Big guns boom in battle for Bourke St
- Author:
- Michael Gormly
- Posted:
- Thursday, 30 July 2009
Planning Minister and Member for Heffron, Kristina Keneally, has weighed in to the debate about the Bourke Street cycleway, asking Lord Mayor Clover Moore to consider residents’ preference for a cycle boulevarde shared with traffic instead of a bi-directional separated cycleway. Ms Keneally is also a member of Council’s Traffic Committee.
“This cycling boulevard could include a 30km/hr speed limit with dramatic roadway marking to identify the route as a favoured route for cyclists and one where drivers need much greater caution and awareness,” Ms Keneally wrote in a letter to Bourke St residents.
“There is merit in this suggestion, as it would eliminate issues such as: cyclists bunching at traffic lights and then attempting to squeeze into the narrow cycleway; extremely complex intersection treatments with 2 sets of 2-way traffic (car and cycle); and concerns about the unloading of frail elderly or young children from the passenger side of cars right into the cycleway. I understand that the divider is only 40cm and the lanes so narrow that car doors will protrude well into the southbound cycle lane,” she continued.
“The blended cycling boulevard concept appears to have significant resident support, and is soundly based on American research on safe cycling design. I understand that Council has received detailed advice and reports on a blended car/cycle mix as part of the community input.”
A Council spokesperson has responded by repeating that 631 of 842 submissions they received supported the project, and the design had been refined using ideas in some of the submissions.
Ms Keneally also said the cycleway design south of Cleveland St, where it would share the footpath with pedestrians, breached Council’s guidelines.
“…the shared cycleway/footpath appears to breach the Council’s own guidelines in that the cycle path is on a footpath outside restaurants and cafes. The section from Phillip Street to McEvoy Street has high levels of pedestrian activity, narrow footpaths, commercial/industrial buildings, busy bus stops, and an increasing residential density. There will shortly be a supermarket to add to the mix.”
Ms Keneally has first-hand knowledge of the route, adding: “As someone who has used the shared cycleway/footpath here to commute to work, I can attest to the issues constituents have raised with me. I now opt for the Moore Park/South Dowling/Oxford Street cycleway instead.”
Council responded with the following: “From Phillip/Crescent Streets to Elizabeth Street Waterloo the Bourke Street Cycleway is a shared path on the footpath due to road constraints. This is an area of wide footpaths and low pedestrian activity, comparable with numerous existing shared paths across Sydney.”
by Michael Gormly
A safer design: this existing one-way cycleway on Bourke St near Cleveland St (and a Public School) provides a protection zone for passengers getting in and out of cars
A City News adaptation of a Council plan of the cycleway in Bourke St Surry Hills, showing how car passengers will disembark onto the cycle lane
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July 30th, 2009 @ 10:47 am
Come clean Clover. How many of those submissions you claim were in favour are from Surry Hills? And how many are from outside areas including outside Sydney, and interstate from people who are unlikely to use the cycleway or even understand the local issues, such as from Bicycle Victoria, who asked its members to write in and support it using a misleading description of the cycleway that doesn’t accurately represent the current proposal’s dangers nor impact on local amenity. It’s time you showed the post codes and sources of your submissions, and started representing your local constituents.
July 30th, 2009 @ 11:25 am
Mr Ollivier may have a point here, although I suspect the ‘pro’ submissions would still outnumber the ‘anti’ even if Bicycle Victoria submissions were excluded. I made a supporting submission myself, but now I have seen the detailed design, I agree it is seriously flawed.
Council’s submissions process is deeply flawed. In my experience they uncritically accept submissions that agree with their agenda no matter now nonsensical their content, while rebutting the content of submissions opposing Council’s agenda. I have seen a lot of the material submitted in opposition to Liquor-related DAs in Kings Cross and not only is much of it laughable but is from people who live nowhere near the premises in question. Yet each submission is simply listed as for or against. I wonder if submissions from people directly affected should be given more weight, and submissions containing evidence-free or logic-free assertions should be discounted.
