City of Sydney being so-called "bike friendly"

[Retrobyte]

Yesterday I decided to do a loop and take in some of Clover Moore's bike lanes in the City of Sydney LGA that I hear so much about. My route was from Parramatta to Tempe via the Cook's River cycleway, and then through Mascot to the CBD, over the Anzac Bridge, and then back via the Bay Run and Concord.

The new path through Mascot near the international terminal is a ripper, but once I got onto Bourke St/Rd it all went to pot. The first section on Bourke St where it crossed Gardeners Rd is counter intuitive - there is a dedicated green bike lane but the electronic light showing a bike remains red when the traffic lights are green, or when the pedestrian signal is green. After waiting a couple of traffic light sequences for the bicycle signal to be green I gave up and went with the pedestrians.

Then on Bourke Rd proper it's a slew of disjointed and missing sections - you'd be on a separated path for 200m and then it suddenly ends, and resumes as a shared footpath 50m up the road. This happens multiple times along Bourke Rd, and the signage is very poor. Once I reached Redfern I had to stop 3 or 4 times to work out the best way to get to the Anzac Bridge onramp. At one point I was near the ICC and the only way I could see to get to the Anzac Bridge was to cross the light rail line, ride through the multi level car park and exit that onto Murray St into Pyrmont where I had to stop and check Google Maps again to find the ramp to the Anzac Bridge.

Considering there are bike groups on Facebook where people sing the praises of how bike friendly Clover Moore's Council are, I was shocked at how messy the experience was yesterday. Everything was easy on the route except the bits that were actually in her Council area.

[AndrewCowley]

Yes it's a patchwork quilt. If you live local to any of these then good luck to you if you can make them work. It depends very much on where you live and where you are going to. To attempt a long ride that straddles multiple bits and pieces of this infrastructure is painful. The few times I tried it, I got horribly lost trying to navigate one thing ending and the next thing starting. The signage would simply disappear. You either needed to know where to go (from past experience) or use navigation. The other hassle was you couldn't really ride properly given the shared nature of a lot of these paths. I suppose they have their purpose, but it didn't suit me.

There are far better rides in Sydney. To the west you have the M7 shared path, to the north you have Ku-ring-gai Chase NP and the south you have the Royal NP. The latter two are exclusively on the road so not to everyone's liking.

It comes down to expectation vs reality. The patchwork quilt of cycling infrastructure has its limits. You'll need to use the road if you wish to exceed it. To what extent is it realistic to fill in the gaps?

[find_bruce]

Sadly you got the best of the conditions by riding it on a Sunday so you didn't get the usual joy of people who think a bike lane is a parking / loading zone or at best an inconvenience to be crossed as quickly as possible without looking.

It's a bit unfair to sheet the blame to Clover. Lights for example are the exclusive jurisdiction of the RMS who also control many of the roads. When Drunken Gay was the minister for trucks and cars the RMS was instructed to actively resist any cycleways & used a number of means which you have encountered here.

With the two more recent ministers things are somewhat better, but improvements are proceeding slowly.

People who sing the praises of the cycleways generally do so because there is a safe and connected path between where they are and where they want to go. As you have discovered, that ain't always the case

[mangoman]

Relative to the fact that its a very BUSY CBD area with a lot of vehicles and pedestrians.
I think your expectations are unrealistic.

There is definitely still a lot of work to do in the actual Sydney CBD, its not that great. But you cant really have a cycleway going up every block (especially with the numbers we have). Ride through the middle of the Parramatta CBD which is nowhere near as busy and see how many protected cycle routes there are.

You will also need to know the routes to use them, which are not always laid out well and rarely on visible access roads.
Australia is so car-centric.

There are however access routes through many areas of the the Sydney City Council area. I challenge you to find any Council area which has put in as many separated cycleways as Sydney (this doesnt include easy stuff like motorways put in by the state governments).

Routes for heading towards bondi, and the inner west are generally better.
The SHB bridge approach could be better (if you are coming from the rocks), and out towards double bay doesnt really exist.

Even though Clover is pro-cycling, it doesnt mean she can do whatever she wants. There is still a massive amount of redtape and vocal/active anti-cycling community members. While i feel very few cyclists get involved in advocacy.
I believe its taken her 10 years to get this far, during times of vociferous anti-cycling sentiment.

