Pop-up bike lanes are on the drawing board in New South Wales with the state government starting to work with councils on redesigning streets and trails for bike riders and pedestrians.
A Transport for NSW spokesperson told the Sydney Morning Herald that they are working on ways to make sure people can continue to exercise while maintaining physical distancing.
"Some areas would be temporarily reconfigured to provide adequate space for social distancing practices," the spokesperson said.
City of Sydney is once council that is keen to develop plans with the state government to create more space to ride and walk and make streets easier for people to use.
"This includes 30km speed zones, shorter wait times for pedestrians at traffic signals and temporary changes to street layouts using lane dividers," said Lord Mayor Clover Moore.
"It is long since time that we reclaimed some of the space given over to cars, and use that space to increase walkability."
Independent group Committee for Sydney has also thrown their support behind creating more space to ride, with a call for the state government to deliver Sydney's proposed Principal Bicycle Network which would build bike lanes and cycleways that lead to the CBD and activity centres.
Committee for Sydney has called on NSW Treasury to fund the Principal Bicycle Network and use tactical urbanism techniques to fast-track some routes so they're rideable as soon as COVID-19 restrictions end.
This could be similar to work done in other parts of the world like Germany where on-road bike lanes have been doubled in width and Oakland, California where more than 100 kilometres of roads have been closed to through-traffic.
Bike riders around Australia, Bicycle Network and its members have for weeks been asking for more space to ride to accommodate the increased interest in bike riding since COVID-19 restrictions were put in place.
See our campaignSee the Committee for Sydney's paper about the Principal Bicycle Network.