Unpaving Streets to Create Urban Greenspace
Michael Robertson, May 2004
Proposal:
- Increase urban greenspace by unpaving large sections of city and suburban streets.
Many streets in Adelaide are wider than needed for current traffic levels. With little inconvenience to traffic, councils could take up half the space in many streets and restore them to greenspace.
Example: Windsor Street Trail - Unley Council
In this project, approximately half the road corridor has been reclaimed to create a linear park on land occupied by the footpath and half the roadway on one side. "More than 3,000 native and indigenous plants have injected life and colour into the first section of the Trail from Hill Street to Scott Street, Parkside, many selected from the original flora of the Black Forest pre-dating European settlement." (www.unley.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=498)
Benefits of urban greenspace:
- As a public good, many people can enjoy it for free, and pay for its upkeep through taxes and voluntary work, according to their capacity.
- Greater use of native plants can create more diverse urban habitats; even if not restoring original habitat completely, it can at least stop the inner cities being dominated by exotic birds (if the local birds can be persuaded to migrate in from bushland adjacent to the urban area).
- It can create a more diverse and interesting urban space, constantly changing as people walk or cycle through it.
- It can distinguish cities from each other, and so make them more attractive and memorable for visitors.
- Can control urban microclimate, by cooling the city in summer - shading pavements and buildings from the hot sun - and blocking cold winds in winter.
- It can reuse stormwater runoff from roads to support local, widely distributed, accessible gardens, and so offset the copious amounts of potable water used to support private gardens.
If we can wrest land and funds from excessive transport and drainage infrastructure budgets, we could create a city that is nicer to live in, and more friendly to nature.
2007.2.8