Loading “We know also based on our economic research for every extra 10 per cent of footpath we make available … it can add $2.1 billion of economic value per annum to our city economy. So it’s important we address this issue.” Cr Capp said the strategy would also look at how to stop cars using the city as a thoroughfare. Last year the council flagged a congestion tax – which has been successfully introduced in Singapore, London and Oregon – which would charge drivers for the kilometres they travelled with a premium placed on busy areas during peak hour. This proposed congestion tax would replace car registration fees.

Cr Capp did not specifically mention the congestion tax at Wednesday’s event but acknowledged the council would have to make some decisions that would not be universally popular. “Now I know already that this will not be popular with car lovers and I have already been called a car hater,” she said. A congestion tax has been flagged for Melbourne. Credit:Paul Rovere PTR The Lord Mayor has also recently flagged re-marking on-street car parks as motorcycle spaces to stop the bikes from clogging the footpaths, something which is only legal in Victoria. The five-year transport draft strategy, to be released in the next six weeks, will seek to tackle mounting congestion in Melbourne, which is the fastest growing city in the developed world.

Cr Capp said the council would have to show leadership when balancing the community’s current perception of the need for cars and parking versus what the need would be in the future with autonomous vehicles, such as driverless cars or trackless trams. Infrastructure Victoria projected last year that Melbourne could have driverless cabs in two to seven years. Traders want more car parking at Queen Victoria Market. Credit:Justin McManus Cr Capp said there was a “live situation at the moment at our beloved Queen Victoria Market” where instead of a reduction in car parking spaces the traders and shopper community were calling for more car parking spaces. “It seems to fly in the face of the data coming through, we are trying to plan for decades into the future but we have people with real needs and fear about change right now.”

Cr Capp said the City of Melbourne had an ambitious plan to increase its green open spaces by 240,000 square metres – the equivalent of 12 MCGs – over the next 15 years. “We either buy land or reclaim land,” she said. She said the council had bought land behind the Boyd Library in Southbank, which would be mostly turned into green open space, but was also reclaiming roads. Southbank Boulevard, formerly Cr Capp’s own favourite cut-through to City Road, was now being made into a 2.5 hectare park. A new park was also being built at Market Street – the first urban park in the city centre since City Square was developed in the 1980s – and the expansion of Union Square near Melbourne University.