Bicycle Network: Metro Routes

Bay Trail dissected

29 September 2008 The St Kilda Foreshore redevelopment is now complete and we watch nervously at the final result. This project has been a net loss for riders along the Bay Trail, effectively now with a gap designed into it.

Port Phillip Council are planning to install on road bike lanes along the busy Jacka Boulevard this financial year. It is proposed that this will serve as the preferred route for Bay Trail riders to circumnavigate the precinct. Whilst this may be acceptable to the more confident rider or Beach Rd regular, we are concerned that the many riders who are attracted to the car-free environment the Bay Trail provides have not been considered.

We are asking that a separated, path be built along the western side of Jacka Boulevard so that pedestrians can enjoy the foreshore and riders can connect in a continuous manner, as the Bay Trail should.

Foreshore Concepts

City of Port Phillip is currently in the process of preparing concept designs for the redevelopment of the St Kilda Foreshore. These proposals, once developed will be presented to the St Kilda Edge Committee for consideration. The design for the foreshore has been awarded to Site Office Landscape Architecture and Jackson Clement Burrows Architects as a Joint Venture.

Bicycle Network Victoria met with City of Port Phillip to discuss some of the design options being considered with the following some of the concepts Bicycle Network Victoria considers important for the final design:

• Well defined access to local activity nodes and centres
• Good connectivity for riders wishing to ride along the foreshore. Currently, there are a number of conflict points due to circuitous paths and proximity to shops, restaurants, etc
• Good end of trip facilities along the route.

Bicycle Network Victoria would like to see well-located and marked shared paths in preference to large open shared spaces such as those in the Southbank precinct, where navigation through a sea of pedestrians is difficult and in many cases, dangerous.

A good example of a shared path co-existing in a vibrant, excellent area of public open space currently exists on the foreshore of Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro.

Construction of the foreshore redevelopment is expected to commence in March 2006.