The vital east-west bike route along Inkerman Road between St Kilda and North Caulfield is in the final planning stages with public consultation now underway and your support is essential.
The City of Glen Eira is planning high standard infrastructure, starting as a pilot project, in order to prioritise active travel along the route and attract significant numbers of riders.
The project is the outcome of last year’s major Integrated Transport Strategy (ITS) for Glen Eira.
The strategy prioritises key routes for various travel modes. In these suburbs the preferred bike route is Inkerman, the public transport route is Balaclava Road and the preferred motor vehicle route is Glen Eira Road.
Inkerman Street/Road is the right choice for bikes because it connects directly to the bike network in the City of Port Phillip, including the soon to be upgraded St Kilda Road corridor, and at the other end connects to the new bike trail along the Caulfield to Dandenong rail corridor.
Read about the proposal here. And see the full details of the Glen Eira ITS here, including the routes that are prioritised for various travel modes.
But already, as with every bike infrastructure project, opponents are making noise and threatening the project.
This always happens initially, but inevitably dies away when people realize how much more liveable their neighbourhood becomes when motor traffic is calmed by street improvements.
Make sure you fill in the survey here.
The council’s project page with all the information is here.
Opposition will inevitably focus on loss of car parking paces along the street. The community seems to think that roads are built at vast cost to the public purse so that private cars can be stored on public land.
The real purpose of roads is to move people and freight. Car parking can be made available after those functions are met. But safety and access must always have a higher priority.
Glen Eira says the Inkerman route:
- will provide significant east–west cycling connectivity in an area that currently lacks a high-quality connection.
- will encourage more people to commute to work by bike by providing safer connections to into the city – the most frequented destination by bike.
- will likely to have a higher take up rate than cycling corridors in other locations because the people in the north western neighbourhoods are most likely to transition into cycling-based road trips, due to their proximity to the city and established cycling networks.
"To create a safe cycling corridor, space on the road will need to be re-allocated to cycling,” the council says.
"This space would need to come either from parking lanes, traffic lanes, the nature strip, or a combination of all three, which woud require a whole-of-street approach.
"The whole-of-street approach could deliver many benefits to users of Inkerman Road such as:
- street trees and greenery
- wider footpaths
- safer pedestrian crossings
- bicycle parking
- seating
- quality lighting
See Inkerman Road safe cycling corridor pilot booklet.
See Glen Eira Integrated Transport Strategy.
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