Transport Strategy Discussion Motor Vehicles This discussion paper is to inform a new City of Melbourne Transport Strategy to 2050. A draft strategy will be released for consultation in 2018. We are seeking your views on these issues and ideas. Most streets in the municipality have been designed and optimised for motor vehicles. Yet the majority of trips within the city are on foot and by public transport. Since 2001, the share of car trips to work has decreased by 28 per cent while jobs have increased by 43 per cent. The use of cars in the municipality is declining. The number of people in the municipality is expected to grow from 914,000 per day to 1.4 million per day by 2036. The central city will not be able to cater for this growth without major changes to the priority given to cars. The question is not whether this should change, but how much, when and where. Reducing traffic volumes will improve conditions for emergency vehicles, servicing, freight, construction, bikes, public transport and accessibility. Traffic reduction policies will also improve health, road safety and air quality. These policies will reduce emissions and noise, create more space for other uses such as walking, dining, trees and bike lanes, improving the liveability of our city. What are the current issues? Vehicle congestion, delays and through traffic
Changes to the approach towards car share are needed to increase the benefits for Melbourne. The growth of the fleet has not been enough to prevent the number of privately owned vehicles increasing. More people and businesses would use the service if it was easier to access. Increasing car will require more spaces to be provided in the municipality. There is an excess of off-street parking which could store car share vehicles and help to manage the demand for kerb space. Equally, revenue from on-street parking is not sustainable long term and car share policy may provide opportunities to transition to new era of mobility technology, secure new revenue sources and support more efficient management of street space. What if more car share vehicles were available and private vehicle ownership in the city was reduced? Electric cars Many electric vehicles operate in Melbourne already - our trains and trams. Trams are soon to be powered by renewable energy, and transitioning trains to renewables should be prioritised. While electric cars reduce noise and tail-pipe emissions, they do not address the main issues caused by cars in cities. Cars occupy a disproportionate amount of space relative to the number of people they move about. Based on current ownership, if all cars were electric, the average household would consume 84% more electricity. Opportunities Electric cars do not produce tail-pipe emissions so substituting combustion engine cars with electric result in cleaner air in the city. Prices of electric cars are forecast to be equivalent to conventional cars by 2025. The municipality has an estimated 13,000 unused residential parking spaces. Opportunities for conversion to electric vehicle charging stations may arise if there is market demand. Charging is already provided in some multilevel car park buildings. Challenges Victoria currently has a growing proportion of clean electricity (around 30%). Rapid take up of electric cars would place enormous additional demand on the grid. Electric cars require the same space for storage as a normal car plus infrastructure for charging. Many buildings lack the infrastructure to handle the additional power load. The average age of a motor vehicle in Australia is 10years. A transition of the entire current fleet to electric cars would take more than 15 years and generate a lot of waste. The high demand for kerbside space in the city will make it difficult to provide on-street vehicle charging. A car is stored on the street in Amsterdam while charging (Institute for Sensible Transport)