Half a billion for active transport 😍 thank you 🙏🏼 Australian Government!

Stage 2 of the Tram and Train Activity Centres Program has been gazetted; many more people will live over the river in Boroondara, so it looks like we'll be needing much better east-west bike routes through Yarra into the CBD.

Quoted in The Age last night, after council voted to cancel share bikes. Streets Alive Yarra president Jeremy Lawrence suggested that if bike parking on local footpaths was the issue, on-street bike corrals could be added to every street in Yarra, “just as there’s a car park in every street”.

Say hello to a new on-street EV charging bay - this one is in Cremorne. Have you seen one near you?

June newsletter out now: preview.mailerlite.io/emails/webvi...

Show me The Cycling Guide! NSW, SA, and TAS have published cycling guides, why not VIC? Why is it still sitting on the Minister's desk?

If you’d like to create opportunities for kids and young people to get active, we have suggestions, i.e. investing in walking and biking to deliver safe routes to schools: streets-alive-yarra.org/better-for-c...

Vietnamese cuisine is now wide-spread across Melbourne, and Victoria Street no longer has a point of difference. What should be done? streets-alive-yarra.org/journal/feed...

Feedback on the draft Annual Budget 2026/27 closes on 17 May. Read our submission, and then have your say: streets-alive-yarra.org/journal/feed...

Council has voted - Wellington Street cancelled.

People are talking about free public transport; we'd ❤️ to see a similar discussion about free on-street parking!

Nick Tyrrell is a parent at Princes Hill Primary School, and he explains the proposed changes Council is considering to make it safer and easier for students, parents and staff to walk, cycle and scoot to and from the school. You can submit your feedback via Your Say Yarra.

The state can easily adopt bike lane design guidelines (which are sitting on the Minister's desk) for Strategic Cycling Corridors, and require councils to comply with them, which would stop Elizabeth Street from being downgraded. streets-alive-yarra.org/journal/move...

Tomorrow - join a group photo to protest the drastic narrowing of Elizabeth Street bike lanes:

Did you know that the modal filter on Page Street, outside Clifton Hill Primary School, was installed in 1977? Modal filters are great, and we encourage Council to install more, as part of the Wellington Street traffic calming project.

The state government has asked the City of Yarra to build 44,000 new homes by 2050. Where will they go? Our article takes a look at the new Housing Capacity Assessment Platform (HCAP) and the Access to Opportunities and Services (ATOS) tool, to see the possible impact on Yarra.

Listen in to hear how councillors have performed during their first year at Yarra:

How good are parklets? If you love ❤️ them as much as us, check out this book 📖 launch at Readings!

The Quarterly Community Report to be presented on Tuesday night shows that Yarra has 201 car sharing vehicles. If we want to create a city that is accessible to all, without the need to own a car, then we need many more car share vehicles; i.e. a target of 2,000, ten times more than we have now.

Is it difficult to find a park near your house? One solution is to change our streets to 'Ticket Zone' so that the system can limit the number of visitor vehicles permitted to park in each street or neighbourhood.

New York City has a new Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who is committed to building better streets. If New York City can do it, we can too.

You can join our fight for walking, biking, trees, and place making. Subscribe to our newsletter, come along to our meetings, and introduce our group to others who might be interested.

In our opinion, Yarra is now governed by a backwards bloc who are reversing previous strategic direction, and previous gains made for a more beautiful, liveable, and accessible city, and it’s the wrong direction for an inner-city area that’s going to see a significant increase in its population.

Six of the nine councillors formed a voting bloc, and over the first year they have voted to: - cancel the park outside Richmond Library - narrow the Elizabeth Street bike lanes to bring back car parking - cancel intersection treatments that were safer for people biking

Report card 2025 A new council was elected in October 2024. Now that a year has passed, let’s look back on who was elected, what scores we had given them, and how they performed for freedom, equality, social justice, responsibility, and a world of beauty.

In particular, their “safer streets toolkit” highlights: Low Traffic Neighbourhoods Expanding the strategic cycle network Lower speed limits, i.e. 30 km/h zones

Their imagery shows people walking and using buses, and the text describes how bus speeds will be improved, such as via a switch to a completely new system for managing London’s traffic lights.

In Central London, which in Melbourne would include the City of Yarra, the graphic highlights increased public and active transport, and decreased car use (because they don’t have enough space on their streets for everyone to drive at the same time):

Transport for London shows the way, with their 2030 vision for a better, safer street network:

Here is Stantec’s (Chris Coath) summary of what the changes mean for Councils: www.linkedin.com/pulse/victor...