Anzac Station to Sandringham Strategic Cycling Corridor

In November 2025, Infrastructure Victoria released Victoria’s infrastructure strategy 2025–2055.   One key recommendation was to invest in 12 cycling corridors in Melbourne and a network of cycle corridors in Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo and Wangaratta over the next 10 years.      Media release.   Full report. 

Melbourne cycling corridors advocated by Infrastructure Victoria

The Anzac station to Sandringham (with a spur link to Moorabbin) would be a massively useful transport link for for the south-east. The Infrastructure Victoria report includes:

• The benefit-cost ratio for this route is 2.4 - 3.5

• The route proposed follows the Strategic Cycling Corridor path, and includes the already-built Anzac Station to St Kilda Junction, then continues down St Kilda Rd to Glen Huntly RD, where it follows New St to the beach, then follows Beach Rd to Sandringham.

• The Moorabbin link follows South Rd

• The proposed infrastructure for this route is mostly on-road protected bike lane, with bikes protected by bollards or parked cars.

The strategic cycling routes in the area. The Anzac-Sandy route follows New St, with a branch along South Rd to Moorabbin. Via https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/53181c144cec477497e01d166c64a6eb

comments on the route

Here I am assuming that the route will follow the Strategic Cycling Corridor, though this is also somewhat unresolved. It may be that there are better options for some sections (leave a comment below to suggest these).

• The section Anzac Station to St Kilda Junction is complete, though there is scope for improvement around intersections.

• The section St Kilda Junction to Carlisle St was reportedly designed as part of the St Kilda Rd bike lanes, but not built for budget reasons. This section should be straightforward to implement, with a wide road. It is also critically needed, as heavy trucks take the lane adjacent to the painted bike lane to position themselves for the left turn onto Queens Rd.

• The section Carlisle St to Glenhuntly Rd currently consists of a central road/tram corridor, and separated two-lane corridors in each direction, with a painted bike lane and a parking lane. This could have the same treatment as further north on St Kilda Rd, with a protected bike lane adjacent to the curb, and either a parking lane and single traffic lane, two traffic lanes, or where space permits, a parking lane and two traffic lanes.

• The intersection Brighton Rd to New St, southwards looks challenging; at this point New St is one way (for vehicles) with a counterflow for bikes, so it isn’t possible to make this turn via car. There are also tram tracks. At the moment I’d make this turn with a hook turn, pausing either on the footpath or right in front of it, crossing Brighton Rd with the pedestrian lights, then connecting to New St via the footpath.

• New St adjacent to Yalukit Willam and Elsternwick Parks has a quite wide corridor, with ample parking (either angle parking in some areas, a 90 deg parking area south of the roundabout on the road side of a service road, and other wise parallel parking).

• New St south of these parks is generally on-street parallel parking on both sides, with a painted bike lane in the door zone. Intersections include large and small signalised intersections (eg North Rd, Martin St); large roundabouts (eg intersection at St Andrews/Well/Park Sts, and the complicated roundabout at Dendy St that crosses the rail line)

• From the south end of New St, the indicated route does not join Beach Rd or the Bay Trail, but rather runs along the rail line. Between Holyrood and Orlando Streets, there is no existing path, but there is possibly room in the south side of the rail corridor.

Rail corridor between Holyrood and Orlando St

• South of Orlando there is no space for a path, but it may be possible to cross the rail line to the east side at the pedestrian level crossing and use Willis St, which is already a pleasant, low speed environment. This connects to Koolkuna Lane, which is currently one-way but could be modified to include contraflow movements for bikes. This brings us to Hampton station.

Willis St, east side of rail corridor

• Hampton station to Beach Rd via Hampton St. Near Hampton Station this is a busy high street with on-street parking, making this safe for active travel while keeping the on-street parking would be challenging. Further south, it is a standard two-way carriageway with on-street parking, generally not highly utilised. This would be technically straightforward to include protected bike lanes but as ever politically challenging.

• Hampton St merges with Beach Rd. The difficulty here is providing bike infrastructure that is suitable for a wide range of cyclists, while allowing the bunch rides to maintain their current use. A standard width protected lane would not be suitable for bunch rides.

