Bob Menzies is credited with converting Canberra from a country town to a Bush Capital.
In the late 1950s he pushed the development of the city politically and administratively. He moved departments from Melbourne to give the city a population base. He set up the national Capital Development Commission. These things were very commendable.
But Menzies was responsible, indirectly, for a fundamental deviation from the Griffin plan and vision, which only now is being thought about being corrected.
Menzies was not a town planner, nor an artistically creative man. So he did not do it himself. Rather he turned to Britain. British to his bootstraps, he brought out the best of British town planners, Sir William Holford, to advise on the planning of Canberra.
Holford tried to create an English garden city which as the vogue then. It was to have lots of open space. In doing so he surrendered the city to the car. His most grievous mistake was to destroy Griffin’s Triangle by carving a semi-circular freeway along the lakeshore called Parkes Way.
The cars sweep noisily from Tuggeranong to the Airport. They veer speedily around circles and swoop down spaghetti junction loops. They sit idle and space-consuming in huge carparks throughout the day.
Holford presented his report to Parliament in 1958 and it was accepted lock stock and barrel, by the national planning authorities.
Burley Griffin’s Triangle is still uncompleted. His grand Constitution Avenue with commercial and residents is a nothing. The city is cut from the lake by a freeway. And for two decades planners could build what they liked where they liked provided there was some nice green space and some pretty trees around it.
On an urban scale, few Canberrans recognise how large our Triangle is.
The length of the Champs Elysses takes you from Parliament House to the lake shore. Westminster to Trafalgar Square is the length of Parliament to City Hill.
We just drive in seconds across a bridge.
A week ago, however, the National Capital Planning Authority did what Sir Humphrey would call courageous. It put up some ideas. Lots of them.
They are ideas about Canberra for the next half century. Some of them, however, are directed at the centenary of federation.
It is the first time since the completion of Parliament House that the central national area has been subjected to a major review.
There are 20 major elements to the ideas. The major ones being:
The completion of the Russell corner. It would be a new gateway as the entry point from Sydney, Melbourne and the airport. And would be an exchange with bus and rail terminal.
Constitution Avenue would be a high street, an avenue of commerce and apartments.
Kings Avenue would become more like Whitehall with a more ceremonial character flanked by government buildings leading up to Parliament House.
Commonwealth Avenue would be more like Washington’s Pennsylvania avenue.
City Hill would be made more a City Place, a social place where people and retreat and mix.
The PM’s Lodge to be within the Triangle.
Redevelop Kingston foreshore.
Premier housing on the lake-side slopes of Stirling Ridge.
Civilise Parkes Way with at-level street links, allowing the city to meet the lake.
Trams and light rail and a tram loop around the Triangle.
And a Ponte Vecchio. The one-kilometre bridge would delicately traverse the wetlands and provide a link between the exchange and Queanbeyan. The bridge would have 500 apartments.
The danger of putting up the ideas, is that they can be picked off as impractical, too expensive, idealistic twaddle and from the NCPA’s perspective could lead to a vicious backlash that says why do with bother with this head-in-the-clouds stuff, let’s shrink them back to size.
The changes to Parkes Way have been condemned by the ACT Government. One planner predicted that the reaction to the ideas might have a “”me and my car going to the airport” mentality.
It is far easier to attack and pick holes in a plan than to add to it constructively or make suggestions about integrating its elements. The planners will have to grin and bear the scoffings that creative people have to bear.
They can take some comfort that Washington’s National Capital Commission is undertaking a similar task and can provide some ammunition against the scoffers.
The commission recently put out a draft vision statement. Under the heading “”The Need to Act” it said; “”If we should be wary of trying to cast our ideas in bronze, we should be warier still of doing nothing. Those who argue that visionary planning is too expensive, or a distraction from the real business of making cities safe and livable forget the extraordinary benefits that such planning has bestowed on Washington and other American cities.
“”Try to imagine New York without Central Park, Chicago without its lakefront parks, New Orleans without the French Quarter. Each was the product of a bold idea, skilfully nurtured and carried out with conviction.”
The same can be said for Canberra and Australian cities.
Why now?
The lead up to the centenary of federation and Canberra was created because of Federation. It may be a time to get other Australians to think about the city without cynicism.
The chief executive of the NCPA, Gary Prattley, says, “”The intent is to ensure that the National Capital provides an appropriate focus for the celebration in 2001.”
Of more practical import, the central national area has not been seriously looked at since the construction of Parliament House. Putting Parliament at the apex of the Triangle was not what Burley Griffin intended, but it has worked splendidly. The bits inside the Triangle now need drawing together and the Triangle itself needs better definition. Otherwise we will go on building bits without any cohesion or ultimate aim.
The NCPA intends a major process of public consultation, not just in Canberra, but Australia-wide, asking what people want their capital to be.
That will be a difficult task in a nation noted for being knockers and laconic.