The Adelaide City Council wants Frome Street to be reduced to one lane each way between Carrington and Pirie streets to make way for a separated Copenhagen-style bikeway.
Consultation opened yesterday on the latest stage of the Frome bikeway, which follows a failed effort at a separated bikeway by the Adelaide City Council on Sturt Street.
Residents and cycling groups have supported the plan in its earlier stages, which is costed at $1.3 million, though an “ideal world” version was also presented to the council at a cost of $3.3 million.
The changes will see separated bike lanes on both sides of Frome Street between Carrington and Pirie streets, with the council hoping to consult later this year on extending these to North Terrace.
Acting accessible city program manager Tanya Bacic said that while the reduction of one lane would have “some impact”, the council did not believe it would significantly increase traffic congestion.
The move follows the State Government’s introduction of a 7am-7pm bus lane on Grenfell/Currie streets.
“It’s about changing the culture,” Bacic said. “Adelaide is habitual and does the same thing, but the city with its street grid has the capacity to access a number of routes and over time people will adjust.
“With that section of Frome, from Carrington to Pirie, the traffic flow is only 8,500 to 13,000 daily and even though we acknowledge there will be some impact, we don’t think it will be too significant.”
Bacic said while the plan was considered similar to Sturt Street due to the separated bike lanes, it had followed extensive consultation.
“Sturt Street was only on one side and, there was a lack of consultation partly in relation to a lack of parking and it didn’t link into a network and there wasn’t a high proportion of demand for cycling.
“We’ve done research what’s been done in Melbourne and Sydney and also taking into context the Adelaide environment and ensured the safety at intersections is being considered.”
The Carrington to Pirie Street plan will see the reduction of 30 permanent parking spaces, right hand turns banned during peak periods and improved street amenity including more street trees.
Some aspects of the plan, including bike “boxes” at intersections to increase the visibility of people on bikes, and improved street lighting are not included in the current model due to the higher costing, with an option to add them on later.
Bacic says the bikeway will not replace Pulteney Street as a key bikeway, but will likely attract new and less confident riders.
“I cycle to work and I tell everyone how great it is and people say: ‘I’d love to cycle but I don’t feel safe’.
“Cycling is the faster growing mode of transport in Adelaide with 10-20 per cent increase each year and as we provide a safer environment more people will start cycling and hopefully that will reduce people needing to drive.”
The fourth stage of the project, which will ultimately become a North-South corridor linking to bikeways in Unley and Prospect, will cover Pirie St to North Terrace with two options presented to the council.
Both include separated curb-side bike lanes, with one option seeing permanent parking removed to allow two traffic lanes in both directions and another with temporary parking during off peak periods.
“We will run through consultation on this [Carrington to Frome project] for six weeks and once we get feedback from that, in November we’ll go out for consultation on Pirie to North Terrace,” Bacic said.
Depending on the success of the project it may be used as a reference for future projects, but it is unlikely to become a template.
“We’ll learn from this, but in terms of a template where we need to be mindful is that each street is different in terms of design features and no one street in Adelaide would be the same.”
Consultation on the Carrington – Pirie Street changes closes at 5pm on October 4, 2013. Check it out here.
What do you think of the proposed bikeway? Tell us at [email protected].
