A suite of temporary pop-up bike treatments across the City of Port Phillip will be removed, starting next month.
The Department of Transport and Planning, following consultation with the City of Port Phillip and analysis of data collected during the trial, will reinstate the local roads to their original configuration.
However, trial treatments on the state roads—intersections along Marine Parade and Jacka Boulevard—will remain.
"In some locations, primarily on local roads, monitoring and evaluation has seen trial treatments not having the intended influence on behaviour,” the Department says.
The pop-up projects across a number of inner suburbs were launched during COVID and, at the time, the Department said they aimed to “test innovative and safer bike riding treatments to improve safety for all road-users, encourage more people to ride bikes and create better connections to the CBD and local activity centres”.
It was planned to evaluate the temporary treatments and, where results were positive, retain them until permanent versions arrived.
The Port Phillip pop-ups were a mixture of the good, the confusing and sometimes ugly, and met with a wide range of responses.
Bicycle Network provided feedback during the trial, highlighting deficiencies, but we expected ongoing modifications and improvements.
Bicycle Network CEO, Alison McCormack, says it is regrettable that the Department and the Council have not been able to develop a plan to transition from the pop-up trials to superior, permanent upgrades.
“The City of Port Phillip has a transport strategy that clearly sets out a response to the rapid population growth of the coastal suburbs by prioritising active and public transport,” she says.
“With no new capacity available for increased use of private motor vehicles in the inner suburbs, residents are increasingly turning to bike transport, but the promised infrastructure has not arrived.
“Bicycle Network will reach out to the parties involved seeking to overcome the current unacceptable impasse.”
The Department says it will consult with the community in the coming months to develop a permanent design for bike riding improvements on Marine Parade and Jacka Boulevard.
“Our data collection in the City of Port Phillip has shown bike riders adapting to innovative designs and an increase in the number of people riding bikes on Marine Parade”, the Department says.