Melbourne’s Lord Mayor Sally Capp reveals her triumphs and regrets
Lord Mayor Sally Capp says Melbourne Council has learnt lessons from the city’s controversial bike lane project, but she still stands by the plan.
Victoria
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This article was originally published in 2022
Lord Mayor Sally Capp has admitted her council “could have done better” on key programs and will try “to get more things right”.
Ms Capp says the council failed to properly communicate the massive city bike lane project and a street parking app that have both received extensive public criticism, but stands by the council’s actions.
In an exclusive interview with the Saturday Herald Sun in her office at Melbourne Town Hall, adorned by classic artworks and antique-style furniture, Ms Capp admits the bike lanes were one project the council should have “communicated better” to businesses and residents.
“I reflect on programs like the bike lanes rollout and I think we could have communicated better, I think that’s a real takeaway for us,” she said.
Despite the council hitting the brakes on the project after community backlash, Ms Capp said people were just simply “adjusting” to bike lanes.
“The night that we debated the independent review, we had over 1000 submissions — the most we had ever received. And that ranged from ‘pull them up’ to ‘they’re the best, do more of them’.
“Our most recent decision is to continue particularly with our feeder roads, including Macaulay Rd and Royal Parade … but otherwise pause the CBD.
“We’ve got no plans at the moment to pull up any bicycle lanes.”
Ms Capp also admits to another council failure — that it “could have done better” when rolling out its new parking app EasyPark.
“It’s continuously being improved and our aim is to get more things right. We just had some criticism that people didn’t know about it … I think the team certainly felt that we’d done everything that we could.”
But overall Ms Capp — the first woman to be elected as Lord Mayor of the City of Melbourne in May 2018 and re-elected in November 2020 — is content with what she and the council have done.
“When I was in Singapore, people asked me about Melbourne Money. It’s been a brilliant program,” she says. “And it’s generated almost $100m in value for our hospitality businesses.”
She said the council had also been able to show leadership on projects that have long term impacts.
“Make Room, for example, which is the facility for people who are rough sleeping in our city to put them on long term pathways to housing.
“There are big transformational projects including the Greenline. We’ve got great funding support from the federal government and we’re still in discussions with the state government.”
In the past week, Melbourne’s CBD traders have expressed their anger at the council for refusing to support the urgent release of a report into safe injecting rooms by former top cop Ken Lay.
When asked about a second injecting room in the CBD, Ms Capp says she supports the facilities as they “save lives”.
“It’s a state government project ultimately they decide where it goes … In terms of Flinders St, there have been a lot of issues identified with the site in that area and the impacts on others.
“Traders, residents, and visitors have been very vocal in raising a number of issues. One is, it’s a gateway to Melbourne, being across the road from Flinders Street Station.
“Our support for the safe injecting room is conditional on it being part of an integrated health model, which was part of the expert advice, which has proven in other places like Sydney to really address both the health issues and impact.”
Rumours have abounded Ms Capp may use her high profile for a tilt at state politics, but she says she will not contest November’s election. And asked about whether she will have another tilt at Lord Mayor, she remains uncommitted.
“I’m just going to stay focused on delivery, getting things done, and then I’ll reassess when we come to 2024,” she says.
For now one of the greatest concerns is the absence of workers from city buildings and footpaths.
“It is a paradox to us that people are really excited to come in on weekends and evenings, but not so excited to come in on weekdays,” Ms Capp says.
“But we do accept and we embrace flexible working, and remote working is absolutely fantastic. It’s changed our lives.
“We want to get to whatever that new rhythm is as quickly as possible, because that really will bring a lot of confidence and clarity to our local traders particularly.”
In a bid to get the CBD thriving again, Ms Capp revealed exclusively one of the initiatives she was discussing with the state government was for there to be “deep discounts” on annual myki passes.
“We recognise that weekly or daily discounts aren’t as relevant to people anymore because the times they’re coming into the city, and the frequencies have changed, but deep discounts to annual passes seen in cities around the world have had big impacts,” she says.
“It will get people back onto public transport and into the city. Because the cost of public transport has become one of those key considerations for people that have been working from home for more than two years now.
“Halving it for example would make a really big difference to commuters and it’s a conversation that we’ve started with our key stakeholders.”
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