No freeways puts Vancouver on top

STRANGE but true. When Melbourne surrendered its world's most liveable city title earlier this year, it was to a vanquisher that promotes what many regard as the No. 1 enemy of liveability — traffic congestion.

Vancouver in Canada has knocked Melbourne off its much-vaunted liveability perch. While the two cities have much in common — both are sparse metropolises of low housing and population density with similar urban policies — there are key differences.

Chief among them, said visiting Professor of Liveable Environments at the University of British Columbia, Patrick Condon, was his city's determination in the 1970s and '80s to resist the lure of freeways as an easy answer to traffic problems.

Instead, Vancouver's 21 local councils got together in the '80s and drew up a long-term plan to shape the city's growth, protect surrounding farming areas, arrest urban sprawl and boost population densities. It was much like the Bracks Government's Melbourne 2030 plan, but from the bottom up.

Central to the plan was investment in public transport, cycling and pedestrian measures — not freeways. The theory was that congestion, and the desire to avoid it, would drive commuters to alternatives: moving closer to their work and using the train and bus system.

Many years on, with the plan still in place, Vancouver is celebrating statistics that other cities only dream about. Average travel times to work have reduced over the past decade, and the proportion of overall trips by public transport in Vancouver is at 13 per cent and rising.

In Melbourne, the figure is stagnant at about 7 per cent and Government figures point to a decline. Vancouver's "downtown" population has risen from 40,000 to 90,000 in the past decade, about four times that of the equivalent area in Melbourne.

Professor Condon is in no doubt that the no-freeways policy is a big factor in what appears to be a successful consolidation strategy.

After just a few days here, as a guest of Melbourne University, Professor Condon was struck by the ferocity of local planning disputes, especially over the role of Melbourne 2030 and the decisions of the planning appeals tribunal, VCAT.

He said that in the world's No. 1 town, developers and architects were kept on a short leash.

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