I’ve got quite a few city development stories from my recent visit to Sydney. However, they are going to have to wait for the New Year because I’m going on holiday, and no-one wants to read serious stuff at this time of the year anyway. So, let me close the year with a two great lighting projects that I came across.

Recycled Christmas Tree

This 8m tall Christmas tree, located in the restored area of Sydney known as The Rocks, is made from more than 7 000 recycled soft drink bottles that were rejected by the packaging company. The tree is lit each night by GreenPower renewable energy. After Christmas, the tree will be recycled back into bottles.

Christmas tree made from recycled bottles, The Rocks, Sydney

Close-up of plastic bottles

A daytime view

Macquarie Night Lights

The New South Wales Government sponsors the impressive Macquarie Street Night Lights, which use computer-aided design to light up historic buildings on Macquarie Street in Sydney city during the month before Christmas.

Computer-generated lighting design

Same building, different design

Design 1

Design 2

St Mary's Cathedral, design 1

St Mary's Cathedral, design 2

The City of Sydney similarly projects Christmas images on the facade of the iconic Sydney Town Hall

There was a good article by David Lepeska in the Guardian two months ago on why cities offer the way forward on global warming and climate change. For more detailed information, see work by OECD, Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) and C40 Cities on the role of cities in sustainable development. You can also read the UN-Habitat’s comprehensive Global Report on Human Settlements 2009 – Planning Sustainable Cities

Planning Sustainable Cities

IRT lane under construction in Cape Town (picture: Bruce Sutherland, City of Cape Town)

There has been a lot of public debate about the costs and funding of the planned new Integrated Rapid Transit System (IRT) in Cape Town recently. Many commentators and ratepayers are asking  – can we afford it? My view is – can we as a city afford not to implement an effective system of public transport such as the IRT?

Future congestion costs, pollution costs and energy costs all mean that Cape Town is not sustainable without a serious shift to public transport over the next ten years. As Ibrahim Seedat and Bill Cameron of the National Department of Transport point out: “The next 10 to 20 years are going to see traffic congestion, oil depletion, climate change restrictions and economic contraction seriously challenge inherited movement systems. Sustainable cities will be those that develop energy-efficient and user-friendly movement networks. Mass car use will not meet this challenge, but nor will ineffective public transport systems that are ’stuck in traffic’” (Cape Times, 02 November 2009)

Of course there must be accurate budgeting and costing for a project this size, and we have to live within our means as a city. It is prudent to ensure that promised funding from Central Government materialises. Bill Taylor, a US citizen living in Cape Town makes the point very well: “So now imagine a city where the authority running the mass transit scheme is facing a multibillion-rand gap in its budget because of the recession. Some of the projects have shot up way over the estimates, entire sections of the system have been left off the budget and forgotten. If this sounds familiar, consider that this is the recent report card not for Cape Town but for New York City. The main thing, however, is that despite all of this, there is no mention of stopping development. The city has realised that to retain its status and function properly it cannot allow itself to fall behind, although all five of its transport projects are costing more than anticipated” (Letter to the Cape Times, 02 November 2009).

The IRT is the one project that can serve to reconnect and integrate our physically and socially divided city in a relatively short period of time. I have a vision, in years to come, of an instantly-recognisable network of red bus lanes criss-crossing the city, connecting all communities to each other.

I say – let’s all get behind the Red Line. Hamba Bomvu! Go Red!

The instantly recognisable 'red line' snakes through Cape Town (pic. Bruce Sutherland)

Steel re-enforced concrete with a red ochre tinge makes the new IRT system instantly recognisable (pic. Bruce Sutherland)

Workers construct the IRT lane coming in from Paarden Eiland to the Cape Town Central City (pic. Bruce Sutherland)

Table Mountain and Lion's Head are recognisable from the new IRT lane under construction between Milnerton and Blaauberg

Bruce Southerland's beautiful aerial picture captures the 'red line' as it moves up the West Coast

Transit-led development

The IRT financial sustainability issue is not just confined to Cape Town. The City of Johannesburg went through exactly the same debate two weeks ago. Enrique Penalosa, ex-Mayor of Bogata, Colombia and IRT expert pointed out at a talk in Johannesburg recently that the real issue, in all SA cities, is our low density urban sprawl. I agree with him.

Any form of public transport will not be sustainable unless we seriously tackle our current urban form. More people travelling shorter distances, with better peak to base rations, will ensure that a future IRT service is viable. The City of Cape Town has recently published a draft policy on densification for comment. In my view, far tougher measures need to be put in place, but it is a good start and we should all be getting involved in the debate.

Last week, the Cape Times published a 3D city population density map by UCT academics Ivan Turok and Ken Sinclair-Smith, showing that our highest densities, not surprisingly, are in the townships and informal settlements in the south-east, rather than near the traditional urban centres. In my view, what would be useful is to show at the same time the population density pattern in relation to the location of the urban economy and current development patterns and the transport connections between them. While we need to try to take the economy to where the people are, in the long run, we need to bring the people nearer to the production centres and the jobs, reduce the physical footprint of the city, and the resulting distances.

This means promoting transit-led development, where there is a confluence of people, economy and public transport in nodes and along transport corridors, is given a high priority.

Two examples will suffice:

The new IRT station adjacent the Woodstock/ Esplanade rail stations, has the potential to drive the redevelopment of Woodstock, Salt River and Culemborg, and connect back to the proposed CT Station phase two redevelopment project.

The development of a multimodal transport connection (rail, bus, cycling) in Woodstock has the potential to lead the regeneration of the land east of the Cape Town CBD

Similarly, the IRT Red Line through Paarden Eiland could lead to the creation of a well-located mixed use, mixed income area

The IRT West Coast route goes through Paarden Eiland along a disused railway track (pic. Bruce Sutherland)