Lash out on Bentleigh bike lanes
6 Mar 12 @ 05:00am by Donna Carton
Cyclist Carolyn Priest comes across a car parked in the bicycle lane on Brewer Rd. Picture: JASON SAMMON
GLEN Eira Council has spent $65,000 painting bike lanes on roads with legal kerbside parking. The 4.5km of new lanes in Bentleigh have been branded a joke by some cyclists who can’t ride in them because parked cars block their way.
The council said it had no plans to make the lanes on McKinnon and Brewer roads clearways for riders.
Carolyn Atkinson, whose husband and son-in-law are regular cyclists, said Glen Eira council had wasted ratepayers’ money on the project. “I saw them painting the line and at first thought it was a parking bay. “Then they painted in the little bike symbol and I just laughed,” Ms Atkinson said. “There is no room to cycle around the parked cars. Why did they bother?”
Council spokesman Paul Burke said the lanes were recommended as high priorities in the Glen Eira Bicycle Strategy 2010. “The recommendations noted that where there is limited road width, bicycle lanes which can be parked over may be necessary and are probably the most feasible option,” Mr Burke said.
Glen Eira Bicycle Users Group member Carolyn Priest believes the lanes are “better than nothing”. “On stretches where no-one is parked (cyclists) can move back into the lane,” she said.
Jason den Hollander, of Bicycle Network Victoria, said while Glen Eira council’s money could have been better used in this instance. “They should have put a cycle lane on both sides of the road, and allowed parking on one side,” he said.”
COMMENT: Identical problems occur on McKinnon Rd where, apart from bicycle lanes, three sets of rubberised speed humps have been installed over a distance of 400 metres. Residents were first informed of the creation of the bicycle lanes via letter. This obviously constituted ‘consultation’. One elderly resident took the time and trouble to write back claiming that McKinnon Rd was entirely unsuitable because of width and gradient. The response was that Council had determined that McKinnon Rd was ‘perfect’ since it was ‘flat’. So that’s why this section is called McKINNON HILL!
As a consequence of such ‘improvements’, we wonder if Council has bothered to investigate the new RAT RUNS that have now been created by motorists attempting to bypass McKinnon and Brewer Rds via the quiet residential streets running off these major roads? With the imminent prospect of Centre Rd adopting the 40k speed limit, Bentleigh and McKinnon residents have much to look forward to!
Glen Eira Debates 
March 6, 2012 at 10:33 AM
Bicycle lanes are required in Glen Eira. The topography of the land and slope are incidental.
What needs to occur in Glen Eira, is the use of a suite of complimentary traffic calming measures- not just speed humps. Glen Eira traffic engineers need not look too far either- City of Yarra do this very well. Their engineers respect the need for a range of road users- not just motorised vehicles.
They also respect the needs of communities and residential precincts. They use a range of measures to discourage the use of residential streets as rat runs. It is about time Glen Eira moved away from the slap dash approach of dropping in speed humps alone. They need complimentary traffic calming measures on residential streets as well.
Many of the current bike lanes, including those on McKinnon Road (even McKinnon Hill where the incline really isn’t that great), should not permit parking over them. Jason den Hollander’s suggestion is sensible.
I’m wondering whether those moaning about the bike lanes also moan about the traffic congestion around schools too. The McKinnon Road bike lanes feed a number of destinations including McKinnon Secondary College.
As has been highlighted previously in other posts, the more bike riders on the road, the happier those still in their cars should be- less road congestion, the easier it is to find car parks and the healthier the population will be.
40km/h on Centre Road is sensible. We are all pedestrians are some stage and many of us jay walk on McKinnon Road. Fast moving traffic is simply not viable along this road space- it is narrow, there are lots of parked cars and lots of pedestrians.
March 6, 2012 at 11:19 AM
You write that “topography and slope are incidental”. Not so! They are crucial for overall safety of bike riders and motorists. If you’re backing out of a driveway and you can’t see what’s coming up from behind the hill then that’s a real issue, especially when cars parked alongside the road only decrease your line of vision.
Both of these roads should never have been earmarked as bike lanes and the added expense of speed humps is more waste of money. I do agree with you though that a whole “range of measures” should be looked at not just the easy one of dumping speed humps willy nilly.
March 6, 2012 at 12:40 PM
One of our very first postings was on the (then) proposed Bike Strategy. Nearly two years on, it’s worth looking back on and seeing exactly where we are and what has been achieved. The statistics from that time are still relevant.
https://gleneira.wordpress.com/2010/06/29/draft-ge-bicycle-strategy-the-facts-critique-2/
March 6, 2012 at 3:41 PM
Did you want me to take photos of every bike in a CAR lane blocking the traffic, you got a disk big enough? Cars pay for the roads cyclists don’t.
March 6, 2012 at 5:13 PM
Don’t you get it? The more people on bikes means less road congestion, more car parks and a healthier population.
As for cars paying, what wear and tear do bikes place on the road infrastructure? NONE! What environmental impact do bikes have? NONE! What money does an active and healthy community save the economy? $37.7billion pa (2010).
Try getting out of your car and you might meet some others in your community!
Cars don’t need to rule the roads and our community. Car drivers should pay for negatively impacting our local amenity.
