Sustainable Transport

Making Walking Count in the City of Port Phillip

Making Walking Count is an international benchmarking project to further understand walkability in the City of Port Phillip and the attitudes of our residents to walking.

Developed by Walk21, Port Phillip is only the second municipality within Australia to undertake the survey which consisted of 599 telephone interviews of residents between the 18th and 24th of April 2012.

Overall, 92% of Port Phillip residents found their walking environment to be pleasant or very pleasant for walking. While all areas within Port Phillip rated highly, survey results highlighted Elwood, Albert Park and Middle Park as the highest rated (4.62 out of 5) of our three study areas.

Other key findings include:

Purpose of trip – The top three purposes for walking trip include social/recreation (40%), shopping (29%) and work/commute (13%).
Gender – Women rate the quality of the walking environment in their local neighbourhood higher than men (4.55 compared to 4.33).
Daily walking activity – The average daily walking time within Port Phillip was 49 minutes. This is the second highest internationally behind Copenhagen. 58% of respondents walked for a total of more than 30 minutes on the day reported.
Age – The 60-75 age group walk the most, averaging one hour or more per day. The 11-16 year olds (38 minutes) and the 75+ age group (25 minutes) walk the least out of Port Phillip residents.
Motivations for walking – Exercise (39%), pleasure (17%), convenience (13%) and being outdoors (11%) are highlighted as the most important motivations for walking.
Barriers to walking – The top three personal barriers to walking more include time constraints, being in a hurry and carrying shopping. The three most important environmental barriers perceived were personal security, poor lighting and the impact of adverse weather conditions.
Measures to encourage walking – Overall, in priority order measures to encourage walking includes greener routes through parks and along creeks (55%), a greener environment – trees and plants (51%), improved lighting (48%), improved air quality (38%) and improved security / reduced fear of crime (38%).

You can view the whole report here.

A Connected and Liveable City: Sustainable Transport in the City of Port Phillip

Council’s vision is for Port Phillip to be a connected and liveable city where residents, visitors and workers can live and travel car free by improving the convenience, safety, accessibility and range of sustainable travel choices across our City.

On 22 August 2011 Council formally adopted a suite of new sustainable transport documents focused on achieving this vision. These take the form of the:

Sustainable Transport Strategy - which provides a unifying vision for sustainable transport and will guide decision making in the City of Port Phillip
Bike Plan - sets out proposed strategies and actions to improve bike riding in the City of Port Phillip over the timeframe 2011-2020
Walk Plan - sets out proposed strategies and actions to improve walking in the City of Port Phillip over the timeframe 2011-2020

The strategy and plans will help Council, together with the community, take action on climate change by encouraging the use of sustainable transport modes that minimise energy use. The Walk and Bike Plans also aim to enhance liveability in our municipality by outlining projects to improve our streets and public spaces for walking and bike riding.

Background

Community consultation in 2011

A one month consultation exercise was undertaken with the community in May-June 2011 to gauge feedback on the draft documents. Comments were received from the public via surveys (either online or hardcopy) or from comments received by Councillors or Council staff at one of the three feedback sessions held at different locations within Port Phillip.

There were 49 responses to the community survey. Survey results showed:

Strong support for the Council's vision for sustainable transport (73.1% of respondents supported the vision).
Overall support for the draft strategy (40.9% of people supported the strategy as is and 40.9% supported the strategy with some changes).

Some of the key issues for people concerned changes to the parking hierarchy for local and shopping streets, the need to address parking issues caused by visitors to the many events taking place within Port Phillip and improvements to the public transport system.

Community consultation in 2010

The new sustainable transport documents are a result of previous research and community consultation including:

• BikeScope Online Consultation Survey

Bicycle Victoria was commissioned to undertake a survey of bike riding activity in the City of Port Phillip. Over 1,200 responses were collected between 8 July and 16 August 2010. The results of the survey are summarised in the BikeScope Online Consultation Survey report.

• Initial Community Consultation

Initial community consultation on the issue of walking and bike riding was undertaken between 18 and 29 November 2010. An online survey and face-to-face interviews were used to collect a total of 323 responses. Interviews were conducted at three community locations (Bay Street, South Melbourne Market and Elwood shops) as well as at the Port Melbourne and St. Columba's Primary Schools. The results of the consultation are summarised in the Walking and Bike Riding Study Report.

• Community Travel Mode Shift Scenarios to Achieve Toward Zero Transport Strategy Targets

In order to inform the draft Sustainable Transport Strategy, an external consultant was commissioned to develop mode share scenarios to achieve a 50% per capita reduction in transport greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 (relative to 2006 levels). The scenarios were based on an analysis of the Victorian Integrated Survey of Travel and Activity 2007/08 to establish City of Port Phillip resident travel patterns, as well as emissions intensity factors developed by the Department of Transport to estimate the marginal greenhouse gas emissions from this travel. Information on these scenarios can found in the Community Travel Mode Shift Scenarios to Achieve Toward Zero Transport Strategy Targets document.