Will these intersections improve Ballarat's cycling network? (Part 2)

Bike hoops at Wendouree Station in 2015

In Part 1 we looked at the proposals for the intersections at Hertford and Albert Streets, and Wiltshire Lane and the Glenelg Highway. Today we look at the intersections at Wiltshire Lane and La Trobe Street, and Gillies and Gregory Streets, as well as summing up the overall approach.

Wiltshire Lane and La Trobe Street

Wiltshire Lane and La Trobe Street, extending up to Winter Street (Source)

The treatment here is the same as the worst aspects of the Wiltshire/Glenelg design - bike boxes and painted lanes, but no separation from cars, and a ton of potential conflict points. Nothing that will keep cyclists safe, and nothing to encourage nervous riders onto their bikes.

There's a bit of a north-south hole in this part of the network (source)

The Wiltshire/La Trobe intersection actually isn't on any strategic cycling route at all. It's notable that Route 8B is kind of a stranded route on City of Ballarat's plans, though - it starts at Wiltshire/Glenelg and heads north for less than 1.5km to Whitelaw Avenue, where it intersects with Route 9 and abruptly terminates. There is no north-south path at all in this part of the plan, but if Route 8B kept going it would reach this intersection, and connect with Route 7 a short distance beyond that - at the intersection of Learmonth Street and Winter Street. Which, based on the concept designs, does seem to be just within the project boundary.

So, y'know, I'd really love to see proper treatment of cycling infrastructure here too, but since it's not part of the strategic plans, I'm guessing that it'll be a harder sell than the other ones - so I'mma pick my battles.

Gillies Street and Gregory Street

Gillies Street and Gregory Street, near Wendouree Station (Source)

This is arguably the most crucial intersection of them all - it's not only where Route 3 meets Route 6, it's right near Wendouree Station. The carpark there is constantly under huge pressure - they keep adding more spaces, and those spaces keep filling up - so we need to find ways of getting people to the station that don't involve parking their own car there all day.

More people will need to walk, and the intersection design does help that - currently if you're coming from Gregory Street, it's a nightmare to get safely across Gillies Street. It's very busy, so unless you want to dash between the cars, you need to go all the way up to the intersection with Howitt Street and then come down again. Signalising this intersection will make it much easier for pedestrians to get across quickly and safely.

Bus reform will need to be a big part of it, and that's obviously beyond this intersection project - but making it safe and easy to cycle there will need to be a big part too, and the design could and should help with that.

The SUP on the southern side of Gregory Street West

On the southern side of Gregory Street West, there is a wide bidirectional SUP. So that aspect is probably fine - there's no painted on-road lanes, but there doesn't really need to be, because people can use the SUP. All good.

Sketch of the proposed railway corridor path (via VicRoads)

The next part of Route 3 is a bit up in the air. City of Ballarat proposed two options - the deluxe option was to create a dedicated off-road path along the railway corridor, and the cheap-and-easy option was to just use Gregory Street pretty much as-is; it's fairly quiet (and has various becalming measures to keep it that way, like speed humps) so this was seen as acceptable for the time being. But shortly after the CoB plan was finalised, VicRoads unveiled their Safer Cycling Connections plan, which included the rail corridor path - so Route 3 might get the deluxe version after all. Either way, it makes sense that there's no real dedicated cycling infrastructure on Gregory Street in RRV's plans.

Really the only on-road provision on Gillies is the bike boxes

Along Gillies Street, provision for cyclists along the road itself is pretty minimal - no painted lanes, just bike boxes at the intersection itself, where cyclists can wait for the light and get a small head start over cars. RRV's intention seems to be for cyclists to use the existing SUP along the eastern edge of Gillies, which would broadly align with CoB's plans for this corridor in the cycling strategy - they listed fixing the intersection as the highest priority, and suggested widening the SUP when funds became available. So again, this broadly makes sense.