March 6, 2012 at 7:00 PM
Anon, I don’t think anyone would disagree with the idea that roads need to be shared. However, what’s happening in Glen Eira is not the answer. Like so many other things there is always the knee jerk reaction of let’s do something and that something is inevitably poor, or a complete failure. You can’t just put in bike tracks without a complete analysis of what this means for traffic overall and nor can speed humps necessarily protect bike riders. The bike strategy is woefully below standard in its analyses and action plan. All that’s happening is that we’re spending a fortune on something that could have been done a lot better.
March 6, 2012 at 8:09 PM
Totally agree that it could be done better. A shift needs to occur from the absolute car bias. Bike lanes need to be provided on the most direct routes from origin to destination or they won’t be used by riders. McKinnon Road is an appropriate location however, a little more thought is required from the traffic engineers to ensure that they use appropriate and complimentary treatments; treatments that extend beyond speed humps. As suggested in the original article, parking on one side of the road only and shifting the center line is certainly one of the myriad of options.
March 6, 2012 at 3:49 PM
Peter your in denial, “speed kills” lower the speed limit, and you a lot more time to pick up things like cars backing out of driveways and so on. Lower speed also means impacts are less likely and less fatal or people suffer less critical injuries. Either way it’s a winner.
Way are we building high performance vehicles capable of hundred of kilometres a hour for suburbia, why are we allowing the roads to filled will large 4 wheeled drive vehicles, none of this makes any sense in a road safety debate
March 6, 2012 at 4:35 PM
Anonymous 3, Most people that ride bikes, own cars as well, so they pay for the use of the roads. Your paltry rego doesn’t cover the cost of the roads either, it takes the combined tax system to do that, people without cars that pay tax actually subsidise your road usage, and when you get injured we will subsidise that as well.
There is no such thing as a car lane either. My advise to you mate, would be to get over your egotistical red necked anger, and start talking and thinking like a grown-up, not some disconnected rev-head which is what I am hearing.
March 6, 2012 at 9:46 PM
If you bikies want to use the road you should be required to obey the road rules like every other motorist. Not pick and choose when you decide to wait for the red light, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. I saw a cyclist the other day with a top saying 1m of space, how about you move over 3m and use the footpath and then you most likely won’t get knocked off, and leave the road for what it was made for, cars.
March 6, 2012 at 11:02 PM
Breaking the law is breaking the law, I have seen cars run red light, do illegal U turns and so on for infinitum, it not worth losing sleep over.
But it is not an “us or them” fight for road space. Roads are there to be used and shared with everyone you meet on your journey, they do not belong to the person with the biggest vehicle or the person going the fastest, otherwise the truck drivers would rule on bulk alone, but instead by most standards truck drivers are very courteous sharing road users who as professional divers know the value of getting from A to B safely.
In the end, that’s what it is all about, getting from A to B safely, and enjoying the process, it’s not a competition, leave that for the racetrack or TV
I was almost killed by a car diver, a man, a tow-truck diver saved my life until a ambulance arrived 20 minutes later, he didn’t enjoy clamping my open arteries with his bare hands one bit, it took a good deal of strength and you can imagine the rest, but he did it, a good man who I never met again, or ever got to thank.
Although as banged up as I was, I still remember the diver who hit me, (it was a true accident on his part) so he could have felt rightfully he was not to blame, he was un-injured, but was a frantic mess when he saw what he had done. I remember at the time, from my horizontal position, pitying him, I was injured, but he was a screaming mess. I wouldn’t of and still would not trade circumstances with him then or now.
Being the biggest does not save you from trauma, and from experience I wouldn’t wish his unlucky fate on anyone. There are no winner in vehicle accidents, bent metal broken glass and plastic is a good accident, almost a cause for celebration in my book, anything above that is a tragedy on all sides. Be very careful in the full sense of the word. People and pets are breakable, and take it from me, you never ever what to hurt anyone with your vehicle
And how about a total stranger saving my life and getting covered in blood, now that is what I call sharing road experiences. Thank You
March 6, 2012 at 9:33 PM
Anonymous 4 & 5 well said! The speed limit decrease from 60 kms to 40 kms per hour on Centre Road shopping centre is a win-win-win situation. Win to the pedestrian, win for the cyclist and win for the cars (if there should be an accident the impact will be lesser). It was fantastic to read from last week’s Moorabbin Leader that the speed limit was slashed to 40 kms. This is a great achievement and thanks to Cr. Lobo of Tucker Ward who with the help of erstwhile Member of Parliament – Mr. Rob Hudson, Bentleigh Traders Association and the Community Road Safety committee at Vic Road. Apparently, the council is not a member of this committee.
March 6, 2012 at 11:31 PM
Interesting to look at Port Phillips road safety strategy – it states “Our strategy challenges the typical hierarchy of road users, and in contrast to strategies that emphasise the dominance of car use, Port Phillip’s strategy places the needs of ‘soft road users’ at the centre of the approach. …This means that pedestrians’ needs are our foremost priority followed by bicycles, public transport users and finally cars and trucks”
It’s pointless to try to compare this attitude with Glen Eira’s woeful Road Safety Strategy as it was penned in 2006 and only went up to 2012 – not once has it been updated. So while the world has shifted focus, Glen Eira’s road safety policy remains routed in the past. Pretty indicative of how Glen Eira treats residents issues concerning road safety ain’t it.