August 1st, 2009 @ 6:29 am
Great photos ‘The City News’ illustrating the real dangers along Bourke St and the alternative. Your adaptation (top) very clearly shows the unsafe design. Interestingly, Clover & Council are also ignoring our cyclists comments on the King Street disaster which we don’t want repeated on Bourke & other streets. Cyclists don’t want to be part of another King St. Its being driven now, not by Clover or Council, but by the construction companies & consultants making millions out of Clover’s, good intentions, but lack of inexperience.
August 1st, 2009 @ 5:56 pm
Ms Keneally makes some common sense comments .The ball is now in Clover Moore’s court to come back with a rationale response. But will she? Council has ignored all the overseas evidence, particularly from Finland & Norway,that these bi-directional cycleways are unsafe. The matter of the footpaths was particulary relevant, also. It seems silly to propose bikes on footpaths. How does this meet safety standards? How do you get out of the way of a bike if you are in a wheelchair or even if young and fit and looking the wrong way. Will Clover & her monopolistic ‘independent’ council reply to Ms Keneally’s legitimate issues?
August 2nd, 2009 @ 10:50 am
Re construction companies etc — that’s why I originally proposed in the City News a half-and-half plan with southbound (downhill, faster) cyclists sharing a marked road with traffic; and northbound (uphill, slower) remaining a separated cycleway but one-way with a median strip between cars & bikes, which would remove the two most dangerous elements of the current design. I knew that, once the design had proceeded that far, the bureaucrazy wouldn’t want to dump their ‘baby’ altogether and this seemed an achievable compromise.
Of course the proposal was ignored — playing that get-out-of-jail-free trump card of those in power.
August 2nd, 2009 @ 12:05 pm
Hi Michael,
if they made Bourke Street one way like they have with the safer design in the photo, that would work.
The one way down hill road would be wide enough for road cyclists to avoid car-dooring, while the one way cycleway uphill could still have a protection zone for passengers getting in and out of parked cars. But that would require getting rid of the north-bound traffic lane between Devonshire Street and at least to Albion Street. However that doesn’t solve the section of Bourke Street south of Cleveland Street.
For that reason I think a cycling Boulevard would be the better solution as everybody wins: cyclists, residents, pedestrians, motorists, yound and old; and most especially SAFETY for all. The existing unsafe proposal should have been discarded long ago.
July 12th, 2010 @ 10:28 am
Michael …. seriously flawed? Perhaps a little excessive. I really hear no effective counter arguments to the style of bike paths being constructed by CoS. Lets be real here. For my money, as a commuter biker, CoS has done well given the considerable restrictions imposed by the powerful RTA and lack of any help from the state govt. I would suggest you contact the council officer Fiona Campbell and have talk rather than just complaining.
I think a lot of bikers out there do not get that everyone wants to ride hard and many potential riders are just plain scared of traffic. Give em bike paths and good training (like the free courses run by CofS) and maybe we will get the 10% per daily trips into the CBD that Melbourne council has achieved with its paths.
Less complaining and more realisation that we need to all share public spaces.
July 18th, 2010 @ 6:26 pm
Hi Gianni — when I rode the Bourke Road route twice, I was nearly killed by rampaging cars twice, the drivers unable to see or calculate the double two-way traffic every vehicle turning off or on the street must negotiate. I challenge you to ride south on the route and enter or exit it safely at either end. On the King Street City path, riders have to wait on a steep uphill for the whole car traffic-light cycle to finish before getting a 5-second green — because right-turning riders have to cross traffic going in the same direction as well as the opposite. There are obvious problems in contraflow lane design. Try it!
On top of that, parked cars on Bourke Street will open their doors directly onto the southbound cycle lane. Children WILL be mangled. If you don’t regard these as serious design flaws, I do.
I do think we need a cycle lane network. But I see no point in pretending the problems are not there.