Australia urged to make cities 'people-friendly'

Updated April 17, 2008 20:30:35

Traffic in Sydney's streets has made it one of the most difficult cities in the world for pedestrians to negotiate, according to city planner Jan Gehl. [AAP]

A leading international city planner is calling for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's 2020 summit to consider radical changes to the way Australians live, work and move around their cities.

Prominent Danish urban designer, Professor Jan Gehl, says Australia's obsession with cars comes at the expense of the liveability of its big cities and the health of its citizens.

Professor Gehl, who advises New York on how to overhaul its public spaces, has told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation he is unimpressed by the way pedestrians are treated in Australian cities.

But he says it is not too late to change.

"Originally, we made the cities for people but then, in the past 50 years, gradually we've forgotten more and more about that and now many of them have been made more and more for cars," he said.

"I remember a big sign in Perth saying, 'Your car is welcome to the city,' but we always whispered, 'You're not'...

"Australian cities - the suburbs and right down to the city centres - have been very, very influenced by traffic engineer thinking, absolutely too much compared to other places in the world."

"Like jumping between ice floes"

Professor Gehl helped develop the City of Sydney's recently released grand plan for 2030. He is in the city again this week for a conference on how to make cities sustainable under the pressures of climate change.

The professor says his studies have found that walking through Australia's inner cities is like "jumping between ice flows".

He says slip lanes, difficult crossings and one-way streets are creating a treacherous experience for pedestrians.

"When we started recently in Sydney, we found that in certain streets, half the walking time was spent waiting to cross the street," he said.

"We are suggesting that it should become much more easy to walk in the cities and that cars generally are parked at a longer distance from where you work or where your shopping opportunities are.

"Everybody would like a lively city, an attractive city, a safe city, a sustainable city and a city which invites more healthy lifestyles.

Big changes in the future

Professor Gehl says Australian cities will undergo a "very marked change" over the next 10 to 15 years because of concerns about petrol prices, climate change, obesity and its cost to the health system.

He says those fears will fuel an exodus from the suburbs into the city centres and create an impetus for public transport systems to be improved.

"The growth will be in the more central parts, in more dense residential areas than the old nuclear family model of the 1950s, which is the base of the single-family house," he said.