Councillor's ride of the Gateway Ward

On the 11th May, the BUG took new Port Phillip Councillors Heather Cunsolo and Peter Martin for a ride of Gateway Ward. Or maybe they took us—- they are both at home on their bikes!

BUG members Julie and Pierre with councillors Heather Cunsolo and Peter Martin

Our first stop was the notorious bus stop near the Sandridge Lifesaving Club. This is smack in the middle of the shared path, and the large advertising posters block views of the oncoming bikes and pedestrians, as well as people waiting at the bus stop. We’ve been raising this issue since 2019. In 2020 Councillor Pearl raised it in Council, to which the General Manager replied “"if there is a bus stop that’s causing any safety issues we will report that to the Department of Transport"—- it’s not clear if that’s happened. Our Councillors indulged us by illustrating the safety issues involved.

Next stop, the planned Garden City route. This is one of the protected bike routes from the Integrated Transport Strategy, joining Beacon Rd with Garden City Reserve and then on to the Sandridge Trail via Swallow St. The planned route will include a bidirectional trail on the west side of Beacon Rd and improved crossings on Swallow St. It’s not clear how it will deal with the roundabout between Beacon Rd and the Boulevard.

At the roundabout

Next stop, the Sandridge Trail. There is still no safe crossing on Bridge St (pictured below), but the new signalised crossing on Ingles St is a big improvement.

No safe crossing of Bridge St

There was some good news though—- at the tram depot, the Sandridge Trail was closed for works. Apparently the flooding issue (raised repeatedly by BUG members, and also identified in the BikeSpot project) is being addressed, and the notorious yellow railing chicanes are being replaced. The proposed designs look like they’ll be a much better fit for people with trailers, long bikes, or wide bikes.

Finally over to Moray St, and Park St, where Council and State Government plan to build protected bike lanes. Between St Kilda Rd and Kingsway, a planned major renovation of the road will include protected lanes. Between Kingsway and the roundabout, Council will put in temporary protected bike lanes. It’s not clear what the final layout will be.

Thanks to Heather and Peter for coming out on a damp and windy morning, we wish you well for your term on Council.

Councillor's Ride February 2020

Our latest Councillor’s ride was for Canal Ward, but in fact we spent a good deal of time in Lake Ward. Our focus was the planned protected bike routes on council’s Integrated Transport Strategy.

Slightly blurry, but the traditional pre-ride photo!

Councillors Tim Baxter, Katherine Copsey, Dick Gross and Louise Crawford joined us. Mayor Bernadene Voss sent her apologies, as did local MPs James Newbury and Martin Foley.

The route we took is here. Highlights were:

• Old bike friendly pinch points on north end of Tennyson St, Elwood. While these are a little narrow for people on wide bikes or trailers, they do the job of traffic calming while keeping people on bikes from being squeezed. We compared this to the new plastic medians further south on Tennyson. The councillors indicated that those pinch points were a mistake and would not be repeated (and some have been removed).

• Future ITS bike route 8, on Dickens St. This is a fairly wide street forming a great connection between Balaclava and the beach. Currently there is very little bike infrastructure on the route, though there is an advanced stop box at Beach Rd.

• St Kilda Marina. The council is currently planning the renovation of this. The design will be done by the successful private tenderer, but the guidelines emphasise the primacy of pedestrian and cyclist movement through the site. There were some different opinions about the possibility of a drawbridge across the entrance—- while this would give people more access to the breakwater, it also has an estimated cost of $5 million.

• Bay Trail between Marina and the Jetty. We spoke about the conflict in these areas at peak times, with cyclists who just want to pass through mixing it with pedestrians, dawdlers and tourists enjoying the space. We suggested the possibility of re-routing the path behind the sea baths. Another possibility is to make the on-road lane fully separated at this point, to accommodate both the roadies and the people using the Bay Trail.

• Bay Trail at Catani Gardens. In 2019 the Bay Trail here was closed for two weeks to accommodate a music festival, with cyclists given a so-called “detour” along Beaconsfield Parade. This was not suitable for many Bay Trail users. The councillors said that that would not be repeated, so thank you to everyone who gave feedback to council at the time.

• Connection between the Bay Trail and Fitzroy St. This is a bit of a mess.

• Fitzroy St. The bidirectional trail here is often nominated as one of the areas where cyclists feel least safe, because drivers do not think to look for people travelling in the counterflow direction. Let’s not build more of these.

• ITS route 6, Grey St and Inkerman St. Glen Eira Council recently confirmed that the continuation of this route, along Inkerman Rd to Caulfield, will be their Safe Cycling Corridor pilot project. It will connect the off-road bike path below the SkyRail, to the future protected bike lanes on St Kilda Rd. This is currently quite challenging to ride, with Grey St having no bike lanes and Inkerman St having only narrow lanes in the door zone. We discussed whether it would be possible to retain two lanes of parking on Inkerman St with separated bike lanes. There is currently a median that could be removed to free up space for this.

Thanks to every one who came along!

Councillors' Ride of the Gateway Ward

On Saturday 30th March the BUG took Councillor Ogy Simic and Mayor Dick Gross for a ride around Gateway Ward to look at some bicycle infrastructure, both the problems and the good new things. Our route and list of issues is here.

