The Publicness of Transport

Date: Thursday, 17th October 2024

Time: 4:30pm—5:30pm

Location: Chau Chak Wing Museum

What is ‘public’ about our urban and regional transport systems - and how public should they be? At the heart of creating more sustainable, equitable, and liveable urban mobility are contested political questions about the ‘publicness’ of transport: Which aspects of transport embody public interests and values? Do our current governance systems serve public interests? Whose futures are at stake? Who holds the power in decision-making? Are private interests capturing our public transport futures and how might we take control of them? This session encompasses critical discussions about how we shape, and share the benefits of, our collective mobility futures.

Speakers

Dr Ian Woodcock, Senior Lecturer in Urbanism & Program Director in Urban Design / Urbanism / Urban & Regional Planning, University of Sydney

Dr Crystal Legacy, Associate Professor in Urban Planning, University of Melbourne

David Babineau, NSW Rail Tram and Bus Union

Emma Bacon, CEO of Sweltering Cities

Neill Miller, Director, Transport Advisory, NSW Department of Planning and Environment

Chaired by

Dr Rebecca Clements, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Architecture, Design & Planning, University of Sydney

Dr Ian Woodcock is Senior Lecturer in Urbanism in the Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney, Australia. He is a UK-registered architect with over 30 years of experience encompassing practice, research and teaching, across government, private and community sector settings. His research focuses on urban change, sense of place, and the use of design as a research method.

Dr Crystal Legacy is Associate Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne, Australia where she is also the Co-Director of the Informal Urbanism Research Hub. She resides on Wurundjeri Country where she writes, teaches and works with communities on issues related to urban transport politics, public participation and the post-political city.  She publishes in a range of academic journals, provides critical commentary for local and national media outlets, and works in solidarity with a range of community-based groups seeking climate just outcomes in transport planning. 

David Babineau is the Secretary of the Bus & Tram. He works closely with the President of the Bus & Tram Division Peter Grech to co-ordinate the daily management of the activities undertaken by the Division to support Bus & Tram members in NSW.

Emma Bacon is the Founder and Executive Director of Sweltering Cities. Since the beginning of 2020 Sweltering Cities has connected with thousands of people around the country, working directly with communities in our hottest suburbs to campaign and advocate for more liveable, equitable and sustainable cities. Emma is a passionate organiser, campaigner and activist. She has worked across movements for social and environmental justice for over 13 years and has been part of winning significant outcomes for progressive change at local to international levels. Emma is committed to building a broad movement for climate justice.Emma lives and works on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi wurrung people. 

Neill Miller is the Director of the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure’s Transport Advisory team. He is an accomplished urban planner with 17 years’ experience specialising in the planning and design of place-based transport outcomes. Having worked in both consulting and government roles across the transport and planning sectors, he has developed a range of strategies to support city-shaping initiatives and transport network designs.

He has led the development of multi-modal transport strategies, transport and land use planning policies and plans, provided expert guidance and collaborated with stakeholders and partners across different levels of Government and the private sector to plan and co-design the needs of cities and communities.

Dr Rebecca Clements is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Sydney and RMIT. She recently completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Henry Halloran Research Trust’s Infrastructure Governance Incubator. She is now undertaking research on the ‘Deep Timetable’ ARC project at RMIT, and also several projects on micromobility with the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies. Her research is concerned with planning sustainable and equitable cities, with a focus on overcoming urban car dominance. Her work encompasses parking policy approaches in Australia and Japan, transport and mobility justice approaches such as children's independent mobility, and transformative infrastructure governance. 

Festival of Public Urbanism 2024

Great cities are defined by the quality of their public realm. From parks to civic architecture, well designed public infrastructure supports and enables the social, cultural, and economic dimensions of urban life. But are these public assets, along with public processes of urban governance and planning, under attack? Over the past fifty years key legacies of the modern urban project – such as publicly funded housing and urban infrastructure; or comprehensive planning for new development – have been eroded by waves of political and economic reform. Faith in market based ‘solutions’ has reduced public planning processes to ‘red tape’ and replaced public investment in rental housing with subsidies for private investors and households. At the same time, digital transformation under ‘platformisation’ has seen private corporations able to evade domestic regulations, disrupting every facet of urban life and governance.

The Festival of Public Urbanism will debate these topics and more. Join us to engage with academics, activists, politicians, industry leaders through our program of panel discussions, walking tours, and podcasts across Sydney and Australia.