Will Richter Memorial Ride

As a member of the “bike riding community”, I know many people across Melbourne who ride for transport. So, every time I read of someone being killed while riding their bike, I brace myself to learn whether it was someone I knew.

But Will Richter’s death was still a huge shock. You see, I didn’t even know Will was a bike rider, so he wasn’t on my mental list of “people with a high likelihood of becoming a road trauma victim”. Rather, Will was the barely 19-year-old son of a dear family friend. I never got to meet Will, but I know his Mum, his uncles, his Nana.

Will was riding from his birthday brunch celebration to a university class when he was killed by a truck crashing into him on Macaulay Rd in Kensington. Will’s death is a tragedy, but it was not an accident. Even if the truck driver is found to be technically at fault for turning across Will’s path, we can’t lay all blame at their feet.

Macaulay Rd was designated as a Strategic Cycling Corridor (SCC) years ago, but only has painted and disjointed bike lanes, which fail contemporary safety standards. The City of Melbourne commenced designing safe, protected bike lanes on Macaulay Rd in 2021, but these plans are still awaiting approval from the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning (DTP).

When interviewed by The Age following Will’s death, DTP sources stated they “considered factors such as loss of car parks, disruption to bus routes, impact on local traffic and disturbance to nearby infrastructure projects when granting approval”. But why should the DTP hold up safety improvements because of car parking, when the local council and community had already supported the upgrades? How many car parks was Will’s life worth?

I feel immense sadness for Will’s family, anger at DTP, and also guilt. Guilt that despite all the hours I have spent advocating for safer streets and better bike lanes, it wasn’t enough to save Will. Australians should all feel guilty – for our complacency in not holding all levels of government to account, for victim blaming, for allowing trucks transporting our “stuff” to be prioritised over the safety of people. We are responsible when we whinge about a couple fewer parking spaces outside of our local shops, and when we decide to drive our kids to school every day because “it’s not safe to walk”.

Both the Victorian Government and many local councils have some excellent policies for building better bike infrastructure, including the SCC plan to build a safe and high-quality 2700 km bicycle network – Macaulay Rd is part of this.

But there is no timeline, no ongoing funding, no prioritisation. Our politicians rarely mention the existence of the SCC plan, as they think it is politically unpopular (that’s where our complacency comes in again – we are responsible for not being brave enough to tell them they are mistaken). But road trauma prevention shouldn’t even be about politics, it should be a shared community goal.

It is such a drawn-out process for local government to plan, design, consult on, modify, gain approval from DTP, finalise designs, fund and build safe bike lanes that they risk being cancelled at every new election, before we can see any concrete change to our streets at all.

My local council is equally to blame. They have voted to narrow bike and driving lanes to below minimum standards on a busy Richmond St (and designated SCC), against the advice of their own transport officers and expert road safety auditors, in order to squeeze in more car parking. So far, DTP has not even had the gumption to intervene – instead, they wrote a letter stating their disapproval, but also acknowledging that councils have “discretion” to design local road lanes to be any width they want. How is that even legal?

But this is not just about bike riders, and it is not just about Melbourne. In Bendigo last month, a funeral service was held for Thom Hosking – a 15-year-old student who was killed when a truck crashed into him while he was walking to school.

Thom’s death is a tragedy, but it was not an accident. Thom’s death was the consequence of Australian society condoning the presence of a 60 km/hr, five-lane highway in the centre of a regional city, less than 100 metres from a school. Why do we consider this a suitable environment for children to walk and ride to school?

Every month there’s a mass community cycling event in different parts of Melbourne – Critical Mass. On Friday, October 31, we rode in honour of Will. Several hundred people joined the ride, including Will’s immediate family, in a powerful show of love and solidarity. As the riders approached Kensington Station, they were met by a group of local residents gathered at the ghost bike to join in a minute’s silence. It was a moving and emotional moment that showed just how deeply Will’s story has touched the community.

None of this can ever bring Will back, but perhaps it could be a small part of his legacy. Perhaps Will’s death could be the catalyst we finally need to make our streets safe for people, and not just drivers.

With all my love to Will’s extended family, we owe them this.

Alyson Macdonald

Co-founder of Streets Alive Yarra, but also mum, daughter, aunty, person who rides a bike.