armstrong creek urban growth plan volume 1 - City of Greater Geelong

nature strips are minimised. Wider roads should not be contemplated unless
absolutely necessary, due to their increased barrier effect.
Minimal width is particularly important at intersections, where pedestrians are most
likely to be wishing to cross the arterial. Therefore, all intersections with arterial
roads will be signalised. Signals will also aid pedestrians wishing to cross the road.
A high quality environment
As noted above, arterial roads will inevitably be used as local connector streets in
addition to their sub-regional and regional ‘through traffic’ functions. Therefore, it is
important that they are attractive roads—to contribute to a high quality image for
the development as a whole—and that they offer reasonable pedestrian and cycle
amenity—to contribute to the attractiveness of the development as a whole and
encourage walking and cycling.
There are a number of ways in which arterial roads can be designed to contribute
to a high quality environment. These are:
Where they are not edged by parks (including retarding basins), they should
be edged by building ‘fronts’, rather than high fences or service yards
associated with the ‘sides’ or ‘backs’ of buildings. This means that there
would need to be service roads to provide access to the abutting properties.
They should have generously broad shared paths where there is adjoining
development.
They should have large trees along both nature strips and on any central
median and outer separators (specified in accordance with road safety
standards).
Their design speed should be minimised, to lessen the likelihood of
pedestrians feeling unsafe when they are walking along them.
Grade-separated intersections should not be contemplated unless absolutely
necessary, as they blight the surrounding environment and, in particular,
land alongside through their visual impacts and restrictions on access.
Multi-carriageway boulevards
As noted above, service roads are required to enable buildings to ‘front’ arterial
roads. This creates a multi-carriageway ‘boulevard’, which can be a very attractive
street despite the fact that this increases the overall width of the road (eg. St Kilda
Road).
In essence, a multi-carriageway boulevard divides the traffic into a number of
carriageways. The separators between these carriageways provide ‘staging posts’
ARMSTRONG CREEK URBAN GROWTH PLAN / VOLUME 1 (ADOPTED 13 MAY 2008, AMENDED MAY 2010)
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