The City of Glen Eira has voted to abandon its plan to make Inkerman Street a major east-west bike corridor through Caulfield and St Kilda.
The proposal was a key plank of the council's transport plan for the municipality, aimed at ensuring that active transport was fully integrated into plans to move residents and visitors around a municipality with rapid population growth and increasing density.
Recent studies by the City have shown that its roads will soon reach saturation point at busy times of the day.
With no chance of increasing capacity for motor traffic, in future years these extra people will have to move by foot, bike and public transport when they need to get to work, school, the shops and sport.
This plan was not about being bike-friendly goodie-goodies, it was about economic and social well-being for Glen Eira’s citizens.
But the majority of the councillors don’t get it: their world, framed by the Holden Kingswood’s rear-view mirror, is frozen in the past.
The future, however, is very different, it is coming fast, and it will inevitably bring decent bike facilities to Inkerman Street before too long.
The City of Port Phillip, which is responsible for the west end of the street, is proceeding to develop its own plans for a high-quality bike route along the corridor.
The Department of Transport has selected—with the collaboration of both the CoPP and Glen Eira—Inkerman Street as the key east-west bike corridor through these suburbs.
There are multiple forces acting on the City of Glen Eira, and all other municipalities for that matter, that make it inevitable that future transport networks will contain routes that give high priority to active transport and to public transport.
At the council meeting there were two bike facility options listed, but neither were considered.
The City of Glen Eira settled on an unconventional solution that involved a bi-directional bike lane on one side of the street, difficult to implement but with the advantage that more car parking can be retained.
The council was to consider two versions of this design, with one involving changes section of the street to one-way traffic.
The council report recommended Option 2, which retained two-way traffic, subject to certain pre-conditions being met.
This would involve the City making a financial commitment to the project and proceeding to community consultation on the detailed design.
Another option was to proceed with a de-specced version of the plan which would forego physical separation of lanes but included other safety mitigations such as 40 kmh speed restrictions.
The history of bike infrastructure in Melbourne is one of initial opposition, two steps forward, one step back, but always the momentum continues, and sooner or later the bike lanes go in, and the opposition recedes.
Nothing is surer: Caulfield and St Kilda will get their east-west bike corridor.
For the record, the council resolution:
Moved: Cr Magee Seconded: Cr Esakoff
That Council:
- Ceases all work on the project and no longer proceeds to community consultation.
- Informs community and stakeholders of Council’s resolution.
For the Motion: Crs Esakoff, Magee, Cade, Parasol and Zmood (5) Against the Motion: Crs Athanasopoulos, Zhang, Zyngier and Pennicuik (4)
More information here:
https://www.gleneira.vic.gov.au/about-council/meetings-and-agendas/council-agendas-and-minutes/ordinary-council-meeting-tuesday-22-november-2022