Construction World October 2019

PROJECTS & CONTRACTS

A new urban mobility revolution is underway, transforming our city streets at a thunderous pace, and repurposing our pavement for more connected, greener, multimodal forms of transportation. From bike shares to autonomous transit, along with more traditional options such as rail and walking, a new urban ecosystem is on the rise. It’s inevitably altering the physical landscape, as well as the conventional thinking underpinning city planning, and changing the way we own our sustained future. So, what will we do with all those car parks and kerbs, as automated vehicles (AVs) and shared vehicles increasingly dominate the road? How can we re-conceptualise these soon-to-be empty, unused spaces to foster more meaningful interactions and intelligent design, and to future-ready our cities? What opportunities will open for us when we no longer need to park? It’s more than just a matter of parking – it’s an altogether different way of ‘doing city’. It’s about mobility, not cars As it stands, our cities have devoted an extraordinary amount of scarce space and resources to parking. In Melbourne alone, it’s estimated that “there are 40% more residential parking spacesin the city than the vehicles owned”, adding to the fact that 61% of the city’s street space is allocated to roads and on-street car parking, despite vehicles accounting for only 22% of the trips to, from and

electrification and Mobility-as-a-Service come onto the scene. Two strapping tonnes of steel in your driveway doesn’t hold the same lustre as a smart device that can facilitate a lifestyle of connected convenience. Suddenly, the conversation is far more about mobility than about cars. Authors of Faster, Smarter, Greener describe this shift to what they call a 'CHIP' mobility environment – a world that is connected, heterogeneous, intelligent and personalised. The new fulcrum of intelligent design is based on people and their lifestyles, rather than on their vehicles. Consequently, cities will have to unlock a variety of mobility solutions, ranging from bikes to pedestrians, car sharing to heavy The truth is, the parking industry argues, while we may not require as much space or parking lots in the future as we now have, “parking, as both a function and an industry, isn’t going anywhere” – but it won’t stay the same either. New modes of transportation like AVs (whether they will be owned or shared), will need to live ‘somewhere’ when not in use. With more than half of the population asleep at night, not all AVs will be occupying the streets at 2:00 to pick up late night revellers or shift workers. And with Uber’s recent announcement that Melbourne will rail, to provide ease of movement for all. But where will the cars go?

within the Hoddle Grid.But a century-old automotive love affair is now coming to an end, as trends like ride sharing,

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CONSTRUCTION WORLD OCTOBER 2019