The government on Thursday released its draft blueprint for 30 strategic cycleway corridors totalling about 250 kilometres for Sydney’s “eastern harbour city”,which covers an area from the northern beaches to Sutherland in the south and Olympic Park in the west.
Under the plans,five cycleway corridors have been deemed “immediate opportunities” including between Newtown and Green Square;St Leonards and Artarmon;and through both Lilyfield and North Sydney.
The government has released plans for strategic cycleway corridors.Rhett Wyman
In a similar way that state roads dissect Sydney,Active Transport Minister Rob Stokes said the 30 strategic bike corridors would serve as the main threads of the cycle network,tying together key centres and recreation areas such as Centennial Park and Bondi Beach with suburbs.
“These are state super-cycle highways. Local cycling connections will weave through these corridors,ultimately creating a tapestry of safe cycle ways,” he said. “This will be Sydney’s response to London super cycleways.”
The government will expand the plans for strategic cycleway corridors to the rest of Sydney,including the so-called Western Parkland City,by the year’s end.
NSW Infrastructure,City and Active Transport Minister Rob Stokes.Kate Geraghty
The pandemic has spurred an increase in people across Sydney choosing to cycle. A City of Sydney last year showed more than 50 per cent of regular cyclists had taken up the activity over a two-year period.
Henriette Vamberg,from Danish urban design and research consultancy Gehl,said it had taken Copenhagen,a city now well known for cycling,a long time to reach a point where 62 per cent of its population bike to work or schools and other education centres.
“Copenhagen wasn’t always this fairytale place where we bicycled everywhere. It used to be we had parking all over,” she told the Active Transport Mobility Summit in Sydney on Thursday. “It has taken a long time,but it has changed.”
Labor transport spokeswoman Jo Haylen said the government had talked at lengths about building cycling infrastructure,but the results were yet measure up to the hype.
“The real test for Rob Stokes here isn’t what he’s able to announce. It’s about what he is able to deliver,” she said.
The government has also fast tracked a three-month trial by councils of shared electric scooters to July. Under the trials,geo-fencing technology will be used to control speeds of e-scooters rented by companies and where they are parked.
Stokes said it was time to recognise that technology had changed and people were already using e-scooters despite them being illegal at present on roads and other public property in NSW.
“We need to ensure that it is regulated in way that liberates this new form of getting around but also ensures that it’s safe,” he said. “Because we are dealing with shares schemes,we can ensure the appropriate regulation is reflected in the contracts by which these operators can operate.”
Stokes said he hoped there was a “clearer idea” about the use of private e-scooters by Christmas.
Pedestrian Council chairman Harold Scruby said he had serious concerns about allowing private e-scooters because of the risks they posed to pedestrians.
“Cyclists should be worried about them,too,because they dart in and out,” he said. “These devices are being called active transport. They’re not active transport – they’re inactive transport.”
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