‘Knee-jerk reaction’: Sydney cycle path to be ripped up months after opening
‘Knee-jerk reaction’: Sydney cycle path to be ripped up months after opening
Work to remove the cycleway, which was designed to be part of a link from the Bay Run to Concord, is due to begin on Tuesday.
"A cycle path built through part of Sydney’s inner west will be ripped up on Tuesday, five months after it was completed, due to a council decision described by riders as a knee-jerk reaction to complaints from residents."
@ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml I am absolutely furious that Canada Bay council is going ahead with this act of environmental and infrastructure vandalism.
If you've ever asked why Australia doesn't have great quality cycling infrastructure or transport planning that reflects the realities of net zero by 2050, here's a big part of the reason.
It's car-brained local governments listening to NIMBYs.
"A cycle path built through part of Sydney’s inner west will be ripped up on Tuesday, five months after it was completed, due to a council decision described by riders as a knee-jerk reaction to complaints from residents.
"The separated bike path on Heath Street in the inner west suburb of Rodd Point is part of a planned $7 million cycleway designed to connect the Bay Run at Iron Cove on the banks of the Parramatta River to Concord."
UPDATE: I did some more digging into the local council in Canada Bay, and found this about the mayor:
"The Independent Commission Against Corruption is currently investigating allegations Canada Bay’s long-term mayor Angelo Tsirekas accepted perks from developers, including international flights and accommodation, in return for favourable decisions."
#cycling #bikes #bicycles #Sydney #NSW #CanadaBay #Politics #NSWPol #AusPol #News #Urbanism #UrbanPlanning #Bike #Walkable #Cities #NIMBY #Politics
Ping @SydneyCyclewaysFan @cyclingnews @walk_sydney @sydneyurbanismnews @betterstreetsnsw
@ajsadauskas@aus.social @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml @SydneyCyclewaysFan @cyclingnews @walk_sydney @sydneyurbanismnews @betterstreetsnsw
Design authority for cycling infrastructure needs to be taken away from councils.
No need for it to be politicised by grand-standing local demagogues running on a dog-whistle platform of "we hate cyclists getting in our way when we're driving our SUVS on roads we pay for and they don't"
I'm actually starting to think it WOULD be a good idea to get rid of local councils altogether. Nothing important would be lost.
Local councils are where we store mediocre politicians who are really trying to get a safe state or federal seat.
@ajsadauskas@aus.social @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml that’s truly sad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a project completely removed like that.
@ukuku @ajsadauskas @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml It's terrible and disappointing. But not without precedent! See: College Street. Interestingly in that case the council was the proponent of the bike lane and the State took it out.
@ukuku @ajsadauskas@aus.social @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml The Geelong council in Victoria tried to do the same thing but the state government intervened and stopped the vandalism.
The lowest class of politicians will politicise anything they can if it helps them dog-whistle and set segments of the public against each other. They love to create zero-sum culture war divisiveness in the community, rather than consensus. Distracts attention from their lack of vision and competence. If you can't do anything good, then just encourage the already-entitled demographics to attack less-entitled demographics.
Democracy allows this to happen sometimes. If we don't spend all our time preventing bad actors from taking over the system.
@ukuku @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml @SydneyCyclewaysFan @cyclingnews @walk_sydney @sydneyurbanismnews @betterstreetsnsw Jake Coppinger @jakecoppinger has written a very detailed blog post about the decision by Canada Bay Council. The blog post is up here: https://jakecoppinger.com/2023/03/canada-bay-council-plans-to-remove-heath-st-cycleway-due-to-a-misleading-traffic-report/
Among other things, they hired a car-focused traffic engineering firm to do an "independent" report.
After Jake and others pointed out the major errors in that report, Canada Bay City Council pulled it from their website, and updated their website from saying cycle lane removal to cycle lane "modification".
The council has requested feedback about the proposal:
"To submit your feedback online please fill in the form below. Alternatively, you can also provide feedback via email through council@canadabay.nsw.gov.au or by mail to Locked Bag 1470 Drummoyne NSW 1470."
I suggest we take them up on their request, and provide them with feedback.
@quoll Yes, these Canada Bay Council morons think cyclists will be safer battling car traffic than in a dedicated bike lane. They think the streets will be safer if more people drive, rather than cycle.
@ajsadauskas What?! 🤦♂️
@andrewfeeney IKR!
They're removing a barrier-protected bike lane and are replacing it with *TWO* parking spaces.
They will also paint "additional bike logos" on the road "to alert drivers to watch for cyclists riding on-road".
They claim that will make the road safer than a barrier-protected bike lane.
They've also asked for the public to send them feedback at council@canadabay.nsw.gov.au.
the anglosphere can just be considered lost at this point tbh 🤷♀️
@k_o_t @ajsadauskas@lemmy.ml It really is difficult to overstate just how backwards this decision is.
A lot of the problem is that many local councils outsource these decisions to external contractors and consultants who don't have a lot of expertise in barrier-protected bike lanes and modern Urbanism.
These contractors pretend that induced demand doesn't exist, they look at moving cars rather than moving people, and give really awful advice. That seems to be what's happened here.
So even where you have good barrier-protected cycling infrastructure in place, as you have here, as soon as a couple of NIMBYs complain that they want more on-street parking, it ends up getting bulldozed.
It's backwards, car-brained thinking of the worst kind.
It truly is time to make a choice: the NIMBYs or the planet.
The comments in that article were quite the rollercoaster. My favorites were the people saying they never see anyone biking in their neighborhood and one guy saying that they should rip it out because there are more cars than bikes 🧠🧠