Letter to the editor
Brian Noad, Nichols Street Community Group, Surry Hills, is right (“Designing safer cycleways for Sydney”, City News, Letters, August 18).
$78 million of ratepayers’ funds to build bikepaths is a poor return for our buck. After all, why are we subsidising bike lanes for cyclists from outside our area? Where’s their contribution?
Cycleways are not a public panacea. We also need better buses, trains, trams and wider, tree covered footpaths or moving walkways.
No wonder a recent independent Austraffic Study shows that up to a quarter of cyclists are ignoring Clover Moore’s pet project for safety reasons. In College Street, cyclists use their gold-plated lane only 48 times per hour between 7.30am and 7.30pm. Even these figures fail to account for the same cyclists riding both to and from work, halving the actual bike riders involvled.
A state-wide on-line survey shows 88 per cent believe the Council project is a failure.
Meanwhile, in heritage-listed Challis Avenue and Victoria Street, Potts Point, Sydney Council refuses to release plans to demolish Magnolia trees to build new cycleways; a heritage heresy.
Andrew Woodhouse
President
Potts Point and King Cross Heritage Conservation Society
