New bike lanes for Royal Parade and Flemington Rd

For several years, I’ve been advocating loudly to the state government to fix the bike lanes on Royal Parade and Flemington Rd. They’re some of the most unsafe bike routes in the inner city, with bikes squished between moving vehicles and parked cars, and a high rate of awful injuries and accidents.

These are important routes for people getting to and from the CBD from Kensington, Flemington, North Melbourne, Parkville, Carlton, and further afield. We know that safer bike lanes mean less congestion on our roads so it’s easier for both cars and cyclists to get around, and cycling is good for our health and environment too.

In my past few meetings with the Treasurer and Transport Minister I have given them fully costed plans for proper separated bike lanes on these roads and asked that they be funded in the budget. Therefore, I was so pleased to see that the state government recently announced these roads have been earmarked for pop-up bike lanes.

What does this mean, exactly? Here are the details: the state government has released a proposed map of where they plan to build “pop-up” bike lanes (which will hopefully become permanent). Royal Parade (south-bound only) and all of Flemington Rd are on this map! However, the map is not final, and is open for community consultation before an ultimate decision is made. The government also hasn’t yet decided what “treatments” they will use – that is, whether the lanes will just be painted green, or whether they’ll be proper safe separated bike lanes.

Credit also goes to the City of Melbourne, especially our Greens councillors Rohan Leppert and Olivia Ball (and previously Cr Cathy Oke) who have worked hard to advocate for this. The City of Melbourne will actually be part or fully funding many of these bike lanes, with a decent chunk of money hopefully provided by the state government.

To make these bike lanes a reality, we need your help! Please go to vicroads.vic.gov.au/pop-up-bike-lanes and take part in the community consultation and tell the state government we urgently need proper safe separated bike lanes on Royal Parade and Flemington Rd.

Well done to everyone who has helped us get to this point! We’re hopefully on the final stretch now.

As always, if there’s anything I can help you with, please don’t hesitate to get in touch: [email protected] •