How do world transit systems compare?
Posted: April 7, 2011 Filed under: Public transport | Tags: maps, Public transport, subways, transit 12 Comments
This is an eye-opener. First thing you need to do is go here where artist and urban planner Neil Freeman has prepared maps of many more cities at the same scale (none from Australia unfortunately). What these maps show is the enormous variation in the scale and density of different systems. No doubt the artist has had to make assumptions about what to include and exclude*, but this is nevertheless very important information to bear in mind when comparing the performance of Australian rail networks with systems elsewhere.
I think Melbourne’s rail system is a leviathan compared to some of these e.g. the networks in Toronto, Vancouver, Amsterdam, Budapest and Brussels. Note the scale (5 km) beside the map of Toronto above. As a point of reference, it’s about 5 km as the crow flies from Flinders St station to Merri station on the Epping line, Hawthorne station on the Lilydale line and Newmarket station on the Broadmeadows line. Five kilometres is the boundary of the inner city. Read the rest of this entry »
How do we think about Melbourne?
Posted: October 4, 2010 Filed under: Books | Tags: Affirm Press, books, Cycling, Jenny Sinclair, maps, review, When we think about Melbourne 4 Comments
Melway Edition 1, 1966
Review: When we think about Melbourne: the imagination of a city, Jenny Sinclair, Affirm Press, 2010, Melbourne
One of the observations made by Jenny Sinclair in When we think about Melbourne really strikes a chord with me – just how different the city is when you see it from the saddle of a bicycle. In this extract, she’s just cycled up the middle of St Georges Rd to Reservoir:
Perched on my bike on the track that runs through the park opposite these fine houses, I look down across Preston, Glenroy and to the city, and think: ‘it’s all downhill from here’. When I get home, I felt my sense of the world had expanded a little. Moments like this, of unexpected connection and revelation – I call them ‘surprised by joy’ moments after Wordsworth’s poem – come when we immerse ourselves, when we walk and ride; they are why we should get out of our cars for ourselves, not ‘just’ for the environment or for exercise
Cycling through the city is one of those pleasures that other less-fortunate souls haven’t experienced. Seeing the arse-end of factories from inner city bike trails, the undulating topography, the small exchanges of street life, or the great complexity and detail of inner suburban streetscapes that otherwise might seem regular and monotonous, is to be privy to a hidden world. Read the rest of this entry »
The Melbourne Urbanist 