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Month: August 2020

Newtown Square – build identity and connect businesses

Published 2020/08/31 by Mr Hounsell

Built around Sydney’s tramways in 1890s, Newtown needs KPIs to prioritise humans not cars.

Proposed changes overlaid on aerial photography

The proposed transformation will activate Newtown as a premier destination for locals, as well as domestic and international visitors.

  • Bring the tram sheds back to life – creating a new gathering point. Landscape and open the areas around the tram sheds, with increased passive surveillance and human scale lighting. Make more spaces to sit, reducing crowding, and create new cooling green islands.
  • Create quicker connections between business areas with new paths. Most people head straight to northern King St. Use shared identity, anchors, and wayfinding to encourage visitors to spread.
    • Newtown only receives 10% of the international visitors as the Opera House
    • Reactivate Brennan Lane and the old path along the Bank Hotel.
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Demonstrating place making and safe streets in Enmore

Published 2020/08/30 by Mr Hounsell

Making Enmore’s commons safer for children, removing rat-runs, and giving more space to people

Proposed changes overlaid on aerial photography

This compact area can be used as a low-cost minimal-disruption demonstration transformation.

  • Safe 30 km/h limit in these narrow residential streets will increase pedestrian safety, decrease pollution, and will achieve Vision Zero.
    • Speed limits of 50km/h on narrow streets (60km/h on Liberty St) are dangerous and frequently results in accident and near-misses.
  • Raised continuous sidewalk on all roads throughout the area will psychologically calm traffic by showing the area is human-centric.
    • The daylighting zones will be enhanced with seating, tables, and swings.
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Returning space to the people to make Stanmore a Place again

Published 2020/08/29 by Mr Hounsell

Opening the Stanmore commons to make space for people, businesses, and cooling greenery.

Proposed changes overlaid on aerial photography

The Sydney Metro Sydenham to Bankstown conversion will see a train stopping at Stanmore:

  • every 3 minutes in peak-hours,
  • every 8 minutes off-peak,
  • currently waiting time is at least 15 minutes.

A protected cycleway will soon be installed on Gordon Crescent and Railway Avenue connecting Petersham to the universities, CBD, and beyond.

The inner-west cycleway network overlaid on an aerial photograph
– Stanmore Station is circled in purple.

These changes will make Stanmore an accessible location for the western corridor.

These changes transform the 1950’s car-centric design focused on through-traffic, into an attractive human-centric commons:

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Sydneysiders are working from home more, but the shift is linked to where you live, data reveals

Published 2020/08/27 by Mr Hounsell

‘Sydneysiders are transitioning to a digital working-from-home future, but movement data has revealed the scale of this shift is linked to where you live.’ Hanrahan, Nguyen (2020-08-27)

My Quotes

Mathew Hounsell, a transport researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, said the data showed that people in professional jobs who could work from home during the lockdown were continuing to do so.

“This is starting a change that has happened in other places and industries, towards a more distributed digital team. What we’re seeing is essentially a behavioural change that we would expect to continue,” he said.

Hanrahan, Nguyen (2020-08-27)
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Adam Ruins Everything

Published 2020/08/01 by Mr Hounsell

“In Adam Ruins Everything, host Adam Conover employs a combination of comedy, history and science to dispel widespread misconceptions about everything we take for granted. A blend of entertainment and enlightenment, Adam Ruins Everything is like that friend who knows a little bit too much about everything and is going to tell you about it… whether you like it or not.”

Why Jaywalking Is a Crime

Adam reveals the derogatory origins of jaywalking and explains how the auto industry made it illegal.

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