Understanding the capacities of urban street spaces by mapping Melbourne’s parklets

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many parklets have been deployed onto kerbside carparking spaces throughout Melbourne, Australia, by street-fronting hospitality businesses, to provide socially-distanced outdoor dining spaces. These temporary parklets provide useful indicators of the varying capacities of urban streets to support street life and commercial activity. By examining the distribution of Melbourne’s parklets, this paper identifies numerous urban design factors that provide capacity for parklets, or inhibit them. The analysis shows parklets thrive on traditional, pedestrian-friendly shopping streets with narrow frontages and good access but low through-traffic. Car-dependent outer-suburban shopping streets and strip shopping centres also support numerous parklets. Key hindrances include commercial streets serving as arterial commuter routes and streets that already have extensive traffic-calming features. Minor side streets can provide parklet capacity, but many design conditions inhibit this. The paper challenges policy-makers, planners and designers to address a variety of impediments to creating more pedestrian-friendly street environments.<p></p>