Alexandra Canal Cycleway / Shared Path ???

[LateStarter]

An earlier discussion https://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/view ... hp?t=99384 focused on changes to the cycleway adjacent to the northern end of the Sydney airport N-S Runway due to the Sydney Gateway construction. I was surprised during my wanderings in the area to discover new cycleway construction further north-east and the hint / possibility of a long dreamt of cycleway along the canal itself.

Those of us with long memories and nothing better to do will recall a much maligned City of Sydney (CoS) Council scheme to preserve a path for an Alexandra Canal Cycleway by requiring property owners to reserve a setback from the canal and even pay for a path as a requirement for development permission. The first was the "Archives" site now called Southend Lane where a new warehouse was built 15 years ago and included a paved but completely inaccessible cycleway along the canal. But in recent times the state government has sliced the NE end of the building off to build the Campbell St bridge and then sliced the SW end off for the Gardeners Rd offramp from the St Peters interchange. And what does it reveal but two ends of a cycleway which have been tidied up and joined to the Bourke Rd cycleway at Campbell St and Gardeners Rd, but there is more! The SW end has been extended by 50m to a deadend to point to a future further extension and the NE end joins a setback past various council depots or actual built paths all the way to Huntley St and then Maddox St.

The SW / Gardeners Rd end is adjacent to the boundary between the CoS and Bayside Council who have not been as diligent as CoS with requiring reserving cycleway paths but the section to Ricketty St is fairly clear and the Ricketty St bridge has an existing (pre Cpt. Cook) passageway (fairly overgrown) under Ricketty St leaving "only" the bit occupied by Gate Gourmet (also clear of building next to canal) leading to the existing canal path at Coward St and beyond.

All clearer from the OSM https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=18/- ... /151.18398

I rode the Southend Lane section a few times to ensure it was not some dream, I reckon the rest will surely be finished within the next decade or two although they had better speed up a bit otherwise I may be doing it on my mobility scooter rather than bike?

Get down there to demonstrate a demand for the finished cycleway.