Planners have crunched the numbers and come up with an idea to slash commute times across the south-east and deliver more leisure time.
More than 1.3 million commuter minutes could be saved across south-east Queensland daily by building a mix of new accommodation closer to where people work, government planners have estimated.100,000 of the 900,000 new dwellings needed to house an extra 2.2 million residents by 2046Smarter development could shave a total of more than 1.3 million minutes off commute times daily in south-east Queensland.
The data, released by Planning Minister Steven Miles, reflects the push towards providing more townhouses, duplexes andBuilding 100,000 such dwellings close to major centres and public transport could save 22,000 commuter hours – or 1,320,000 minutes – daily by 2046.Overall, the government expects 32 per cent of the new dwellings to be in greenfield sites, while the remainder would come from higher-density “consolidation”.
The mapping shows that beyond Brisbane, there is a very low proportion of dwellings close to public transport, forcing residents to rely more on cars.“Having people closer to jobs and services, and making better use of existing infrastructure, there is a lot of sense to that,” Dodson said.But he cautioned that efforts to prioritise higher-density development in established suburbs should not preclude efforts to create better public transport and more jobs in outer suburbs.
“Urban infill tends to be multi-unit apartment-type development, and the market tends to deliver that at one- and two-bedroom sizes, which is not really suitable for families,” he said.