Saturday, 26 July 2014 - 11:28am
A curate's egg, this. It's long past time that most of the roundabouts in the CBD were removed. Roundabouts simply don't work when there's a steady stream of traffic in all directions, not to mention the danger to cyclists for whom every right hand turn is death-defying, and the inconvenience to pedestrians who can't cross at intersections.
On the other hand, it's striking how a developer can submit a (second) plan that looks like a Guinness book attempt at including as many elements of bad urban design as possible, without a whisper of objection. Here we have a concrete and glass box, artificially raised from street level in order to confiscate the formerly public footpath and frustrate those with prams, walking frames, or wheelchairs; high awnings that serve the aesthetic purpose of breaking the otherwise sheer facade, but provide little to no protection from the weather; and a foliage band-aid along each side in an effort to disguise the shiny brutalism as cheaply as possible. This isn't planning; this is conquest and colonisation.