Save articles for later
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.
Merri-bek council will consider ripping up a section of bike lanes in Pascoe Vale after residents complained they were causing safety issues and chaotic head-to-head stand-offs between motorists.
Councillors will vote on Wednesday night on whether to accept a recommendation from council officers to remove the bike lanes installed two years ago on both sides of Kent Road, sparking outcry from supporters who say the inner-northern suburbs need better cycling infrastructure.
Ian Carmichael said the bike lanes were not appropriate for Kent Road. Credit: Jason South
Separate bicycle lanes were rolled out across Melbourne during the pandemic to encourage climate-friendly transport, but they have been dogged by complaints of poor design, botched implementation and a lack of consultation.
Merri-bek installed the lanes between the footpath and parked cars along 320 metres of Kent Road, between Cornwall Road and Cumberland Road, in mid-2021 as part of a trial to create a safe cycling route from Glenroy to Coburg, which connected to the popular Upfield bike path to the city.
However, residents and businesses say reducing the street from two vehicle lanes to one lane shared by two-way traffic has caused gridlock, with drivers “aggressively” refusing to yield to oncoming vehicles, according to a report from council officers.
Pascoe Vale Health Medical also raised concerns about elderly patients not being able to access the centre and the risk of them tripping on bollards installed to separate parked vehicles from bikes, even after they were redesigned in December last year.
Kent Road resident Ian Carmichael said the council installed the lanes and bollards without consulting locals.
“The traffic is just hideous and there’s been so many close calls – for bikes as well,” he said. “No one’s against bike lanes – it’s just these bike lanes don’t work in this location.”
Wednesday’s vote will be hotly contested, with Greens councillor Adam Pulford saying removing lanes was the “exact opposite of what we should be doing”.
“We know protected bike lanes help more people get on bikes, which is good for health and for the climate, yet our community doesn’t have many of them,” he said.
Pulford said the recommendation to remove the lanes was based on a flawed survey, which only asked cyclists to compare the safety benefits of the current and original design, and not to when there were no lanes at all.
VicRoads ripped up 40 kilometres of lanes installed in the City of Port Phillip after complaints from some residents earlier this year, and the City of Melbourne paused its CBD bike roll-out in 2022 after a backlash from some CBD traders.
The Age visited Kent Road on Wednesday afternoon and saw only one cyclist use the lanes between 2.30pm and 3.30pm. Will DeMilliano, who was collecting his son from school on his cargo bike, said the lanes were badly designed and that he had seen cars pull into them to try to squeeze past oncoming traffic.
“We need bike paths, but this current design doesn’t work,” he said.
However, Rory Dickson, who uses the Kent Road bike lanes most days riding from Glenroy to his CBD office, said traffic problems were better solved by removing some on-street parking rather than the bike lanes, which would fracture the Glenroy-Coburg cycling network.
“If you don’t have that separation, people just don’t feel safe. People will default to driving,” Dickson said.
Merri-bek officers have recommended the Kent Road bike lanes by removed by the end of this year and that council explores an alternative “shimmy route” for cyclists along quieter backstreets between Kent Road and O’Hea Street.
The RACV, the state’s peak motoring body, has previously called for greater investment in a network of safe cycling “highways” across the city to encourage more people to cycle instead of drive, which it says would help ease congestion.
State government surveys have found that around 60 per cent of Victorians are interested in cycling as a form of transport but are afraid to ride alongside vehicle traffic.
Cars produce around 13 per cent of Victoria’s carbon emissions and the state government has pledged to increase cycling and walking as a share of transport from 18 per cent of all trips to 25 per cent by 2030 as part of its climate change policies.
Merri-bek’s “shimmy route” would include a bi-directional separated bike lane on a small southern section of Kent Road, with way-finding signage and speed humps to slow traffic and make the backstreets comfortable for less confident cyclists.
A council spokesperson said trail separated bike lanes had been made permanent on Dawson Street in Brunswick and Northumberland Road in Pascoe Vale, but officers had determined that was not the best option for Kent Road.
“Council remains committed to delivering the best transport outcomes across Merri-bek and we know that trial treatments need to be appropriately tested to ensure a project’s long-term suitability,” they said.
“Providing a low-stress bike route between Glenroy and Coburg continues to be a strategy to encourage residents to adopt active transport measures, as well as a strategy to reach Merri-bek net-zero by 2035 targets.”
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.
Most Viewed in National
From our partners
Source: Read Full Article
