A better image of our city
Frome Road is more than its peak hour traffic – it is part of the lifeblood of an evolving city, writes Daniel Bennett. Let’s not lose the opportunity to make it a place for everyone.
In his book The Image of the City, American urbanist Kevin Lynch argued that it takes more than one thing to characterise a place, and that people accentuate and experience things differently: that the details and parts of our places matter.
Think about it: driving through the city is a different experience to walking through the city. A mind’s eye map of a place depends on how you experience and remember it.
Let’s take Frome Road in the city – a precinct that is undergoing significant change.
The former sleepy and gritty edge to the old RAH, the eastern extents of the University of Adelaide, and a pleasant tree-lined street to the Adelaide Zoo and Botanic Park. It is a bit of a rat-run from North Adelaide to North Terrace, and for decades catered for the nurses, specialists and staff who worked in the old hospital.
Now, it features a recently-expanded vertical public high school, merged universities, Lot Fourteen with its techy and upstart focus (and new buildings and less car parking), and of course the tram extension along North Terrace.
Adelaide has a knack for small tram extensions, and the North Terrace extension appears to be working – connecting our cultural and educational institutions, as well as creating more options for people walking and using public transport.
With all this change, Frome Road needs a rethink. Instead of being the edge of things, it needs to be the centre of public life.
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The recent completion of the missing link in Frome Road’s famous (infamous?) city bikeway removed one traffic lane in each direction, filling the gap in the city’s progressive North/South City Bikeway. The bikeway is part a long-term plan to create connected, safe and low stress networks for people riding bikes and walking.
New on-road, safer and semi-protected bike lanes now separate people riding bikes from people driving, finishing one of the City of Adelaide’s longest running projects. The North/South City Bikeway, which connects people riding bikes between Greenhill Road in Parkside, through the city to Fitzroy Terrace in Fitzroy.
Yet, this transformation does not come without challenges.
Cue the usual gripes, complaints and hysteria about changing traffic in the city, with the Advertiser screaming that “a new bike path in Adelaide’s CBD has been criticised by motorists for eliminating an entire lane for traffic and reportedly causing bottlenecks during peak hour”.
But consider this. Because of on-street parking, Frome Street in the city centre is one lane in each direction for most of the day, and Frome Road beyond Victoria Drive across the River Torrens has always been one lane in each direction.
The four wide lanes on Frome Road between North Terrace and Victoria Drive were a luxury, catering to car park movements into and out of the busy RAH.
The current footpath is narrow in parts with just enough room for one or two people to walk around the trees, and also has fences and old broken bitumen to navigate.
Whilst a major gap in the city’s cycling network has been completed – transitioning Frome Road to a one-lane format on either side to accommodate both vehicle traffic and people riding bikes – after a few weeks of operation, complaints about the changes have emerged, mostly from people in vehicles.
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This is completely understandable.
For people walking, it’s still a raw deal.
Let’s go back to Lynch’s image of a city.
The walking experience cannot be underrated – imagine the quality of North Terrace along Frome Road? Imagine people walking on fine stone paving, softer street lighting, uplighting the magnificent plane trees and buildings, providing places to sit, walk, cross and just meander?
Imagine the experience on a warm summer evening, walking back from an event in Botanic Park, along a street showcasing the beautiful old and new buildings, with time to savour a unique Adelaide experience. Could this become one of the world’s great city walks?
There is a conflict with how it is currently used, and we need to acknowledge that this important park lands precinct is changing, and that cars need to be the guests over people walking and cycling.
The opportunity is right here before us: creating an experience where minds meet and ideas flourish, a grand walking boulevard connecting the city to the river.
The revival of the city is now on a precarious balancing act along Frome Road.
By cutting some slack to people walking or cycling along Frome Road, we can address an imbalance in how we experience the city. We can add the layers to make it a unique and beautiful place. Replace the bitumen with stone paving, light up the trees and buildings at night, add seating to enjoy the shade and make this an avenue to remember.
We can improve how it contributes to the mind’s eye and memory of the city.
This sort of change does not happen by accident.
Frome Road is more than its peak hour traffic – it is part of the lifeblood of an evolving city, of experiences and moments. Let’s not lose the opportunity to make it a place for everyone. And make Frome Road an experience to remember.
Daniel Bennett is Chair of Walking SA. He is a Principal and ANZ Place Lead for Aurecon, a design and engineering firm and a past director of strategy and design at the City of Adelaide.
