"Today the urban challenge consists in reducing traffic, either in a more rapid way as conditions might permit or in a slower way by removing the possibility of parking in certain areas or by taking lanes from the traffic and giving them to other users. There are so many places in towns where people are treated very badly on the sidewalk and where the congestion is unpleasant. One would have to find some of these places and consider where something could or should be done. That's exactly what they've done in Melbourne. They started by saying that in this city we must be able to walk and thus must have good quality infrastructure for walking.
Now, ten years later, they are saying in this city we should also be able to bicycle. And so, over the next ten years they will put down infrastructure for bicycling. So they started with some very simple big visions, saying we have the streets, we have density, we walk, we bike, we have automobiles that will have to share; we have the space, and we have to have proper quality in the areas where we decide that people should move. This vision is very useful because then you have an overall direction and strategy for improving the quality of life in the city.
What we have seen in the places where we have implemented this strategy gradually, over a ten year period, by selecting a number of key streets and key places where you can start, is that people can see what it's all about and see that life gets better and that the city can survive with 5% less traffi c or 10% less traffic."
