Having just returned from a conference in Sydney, it seemed opportune while I was there to also have a look around the central city and see how cycling is faring there.
Sydney has had a fairly stop-start approach to providing for safer cycling provision both downtown and further out. In the past, various attempts to create new separated cycle facilities were often met with concerns about congestion and parking issues.
Even closing down George St to traffic so that trams could run along this corridor was initially controversial, but now it is a massive improvement to the central city streetscape.
The Covid lockdowns of 2020-21 became the catalyst to experiment with interim “pop-up” separated cycleways around Sydney. The Council then agreed to continue the trial for another two years before making them permanent.
Since then, Sydney has rolled out several more kilometres of separated cycleways along key corridors, such as Castlereagh St, Liverpool St, King St, Pitt St, and Kent St.
The cycleways are typically separated with concrete islands, but can also feature regular gaps for allowing traffic to enter and exit side accesses.
In many cases, they have been two-way bi-directional cycle routes next to one-way traffic streets – a handy connective advantage.
Even the signalised intersections are well designed to allow riders to travel through or turn between corridors (sometimes with interesting hook-turn treatments).
The King St cycleway also then connects to a shared path route that leads to the Pyrmont Bridge across Darling Harbour.
Given its central location, the Pyrmont Bridge can be quite busy with people at times, so managing the interactions between pedestrians and riders is critical.
Once on the other side of the Pyrmont Bridge, riders can then continue on yet another separated cycleway along Union St.
Another thing I noticed right across central Sydney (and beyond) was the widespread prevalence of public share bikes, particularly Lime Bikes, Hello Ride, and Ario.
I was staggered at just how many people were using these bikes to get around the city (not always on the cycleways unfortunately…). It highlights the relative convenience of these vehicles for the general public (as we also saw in Europe as well).
Here are a few more interesting images I noticed around Sydney:
Overall, it appears that Sydney (certainly the central area, but even parts of the suburbs) is starting to progressively develop a growing network of (mostly protected) cycleways across the city. It has definitely made a difference to the take-up of cycling – certainly, when I was wandering around during weekday rush-hours later in the week, there were impressive numbers of people getting around on their bikes.
Have you been to Sydney? What do you think of their cycleways?