Perth Voice Interactive

Perth’s economy and its residents’ health will suffer if we don’t make our city more walkable, city planner Jeff Speck says.

The US planner is in town for his public forum The Walkability Mandate, where he’ll argue our health, wealth and impact on the environment will improve by having a more walkable city.

“Auto-centric development is destructive to our economy, our health and our planet,” he told the Voice via email.

“This is my first trip to Perth but I know that, generally, Australian cites are more walkable and have better transportation than American cities, but the new Australian suburbs are just as bad as ours, if not worse.

“It’s like you’ve chosen the worst thing that America ever invented and copied it whole-hog.

“Couldn’t you copy something better, like turducken (a turkey stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a duck and deep-fried)?” he laughed.

He says in the US the time people spend driving has doubled since the 1970s, and so has the percentage of income the average American spends on travel.

Obesity and asthma are strongly linked to less walking and more driving. And people in suburbs who frequently drive release far more carbon than inner-city dwellers who walk to work.

Mr Speck says city planners can improve walkability by making streets more pedestrian-friendly instead of having walkers compete with cars whizzing past: Street-parking to separate the pavement from traffic helps, and narrowing streets and having fewer lanes can help combat speeding.

Perth’s cycling network is also notoriously gap-ridden, something that’ll need to be patched, Mr Speck says.

The Walkability Mandate is October 16 at the state theatre, bookings through ticketek.

by DAVID BELL