In response to the acute pandemic crisis, and the ongoing climate emergency, neighbouring Melbourne local governments have quickly approved ambitious infrastructure plans to improve cycling.
Melbourne City Council will remove hundreds of car spaces to make way for 40 kilometres of cycling lanes, delivering their 10 year plan over the next two years
The City of Yarra will re-purpose road space to create new or expanded bike lanes
The City of Moreland has committed $1.83m additional investment in walking and cycling improvements this year, moving quickly to deliver several zebra crossings, pop up separated bicycle lanes, and pop up shared zones.
Similarly, the City of Sydney is also creating more than 10 kilometres of pop-up bike lanes to cope with commuters when COVID-19 restrictions ease.
The City of Port Phillip is sitting on its hands instead of seizing this unique opportunity to improve our city. The BUG has assessed Council’s performance against three measures, and concludes it COULD DO BETTER.
Measure 1: Building a network of protected bike routes. The City of Port Phillip Integrated Bicycle Strategy 2018—2028 planned a network of 10 bike routes to be built in 10 years. Two years on, only half a route has been completed— the north end of Moray St. Notably, this was led and funded by an outside agency (Melbourne Metro), not by Council.
If this project were on track, we’d expect to see two routes built by now.
Score: 25%
Measure 2: Pandemic response. The City of Port Phillip has done nothing to build safe places to exercise and commute, during and after the lockdown.
Score: 0
Measure 3: Active transport in response to the climate emergency. The City of Port Phillip declared a Climate Emergency in September 2019. Transport is identi- fied as the second largest source of greenhouse emissions, and Council has claimed that in response "We are installing dedicated bike lanes and paths across the city". As detailed above, this is well behind schedule, and the recognition of the climate emergency has done nothing to speed it up.
Score: 0