Council has adopted an Annual Plan for 2024-25, with some valuable initiatives for active transport, trees, and place making, as well as important reforms to on-street parking. We only wish that actions could be delivered faster.
Active transport
Actions include monitoring and evaluating the 30 km/h trial, designing active transport projects, and delivering parking locations for e-scooters (to reduce e-scooters blocking footpaths).
Trees and open space
Actions include planting more trees, and working on the roads to parks program.
Parking reform
Three actions serve to gradually advance parking reform, including a systemic review, collating and analysing data, and introducing digital parking permits.
Our view
The City of Yarra’s population will double between now and 2050, and our streets can’t carry double the number of cars. If we want people to be able to get around, we need to transition many more trips to walking, biking, and public transport, so we welcome the actions and investment; even though we really need to progress much faster still.
Similarly, we need more trees and open space – we should aim to deliver one new pocket park (or roads to parks project) every quarter, not one every couple of years.
All the above projects need funding, which is why reforms to on-street parking are so important. Not only do we need reform to how parking is managed, so that people can actually find a park near their destination, we need reform to how parking is priced, so that non-resident commuters contribute to the revitalisation of our public spaces and transport networks.
Overall, we support the Annual Plan 2024-25, we welcome the initiatives, and urge Council to move even faster when possible.
Published 23rd June 2024.