Strawburger wrote:
Upgrading a road generally doesn't mean creating a new one. It means improving the existing one to perform at current standards (or even realigning it to be more suitable). This also means adding cycling facilities to these upgraded roads (most don't have existing facilities). This does not mean just painting a line on the road either! Usually it means separated facilities or more safe conditions for the cyclist.
So how does the proposed upgrade for the M5 fit with your world-view ?
The proposal is to widen it west of King Georges Rd to Fairford Rd. That will involve consuming the wide shoulder that to date has been a fairly reasonable on-road cycleway. That won't make it safer for cyclists - and will probably see fewer cyclists using it.
It will also do absolutely zero to increasing motoring capacity to the City, Port Botany and the Eastern Suburbs - and the congestion from funnelling 3 lanes into two at King Georges is likely to have an overall detrimental effect. It is very much an exercise in re-arranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic. The ship is going down.
FWIW, there is an "off-road" cycleway along the M5 linear park, which is half respectable between Bexley North and King Georges Rd. It is a pathetic tree-uprooted goat-track from there west to Riverwood. Then it dissappears north towards Bankstown at Salt-Pan Creek - i.e. doesn't make it to Fairford Rd and points west of that. So yes, it doesn't have existing facilities, and it will lose those it presently provides.
I'm not as familiar with the M2, but following the debate here over the expansion, it doesn't read as if there has been any consideration of cyclists needs there either.
The only people who can win from this are politicians, and then only if a fawning media contingent fail to critically examine beyond the spin.