The intersection at Gillies and Gregory Streets

However, there will need to be a good way for cyclists to cross Gillies Street - and for them to cross Gregory Street, to do the kind of "hook turn" to get up to the railway corridor. If the crossing can have both pedestrian and bike lights, and if both of them can get an automatic green when cars do - without having to press the beg button - I'd be reasonably happy with this. If it's just a pedestrian light with a beg button, requiring cyclists to dismount - not so much.

Conclusion

Geographical map of City of Ballarat's strategic cycling network

When bike lanes were removed from the scope of the works along Mair Street in November 2019, there was very much an attitude of "Well, Mair Street was never part of the strategic cycling network, and Sturt Street is just one street over, so who cares." That is clearly not the case here - these intersections are crucial parts of the network, and there are no viable alternatives nearby - so we need to get this right.

RRV seem to be proposing to leverage existing SUPs and even build new ones in some cases; one intersection clearly includes separate pedestrian and bike crossings; and I'm told that they're "investigating" signalling arrangements for cyclists at the other crossings. If I turn out to be right about the SUPs and they end up doing bike lights at all the crossings, we could get some great outcomes; but if I turn out to be wrong, and if they don't do the bike lights, that could quickly flip to poor outcomes. So it'd be good to get some clarity there.

What is clear is that there has been effort to think of cyclists here, and indeed effort to explicitly align with CoB's plans - which is heartening. Not so long ago cyclists would have been barely an afterthought. But still, what we've ended up with is a kind of weird approach that is somewhat typical of Australian infrastructure bodies right now, but would raise eyebrows in a lot of other countries.

Throughout these posts I've focused on SUPs and quiet low-traffic roads, rather than painted lanes and bike boxes on busy roads, because that's what really matters here - again, paint is not infrastructure, so talking about the painted lanes would be a waste of words in an already long post. The goal for these busy roads has to be properly segregated paths where everyone can ride their bikes without the risk of being run over.

And this kind of high-quality cycling infrastructure is very achievable. For one thing, providing safe cycling infrastructure doesn't need to take up a lot more room than painted lanes - it's mostly about where the lanes go, not about making them wider. Move the bike lanes right next to the footpaths, not floating in between two car lanes, and the job's half done. For another, even if you assume car space is sacred and we can't narrow driving lanes or remove parking, in the vast majority of these projects there is a ton of nature strip left over that could be used (though admittedly in some cases this might mean moving things like power poles, increasing costs).

Instead we have this kind of weird hybrid belt-and-suspenders approach where they try to do both painted on-road lanes AND separated SUPs in the same corridor - which is kind of the worst of both worlds. SUPs are okay in low-traffic environments, but as soon as you start seeing lots of pedestrians or lots of cyclists they become unmanageable for both (not to mention they're not ideal right next to shopfronts where people step out unexpectedly, as would be the case on Hertford Street). Painted lanes don't really improve safety and don't really increase cyclist numbers; they're a very visible way of acknowledging the existing confident cyclists. Doing both at the same time is expensive, and takes up twice as much space - that money and space could be better spent on proper Dutch-style segregated lanes, so that pedestrians, cyclists and cars could each have their own space and not be worried about running into each other.

Schematic of a typical Dutch intersection (via Robert Weetman)

This is without even considering the political implications. There is quite a loud minority of people who actively hate cyclists, and while those people may not be particularly supportive of proper segregated infrastructure, they are actively infuriated by being expected to share space with them - whether they're driving dangerously or yelling abuse as pedestrians. You get the sense that this approach comes from trying to please both sides, but it's not like this is a compromise that makes anti-cyclists happy.

It's a mistake to think that going for a Dutch-style design would somehow be overkill - spending too much money or space on cycling given its low mode share - because this hybrid approach of including both SUPs and painted lanes does exactly that, but with poorer outcomes. Let's not reinvent the wheel trying to adapt things for local conditions - if we just copy best practice and build infrastructure like the Dutch do, the numbers will follow. The Netherlands wasn't always a cycling haven - the Dutch chose to make it that way over the space of decades. We should too.