Will Rowville be a Clayton(s) rail line?

Posted: December 11, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Activity centres, Employment, Public transport | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Size of Clayton/Monash precinct (jobs) relative to the six designated suburban CADs

Sooner rather than later, the Baillieu Government is going to have to prove its credibility on public transport by making substantial progress on one of the rail lines it has promised. And I have an idea for where it should start.

The easiest candidate is the promised Avalon rail line because its cost is estimated at only $250 million. But as some commentators have pointed out, including me, this would almost inevitably be a jumbo white elephant. It could be a real political liability too.

If good sense prevails, the Federal Government will refuse to contribute to the project and the Government will be off the hook. The private operator might also refuse to contribute to a properly designed financial model.

The other promised rail lines – to Rowville, Doncaster and Melbourne Airport – are all subject to studies. They will all be very costly to build to an acceptable standard but it’s unlikely the electorate will be bothered by the fine print or the cost. It’s likely that as far as they’re concerned, a ‘promise’ is a promise.

I’ve indicated before that none of these lines, on the face of it, seem ready for the green light just yet (here, here and here). Unless new information is introduced or the projects are redefined, it seems to me that any objective study would have to conclude they won’t be ready for funding for some time, probably not until after 2020 (it wouldn’t be politic for any government to come out and say ‘no’ outright).

But I think the Government will have to show serious progress on at least one of these lines by the time of the next election. In my view, the preferred candidate should be the Rowville line, but in an amended form. Read the rest of this entry »

Are the new suburban ‘supercentres’ attracting residents?

Posted: October 6, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Employment, Growth Areas, Housing | Tags: , , , , , | 4 Comments

Number of new dwellings by major suburban activity centre, Melbourne

The credibility of the six new suburban ‘supercentres’ announced by the Victorian Government in October 2008 has been undermined by a recent Government report on land supply.

The Government announced in October 2008 that it was upgrading six existing suburban Principal Activity Centres (PAC) to Central Activities District (CAD) status. The CADs are a new top-level category of centre intended to provide “significant CBD-type jobs and services” in the suburbs.

Described as “mini CBDs” by The Age and envisaged to have a mix of business, residential and civic uses, the six designated CADs are Broadmeadows, Box Hill, Dandenong, Footscray, Frankston and Ringwood.

I’ve previously pointed out there’s little evidence that any “science” was applied to the selection of the CADs. It seems the Government picked six centres under the existing Transit Cities Program and designated them as CADs.

They do not appear to be natural centres of commerce or industry. Only one of the six CADs (Box Hill) ranks among the nine largest suburban centres in terms of job numbers.

Now the 2009 Annual Report on the Urban Development Program issued earlier this year by the planning department shows that the CADs aren’t the preferred location of residents or developers, either. The accompanying graph indicates the number of dwellings recently built, under construction, or planned, in major suburban activity centres. Read the rest of this entry »

Does the proposed Rowville rail line make sense?

Posted: August 31, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Public transport | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

At first glance, the Victorian Opposition’s enthusiasm for a new rail link between the existing Huntingdale station and Rowville seems like simple opportunistic politics. And it undoubtedly is. But as we shall see later, a variation on this idea might be worth a second glance.

The idea of a Rowville rail line goes back to 1969. The most recent substantive development was a pre feasibility study commissioned by Knox City Council in 2004 and undertaken by Professors Bill Russell and Peter Newman.

The study endorses the rail line, arguing that it could reduce the travel time from Rowville to the CBD by 30 minutes, improve the mobility of students using rail to access Monash University, remove cars from freeways and reduce the need for households to own second cars.

The pre feasiblity study is very “preliminary”, but nevertheless there’s enough there to see that there are some formidable obstacles to this proposal. Read the rest of this entry »

No foundation for policy on centres

Posted: April 9, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Activity centres, Employment, Planning | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The  six building blocks for a better Melbourne announced yesterday by the Premier are innocuous (the term mother’s milk springs to mind) except for the third one, in which he pledges to ensure the planning system “encourages the transformation of Melbourne from a mono-centric to a multi-centred city, so that people can work closer to where they live”.

The belated recognition that large modern cities tend to have multiple major employment centres was set out in the Victorian Government’s supplementary strategy plan, Melbourne @ 5 Million, released in late 2008. The original strategy, Melbourne 2030, implicitly conceived of Melbourne as a nineteenth century monocentric city – with jobs in the centre and with the suburbs acting as dormitories for workers. The multitude of small suburban centres identified in Melbourne 2030 were seen as largely providing retail and personal services for residents.

It seems the Premier knows that 72% of Melbourne’s jobs are now located more than 5 km from the CBD and 50% are more than 13 km out. But the Government doesn’t seem to know much about the geography of suburban jobs, particularly the number and role of major suburban activity centres.

Melbourne @ 5 Million designated six new Central Activities Districts (CADs) to provide “significant CBD-type jobs and services” in the suburbs. The Age described them as “mini-CBDs”. They are Broadmeadows, Box Hill, Dandenong, Footscray, Frankston and Ringwood.

I find it very hard to imagine that any of these CADs can seriously be thought of as having the potential to provide “significant CBD-type jobs and services”, at least in the foreseeable future. All the indications are that six of the existing Transit Cities were simply redesignated as CADs without much further thought.

Consider the case of Broadmeadows. On 24 March The Age ran a story headlined “Broadie all set for major revamp”, with the subtitle “Broadmeadows could become a major economic centre in the north”*. According to the story, the outstanding prospects for Broadmeadows come down to its designation as a CAD.

I don’t however see much evidence that Broadmeadows is acquiring a CBD-type character. The story lists a number of major investments that are either proceeding or planned, all of which are public sector driven.

There’re new Council premises, a Global Learning Centre, a leisure centre, a secondary school, a tree-lined extension of Main St, an upgrade of the railway station and a parking station. There’s a planned seven level office building but it is intended to accommodate public servants. All in all, there is little evidence that the private sector, which is the backbone of the CBD, has much interest in Broadmeadows beyond retailing and consumer services.

An examination of the composition of jobs is revealing. Whereas almost half of all jobs in the CBD are in Commercial Services (i.e. Finance, Insurance, Business and Property), the corresponding figure for the Broadmeadows CAD is just 4%. Where it excels however, as the projects listed above suggest, is in government – 44% of jobs are in the public sector.

Broadmeadows also has neither of the other two key characteristics of the CBD – size and density. It has only 1% as many jobs as the CBD and is only one eighth as dense. The idea that it could function like the CBD in the foreseeable future seems fanciful. Read the rest of this entry »