Albert St Kerbside Lanes 16/2/2011

Melbourne Leader published a story about the Albert St lanes without talking to any cyclists who use them or to any cycling organisation.  The article complains about the cost blow-out without pointing out that this is entirely due to the NIMBY campaign which firstly caused Councillors to compromise the design on the Council floor, resulting in expensive changes to make the lanes work, followed by further NIMBY and RACV campaigning which cost more funds in monitoring and consultants to prove that the lanes are safe.  Locals are now realising that their opposition to the lanes has resulted in a design which is inferior for pedestrians, cyclists and car passengers, and that the original design proposed by Council officers would have been better than the compromise which Council adopted in the face of their opposition. 

7/12/2010

Council's Future Melbourne Committee considered a report from Engineering services at their meeting 5PM Tuesday December 7th.  The recommendations were adopted - retain the lanes and start the inbound lane one block closer to Hoddle Street.  The RACV, Vecci, the Master Builders were represented by the East Melbourne (residents) Group who addressed Council, as did City Cyclist. 

The inbound lanes will still start two blocks west of Hoddle St, but this stretch will most likely get a bike lane once the alignment across Hoddle St is sorted out with VicRoads and the City of Yarra.  If you are a bold cyclist like me, ride in the middle of the left lane until you reach the kerbside lane.  The cars will wait, they can overtake in the right lane.  This will help the car drivers to understand the value of the bike lanes. 

There was some agreement amongst the submitters that the lanes would be better if more space were allocated - as originally proposed by Council officers - to allow for more space for alighting car passengers and a greater buffer alongside the bike lane.  A future campaign. 

1/11/2010

The safety audit report has been received by Council and options are being prepared for Council.  Fill in our form to be ready to make your submission.  You will need to write to Council and if possible attend and speak at the Council meeting.  Local newspaper article on the proposals.

We also need to plan protests as a contingency if Council votes to remove the lanes.  Two possible protests are:

• Ride through the quiet streets of East Melbourne and the Fitzroy Gardens to demonstrate that no alternative safe routes are available.
• Ride one bike in each lane of Albert St, in the centre of the lane, slowing car traffic to safe bicycle speeds.  This breaks no law - on a multilane road there is no requirement to ride to the left.  It will only take two bikes per change-of-lights to turn Albert St into a traffic nightmare, but a bunch of bikesriding together (no more than 2 abreast) will be ideal. 
  

1/8/2010

The safety auditors should have a field day with these bollards (photo at right).  Why not just reinstate the kerbing that was in the original design?

27/7/2010

Results of today's meeting between Council, Vicroads, Dept of Transport and the opponents of the bicycle lanes, Victorian Employers' Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Master Builders Association of Victoria.  An independent audit was to be conducted by Road Safety Audits but they have been replaced by an as yet unannounced company, whose report will be released by end September.  Age article. 

24/7/2010

The Age: Talks over 'dangerous' bike lanes 

The RACV comments that a single parked car causes "traffic mayhem".  That would be true in any clearway, actually.  This is the same RACV that is operating the bicycle hire scheme - makes you wonder if they set that up to fail too?

15/7/2010

Council has been working hard to educate drivers about the new parking arrangements and on my last few surveys, no incorrectly parked cars were sighted.  Many cars do however infringe the buffer zone, reducing safety margins.  If you do see a car parked in the bike lane, phone 9658 9638 to report it to Council. 

11/6/2010

These lanes are the hot topic of the moment¹.  Installed by the City of Melbourne², approved by VicRoads and opened Monday 7/6/2010, the intention was to provide high quality bike lanes the promote a feeling of safety, linking up with the Elizabeth St lanes in Richmond. 

Initially planned to be similar to the north Swanston St lanes, with a raised buffer between parked cars and cyclists, Council caved in to East Melbourne residents who thought that 35cm of median strip grass was more important than providing safe places for riding a bicycle.  As a result the kerbed, raised buffer was reduced to a narrower painted strip, easy for cars to ignore or infringe as shown in the photograph at right. 

As can be seen in the photo, car drivers are either unwilling to park in the "marked bays" or don't understand. 

It is too early to tell how well the compromised lanes will work, but they clearly are not as good as the north Swanston St lanes.  We look forward to the day when increasing the number of people cycling is regarded as sufficiently important to be done well.  The main test of their success will be the numbers of cyclists using them.  If they contribute to increasing cycling, then they will have succeeded. 

¹See also Clay Lucas' Age article The Age 8/6/2010. 

²The CoM article incorrectly states that "This is the first time we have shifted the bike lane to the kerb and moved parked cars between the traffic and bike lanes", despite also mentioning the Swanston St lanes. 

³Melbourne Leader article 23/11/2010