.
With the Bowden Redevelopment Plan due to be released for public comment next month, the implications for the Bowden-Brompton area as far as traffic is concerned need to be examined. One of the key aims of the project was to establish a showpiece for urban regeneration:
According to one International Expert, “It (Bowden Village TOD) will be a demonstration place in Adelaide because it will be the first place in the community that is truly urban with a mix of uses – and it will rely less on the car so it is an introduction to the 21st century”.
The Government has been selling the TOD concept as a way to decrease car reliance, and provide a pedestrian and cyclist friendly inner urban redevelopment. The proposal for 2000 additional dwellings as well as 30,000 M2 commercial and retail floor area and 1,000 employees on the 20 hectare site will have the potential to significantly increase traffic throughout the wider Bowden Brompton area unless attention is focussed on this seeming contradiction.
How have the directors of the Bowden Urban Village (BUV) Project planned to handle traffic and pedestrian movements within the development and the surrounding residential precincts?
Initial proposals made in the award winning Hassell/PB Master Plan were for a reworking of the old street layout on the Clipsal and Sagasco site. This was intended to increase accessibility to the BUV
along a north/south axis with pedestrian links on the east/west axis as shown in this detail from the
Master Plan:
Also under consideration was a land bridge over Park Terrace to link the internal pedestrian corridors with the wider area of the Adelaide City Park Lands and the CBD. Feasibility studies were commissioned by the LMC, but it appears that this will be an expensive option.
Unfortunately, much of the Hassell Master Plan designs for pedestrian corridors through BUV have gone by the wayside, as commercial realities sink in.
Hopes are still high for the undergrounding of the Port Adelaide railway line, which, unlike the pedestrian land bridge proposal, will significantly free up motor traffic on Park Terrace, thus mitigating some of the traffic flow constraints of the newly installed right hand turn lanes into the Clipsal site at Sixth, Fifth and Fourth Streets!
The City of Charles Sturt has determined, as a priority, to:
• Upgrade the road hierarchy classification of Sixth Street and Second Street (between Drayton Street and Chief Street) to collector streets
Under the Council’s classification, collector streets are defined:
Collector
A road that provides connection to distributor and arterial roads from local streets within and through a local area.
This type of road is generally wide enough to provide two directions of travel with parking on one side of the road only. Traffic volumes would be generally less than 3,000 vehicles per day.
Council has recently “sold” a portion of Trembath Street Bowden to the LMC on the basis of assisting with consolidation of development sites:
6.134 ROAD CLOSURE – SIXTH STREET AND TREMBATH STREET BOWDEN
Brief
This report recommends that Council begin the process in the Roads (Opening and Closing) Act 1991 to close the portions of road reserve being located at the eastern end of Sixth Street and Trembath Street Bowden at their junctions with Park Terrace to improve development outcomes in accordance with the Bowden Urban Village Masterplan
This leaves pedestrian access from residential Bowden with a three foot wide gap between the new consolidated lot and the Park Terrace Overpass as seen here:
The Council report on the matter refers to the Bowden Urban Village Master Plan: apparently this is not the Hassell PB Master Plan but some other document. Perhaps it’s the proposal now before Cabinet which is to be released next month. I doubt if Council members have been show this document when they voted to dispose of the portion of Trembath street which allows for pedestrian access to Park Terrace:
As things stand, it appears that the BUV developers are happy to prioritize vehicle movement over pedestrian in the planning. Residents are used to the provision of pedestrian links as an after thought tacked on to the real planning issues, after all…
pedestrian access to Park Lands ~
designed for badgers
View Large Map
