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The cycleway from hell was paved with good intentions. In May 2020, months into the deadly COVID-19 pandemic that shook the world, then-transport minister Andrew Constance and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore introduced temporary cycleways to encourage people to move around the city while maintaining safe distances.
Unlike mask wearing, state border controls and QR code check-ins, the temporary cycling lanes lingered and are becoming permanent parts of the city. Two have proved especially controversial: the Oxford Street cycleway, where residents have launched legal action against the state government and City of Sydney council; and the Bridge Road route connecting Camperdown to Glebe.
The cycleway along Oxford Street proved especially controversial.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
Somewhere along the way, the good intentions slipped like a chain off a sprocket.
The 1.2-kilometre Bridge Road cycleway that runs from Lyons Road to Taylor Street near the new Sydney Fish Market is now used for about 500 trips a day, and is in a part of the city primed for denser living as the government seeks to address a housing crisis. The problem, as Sydney editor Megan Gorrey reports, is that the temporary cycleway is a dangerous path where riders are forced to merge back into traffic lanes.
While the competing needs of cyclists, motorists and pedestrians have long proved divisive, lately the Bridge Road route has succeeded in uniting people in opposition. Residents are not only annoyed at the construction, but have joined cyclists in their concern about safety. Di Anstey, the Bridge Road Friends founder whose advocacy also risks turning permanent, witnesses “near misses every day” and suggests alternative routes should be considered.
Perhaps the most damning comments come from Balmain MP Kobi Shetty, “an experienced, lifelong cyclist” who uses the route to get to work but is always uneasy. “I have to be hypervigilant. I wouldn’t let my kids near it.”
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For its part, Transport for NSW said safety would be improved after the upgrade, and it was designed to improve safety for pedestrians, motorists and bike riders. A spokeswoman said the permanent cycleway would also create a more accessible and safer travel option for people riding between the inner west and the city, including to the new Fish Market. It has also promised that additional safety measures, which were suggested in a 2023 audit, had been included in the final design.
As it stands, the cycleway is pleasing no one. Motorists have to keep their wits about them as the few riders who brave the path duck in and out of traffic. Residents are being disrupted by roadworks that few are convinced will fix the problem. And cyclists are already voting with their pedals. That only 500 trips a day are being recorded on the route is evidence that many riders are steering clear of it.
This is not to say all the cycleways should be torn up. Cyclists deserve space to commute in safety, as all road users do. In a city of endless tunnels, train tracks and toll roads, the inability to solve a 1.2-kilometre problem smells of a lack of will. Maybe good intentions need to return.
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