High streets in Sydney should declare recurring car-free days when pedestrians and cyclists can roam freely and local shops and restaurants can sprawl out to allow a street festival culture to flourish, an influential thinktank says.
The Committee for Sydney and the Sydney festival executive director, Chris Tooher, are appealing to the New South Wales government and councils to mimic cities including New York, Jakarta, Mexico City and Bogotá in making so-called open street days established events, such as every Sunday.
They envisage the initiative to be low cost, saying it would encourage greater exercise and provide opportunities to cycle safely and that it would allow economically stimulating and community-building events, similar to the Ramadan night markets run on a weekly basis in Lakemba.
While some councils have begun shutting certain inner-city roads in Surry Hills and Redfern for annual street festivals, the committee and Tooher want local government to move away from this highly curated and infrequent approach.
Instead of organising entertainment, a stage and food trucks – which add to costs and cannibalise existing local business – the recurring car-free days should have little structure or program, making them lower cost. This would also allow a consistent opportunity for local businesses to plan for greater foot traffic and for residents to enjoy otherwise congested high streets.
King Street or Enmore Road in Newtown, as well as John Street in Cabramatta and high streets in Parramatta, Lakemba and Auburn have been flagged by the committee as ideal locations.
Tooher said reclaiming public space takes up “a lot of time and resources” during planning for the Sydney festival.
“Around Sydney … there’s a high street with a bustling crowd every Saturday morning,” Tooher said. “What’s common with all of them when you walk them is a stream of traffic not moving, the cars are literally back to back.”
Tooher points to the success of such initiatives overseas, which are loosely orchestrated but have become traditions. “Resist the urge to program and let the community take ownership.”
Maintaining transport arteries used by buses would be the largest hurdle to the plan, Tooher acknowledged. “But if 20 major cities across the world can do this, Sydney can find a way to make it work.”
The planning policy manager at the Committee for Sydney, Estelle Grech, said 30% to 40% of the cost of most one-off street festivals was spent on consultants for local traffic management. By planning recurring car-free days, this would spread such costs out.
Tooher points to Colombia’s Bogotá, where every Sunday is a car-free day. Between 7am and 2pm, 127km of roads is closed to cars. More than one million of the city’s 7 million residents walk, cycle and skate during these times.
The other challenge is resistance in Australian cities to closing streets in car-reliant suburbs.
While even bike lane proposals consistently hit opposition, Grech said she believed weekly car-free days could strike a better balance.
“Because it’s not permanent like bike lanes, it lets people have that taste of being free on the streets,” Grech said.
The Committee for Sydney’s director of corporate affairs, Matt Levinson, pointed to the popularity of the Ramadan night markets in Lakemba as proof of the concept.
“The Ramadan night markets just really show that there’s an appetite for it … The fact people are willing to travel across the city to go to it shows there’s a hunger for this kind of experience,” he said.