Cycleways are expensive..... ESPECIALLY when a Council has to fund them.

[trailgumby]

Most of the dysfunction you have experienced is a result of RMS interference, in order not to inconvenience the almighty motorist too much. Now that RMS has been merged into TfNSW, with Transport being the senior partner, it is a bit better, but it's taking time to complete the process of changing KPIs to focus on moving people and goods, rather than counting the number of cars per hour since the merger.

The classic is the 6 seconds of green that cyclists get every two minutes at every set of lights along Kent St, and that's only if there's a cyclist already caught there on the grid, waiting. It used to add 10 minutes to my journey from Barangaroo north to the bridge.

[JPB]

Yesterday I decided to do a loop and take in some of Clover Moore's bike lanes in the City of Sydney LGA that I hear so much about. My route was from Parramatta to Tempe via the Cook's River cycleway, and then through Mascot to the CBD, over the Anzac Bridge, and then back via the Bay Run and Concord.

I was on pretty much the same ride except I started from Silverwater Bridge and detoured to Botany Bay at Kyeemagh.

While I had a rough idea where I was going I was pretty much relying on signs to guide me and somehow missed the connection from the airport section to the Bourke St cycleway.
I suspect that a number of signs ( all along the days route ) have been removed over time during other works and not replaced.

I think more prominent signs on the turns are required but I totally recommend the loop to anyone as it is quite flat and all shared paths bike lanes or very quite back streets.

[mikesbytes]

While the City of Sydney (COS) bike paths have there limitations it should be pointed out how it compares with what cyclists had prior to putting in those paths. Riding almost anywhere in COS required taking a lane as there wasn't any shoulder to ride on

[AUbicycles]

If it was just up to the city of Sydney government under Clover, the city would have been a real showcase by now. Against so many odds, it is a wonder that there cycle transport could kindof make some sort of progress and It is better for it.

[familyguy]

Having been able to listen recently to council 'debate' the Castlereagh St cycleway, there are NIMBY groups, local building owners and users, councillors and the like that are trying their best to stop any bike route cohesiveness at every turn. That the City has as much as they do is a welcome surprise, frankly.

[g-boaf]

Yes it's a patchwork quilt. If you live local to any of these then good luck to you if you can make them work. It depends very much on where you live and where you are going to. To attempt a long ride that straddles multiple bits and pieces of this infrastructure is painful. The few times I tried it, I got horribly lost trying to navigate one thing ending and the next thing starting. The signage would simply disappear. You either needed to know where to go (from past experience) or use navigation. The other hassle was you couldn't really ride properly given the shared nature of a lot of these paths. I suppose they have their purpose, but it didn't suit me.

There are far better rides in Sydney. To the west you have the M7 shared path, to the north you have Ku-ring-gai Chase NP and the south you have the Royal NP. The latter two are exclusively on the road so not to everyone's liking.

It comes down to expectation vs reality. The patchwork quilt of cycling infrastructure has its limits. You'll need to use the road if you wish to exceed it. To what extent is it realistic to fill in the gaps?

Despite previous derogatory comments about the M7 and its riders, it is a decent bit of infrastructure in that it is fairly safe and well surfaced and non-stop. You can easily do a loop with M7, Camden, Northern Road and out to Windsor if you like in fairly easy conditions without having to be a navigation genius.

[AndrewCowley]

Despite previous derogatory comments about the M7 and its riders, it is a decent bit of infrastructure in that it is fairly safe and well surfaced and non-stop.

It is very very good. However following the FB group for it, the number of posts recently about idiots on trail bikes is concerning.

[g-boaf]

Despite previous derogatory comments about the M7 and its riders, it is a decent bit of infrastructure in that it is fairly safe and well surfaced and non-stop.

It is very very good. However following the FB group for it, the number of posts recently about idiots on trail bikes is concerning.