Despite the chilly temperature, strong winds and looming grey clouds, we were lucky to get sunshine to ride in. Here we are starting at the Port Melbourne Rotunda.

We made an early stop on the Bay Trail at the Sandridge lifesaving club. Here, the trail diverts away from the waterfront and runs along Beacon Rd. We were concerned that the bus stop (below) is a hazard, as the advertising blocks sight lines, making it difficult for cyclists to see people waiting at the bus stop or oncoming cyclists.

Next was a ride along Route 4 of the Integrated Transport Strategy (ITS), the Garden City extension. Beacon Rd needs an on-road protected route, especially through this roundabout—-

Route 4 then becomes a shared path through the Garden City Reserve. Shared paths are not optimal (they are unpleasant for cyclists and pedestrians), and we hope no new shared paths will be constructed as part of this project. There is a short connection missing between Garden City and the Sandridge Trail.

On to the Sandridge Trail itself: we had a look at those irritating railing chicanes.

Then over to Cecil and Moray Streets. We were impressed with the new separated path on the north end of Moray St, and the associated protected roundabouts. Hopefully all the new ITS routes are up to this standard.

On the protected bike lane on Moray St

All good things must come to an end! Moray St fizzles out when it crosses the border into the City of Melbourne, and our hours of sunshine were also up.

Thanks to Ogy and Dick for your support for cycling; Pierre and Brendan for braving the weather and coming along; Simon for the photos; Dennis and Rochelle for keeping us on track; and Liz, Geraldine and Jo for the route planning and the admin support.

Councillors' tour of the Lake Ward

On Tuesday 12th June we took Port Phillip Councillors Katherine Copsey, Andrew Bond, David Brand, Dick Gross and Ogy Simic on a tour of some interesting sites in the Lake Ward in Port Phillip. (Councillor Tim Baxter and Albert Park MP Martin Foley sent their apologies.)  Lake Ward covers St Kilda, Albert Park, and Middle Park.   The handout with the route is here. I've added some of the extra things we noticed on the ride to the map below (in purple).

11 km. Route taken by Councillors Ride, Lake Ward, June 2018.

We started at St Kilda Town Hall.   The first thing we observed was the time it took for us to walk across the pedestrian crossing at Brighton Road.   These crossings seem optimised for cars, rather than pedestrians.    (A recent article describes this problem.)

We headed up towards the Junction.   We briefly stopped at Inkerman St, where a single car parking place creates a pinch point in a merging zone.

Going up the hill, we looked at how the St Kilda Rd separated bicycle lanes project can be fairly easily implemented as a Copenhagen lane on the edge of the road.   By contrast, the challenge of fitting protected lanes into the Junction are considerable.   However creating a safe way for people on bikes to get through this intersection will be crucial.

We then headed down the bidirectional path on Fitzroy St.  This has been identified as one of the place where cyclists feel most unsafe in surveys by BikeSpot and VicRoads.   There is a protected lane for cyclists, but because drivers do not expect cyclists to be moving in a counterflow direction, they often fail to yield at intersections.   

On the way we tried to use the council public bike pump outside Woolworths.  Unfortunately it deflated Councillor Bond's tyre!   Liz had a pump that we fixed the problem with.

A faulty bike pump.

Then on through the quiet back streets of West St Kilda to Middle Park shops, where we looked at the suboptimal crossing of Canterbury Rd at Armstrong St.   

From Albert Park, we stopped at the intersection of Albert and Kerferd Rd.   The crossing here is yet another that doesn't allow sufficient time for pedestrians to cross.   There is some new marking for bicycles at this intersection, but the stretch under the tramway (travelling north) is still feels difficult for cyclist.  We looked at the option of converting the pedestrian underpass (just up Ferrars St) to a shared path, giving access to the service road on the north side of Albert Rd.

Looking out of the underpass.

Council is planning to put separated cycle lanes on Kerferd Rd, after a trial in which they reduce the number of lanes to one.   

Kerferd Rd is very wide!

Our last stop was another parking place, outside Donovans on Marine Parade.   This parking place/loading zone forces on-road cyclists to merge with traffic, while creating a little door zone.   We note that as this is an accessible parking place (for people with a disabled permit) it may be of high utility and should be relocated rather than removed.

Thanks to our councillors and council officer Kathleen Kemp for coming along.  Many thanks to Simon for the photographs.

Councillors' tour of bike infrastructure in the Canal Ward

On Thursday 8th March we took Councillors Katherine Copsey, Tim Baxter and Dick Gross for a tour around the Canal Ward to look at the infrastructure that makes riding a joy... or a nightmare.  (Handout with map and site descriptions here.)

8.35km

It was a beautiful day for a ride!

We observed the absence of a safe crossing on the Canal path at Glen Huntly Road.

And discussed the promised counter-flow bike lane on Blessington St--- when will this happen?

Thanks to our hard-working councillors Dick, Katherine and Tim, and to Simon for the photos, and to our volunteers Georgie and Rochelle for keeping everyone on track.  

We'll tour the Lakeside and Gateway wards later this year.