting at intersections means less time in shops, cafés and restaurants and doing business.
• Escalating pressure on our public transport system, which is already under strain. Whilst the Melbourne Metro project will play a critical role in unlocking capacity in the city’s rail system, the network will be overcrowded again shortly after its completion.
• Traffic congestion continues to increase in the inner city and middle ring neighbourhoods surrounding the central city.
• The city’s urban renewal areas are developing quickly and quality public transport connections have not yet been committed.

Other issues the Transport Strategy refresh will provide new insight into:

• Under-representation of bicycles in the city. Cycling to Melbourne grew strongly from 2008 but growth has since stalled.
• Low occupancy of some on-street car parks, excessive provision of off-street parking and competing demands for city space e.g. public spaces, trees, landscaping etc.
• The opportunities and challenges presented by emerging technologies including automated vehicles and drones.
• Responding to disruption from major infrastructure projects to ensure that when infrastructure is reinstated we take the opportunity to plan for future transport and public space needs.
• Adapting the transport system to increase resilience in response to climate change and reduce emissions.
• Ways to reduce the risk of attacks on pedestrians by hostile vehicles.
• Ensuring that our future streets remove barriers to inclusion so our city is comfortable, accessible and attractive for people of all abilities and ages.