That's always been a problem. There are so many entrances on the cycleway that it's hard to stop them. I had a near miss one afternoon on my commute home at eastern creek, the trail bike rider came wrong side of the blind S-curve, only me deliberately going slow helped avoid the guy (and his GF) on the trailbike. When I got about 200m further (roughly across from the Miele warehouse) I saw the carnage the trailbike rider caused, he knocked down two riders deliberately. Nobody could find out who the offender was. Me and another guy stopped to assist.

It's even a problem on the cycleway out to Prospect Dam from Guildford - they get on that one, except there isn't a facebook page so you wouldn't know about it.

[Retrobyte]

The M7 path is really good infrastructure, if a little boring to ride regularly. It does link easily to other areas as g-boaf mentioned, including the Parramatta river path network and the Prospect canal path, so some lengthy loops that are quite safe are easy to map out and navigate. Given that and other good examples in greater metro Sydney like the Cook's River path and the new path sections around Mascot, that's the main reason I was disappointed by the City of Sydney sample I rode on the weekend. Perhaps there are better examples of Clover's work than the route I chose to ride from Mascot to the Anzac Bridge.

[peter]

There's a dirt bike track besides M7 shared path, not sure if the trail bikes come from there. Perhaps installing cameras may help?

[peter]

Sadly many drivers are intolerant and have negative sentiments toward cyclists.

The other day while waiting to cross an intersection, an ute pulled up besides me, the driver side window was open. I causally turned to the driver to say "busy time to cross", just to ease the awkwardness because I felt he was staring at me. He didn't respond, moments later as he sped away he yelled "yes, get on the fking footpath". That was totally uncalled for.

[trailgumby]

The M7 path is really good infrastructure, if a little boring to ride regularly. It does link easily to other areas as g-boaf mentioned, including the Parramatta river path network and the Prospect canal path, so some lengthy loops that are quite safe are easy to map out and navigate. Given that and other good examples in greater metro Sydney like the Cook's River path and the new path sections around Mascot, that's the main reason I was disappointed by the City of Sydney sample I rode on the weekend. Perhaps there are better examples of Clover's work than the route I chose to ride from Mascot to the Anzac Bridge.

Currently, the M7 cycleway is under threat from plans by the owners to add extra lanes. This is not widely known.

They are also resisting plans to add public transport lanes, claiming there is no demand. This is hardly surprising, given the accessibility nightmare they have created, and is in my and others' opinions a form of grey corruption.

[g-boaf]

The M7 path is really good infrastructure, if a little boring to ride regularly. It does link easily to other areas as g-boaf mentioned, including the Parramatta river path network and the Prospect canal path, so some lengthy loops that are quite safe are easy to map out and navigate. Given that and other good examples in greater metro Sydney like the Cook's River path and the new path sections around Mascot, that's the main reason I was disappointed by the City of Sydney sample I rode on the weekend. Perhaps there are better examples of Clover's work than the route I chose to ride from Mascot to the Anzac Bridge.

Currently, the M7 cycleway is under threat from plans by the owners to add extra lanes. This is not widely known.

They are also resisting plans to add public transport lanes, claiming there is no demand. This is hardly surprising, given the accessibility nightmare they have created, and is in my and others' opinions a form of grey corruption.

Oh that's crap!

Is there really a need for extra lanes on the M7. Whenever I've been on the motorway it flows fairly acceptably.

[trailgumby]

Oh that's crap!

Is there really a need for extra lanes on the M7. Whenever I've been on the motorway it flows fairly acceptably.

Objectively, not if the owners do what they should with facilitating access to public transport. However, this is one of those cases where shareholder interest and public interest fail to align. Who would have thought that might happen with privatising public assets?

[mikesbytes]

I've put a post regarding the M7 in the M7 thread
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=17399&p=1577862#p1577862

[am50em]

Meanwhile inthe Netherlands
https://youtube.com/shorts/yTOVohyr_B4?feature=share

[gururug]

Just wanting to send Clover some love. It's been half a dozen years since i've ridden much in the CBD.

What she and her team instantiated with regard to making Sydney cycle friendly despite likely considerable constraints and opposition at the time was/is? truly remarkable.

Thankyou Clover may your achievements be a beacon for planners and infrastructure visionaries Australia wide.

[am50em]

The plan for trams to turn Broadway into Sydney’s ‘green gateway

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the ... 5dn5n.html