Beach Rd, with a large group (about 20) of bike rides using the outer lane.

• The route ends at Sandringham station.

Port Phillip BUG plans to ride this route in the near future, keep an eye on our social media for dates. Comments welcomed.

Added 7/02/26: An alternate route servicing a similar catchment would be the C1 strategic route along Nepean Highway (in pink in the map above). David Blom from Metro East BUG has made a post about how this route could work (facebook ).

St Kilda Road separated lanes update, Junction to Carlisle St section

The St Kilda Rd separated bike lanes project was originally announced to run from the City to Carlisle St, but during construction it was down-graded to stop at St Kilda junction. Earlier this year we found out from the office of Active Transport minister Gabrielle Williams that the project contractors have closed up their office, without passing on the design work on the remaining section.

The route over St Kilda hill is fraught with danger.   Heading north, people on bikes have an unprotected on-road lane, with heavy trucks directly alongside-- heavy traffic from the Nepean Highway tends to turn off onto Queens Rd at the junction, so will be in the left-most lane.   Heading south, there is a "door zone" on-road, unprotected lane.      Cyclists travelling down the hill are travelling at speed, giving people opening car doors into the lane even less time to make a careful check.  

MLC Katherine Copsey has raised this in Parliament.

This route is one of the main (C1) Strategic Cycling Corridors, connecting the city with Frankston. The improvements on the northern section have increased the number of users there up to 300%— which is great, but also means that more people will be using the unsatisfactory southern sections for access.

We are asking our local MPs, Nina Taylor (Albert Park) and Ryan Batchelor (Southern Metropolitan) to make funding and building this section a priority—- before some is injured or worse.

Help out: email your MPs. If you have photos, videos or a story about your experience on this section, please share it with us portphillipbug@gmail.com to add to our campaign.

State election 2022: voting for cycling in Prahran

Both the Port Phillip BUG and the Bicycle Network have invited candidates to complete surveys about their plans for improving cycling conditions. We report on their answers, and general material, here. Responsibility for any comment is taken by Julie Clutterbuck, c/o Ecocentre 55A Blessington St, St Kilda.

Sam Hibbins MP - Greens

Do you support separated cycling lanes on St Kilda Rd? YES.

Do you support upgrading the strategic cycling corridors to separated bike lanes? YES.

Other policies: The Victorian Greens have committed $2.5 billion dollars over the next four years to implement a ‘Big Bike Build’ with hundreds of kilometres of safe and separated bike superhighways across the state.

With transport as Victoria’s biggest growing source of emissions, governments must do more to support people to make the switch to climate-friendly transport like bike riding and walking. The Greens’ plan would move Victoria towards the goal of active transport funding being 10 - 20 per cent of transport capital funding as recommended by the United Nations.

I’ve successfully pushed for the construction of separated bike lanes on St Kilda Rd and for the installation of a pedestrian crossing at Yarra Street to serve the busy South Yarra station.

My priorities now are to extend the St Kilda Rd bike lanes to Elsternwick and create a bike superhighway through to the northern suburbs , install separated bike lanes on Chapel Street North which connects directly to the Yarra trail, and a number of other local separated bike lane projects to help make riding a bike safe for everyone

Policy link: https://greens.org.au/vic/platform/transport#safer-bike-lanes

Voting for cycling in the November state election?

In the lead up to the November election, the Port Phillip BUG sought meetings with local candidates.  We also surveyed the local candidates, with only two responses, from the Greens and Animal Justice Party. We’ve looked at their party policies— unfortunately while individual candidates may be supportive of cycling, their party may not be.

Therefore I’ve covered firstly the party policies, and secondly the individual candidates.

Also see the Bicycle Network’s analysis (I’ve used their scores),  and Yarra BUG’s podcast.

PARTY POLICIES

Australian Labor Party:  C+

If the past performance is a guide to future results, then there is not much to look forward to here:   the Labor government has been missing in action on making cycling safer and more accessible.   

The main initiative promised at the last election was the creation of a new body responsible for active transport.  Active Transport Victoria has produced very little— it seems to be little more than a handful of media releases and an email address ( activetransport@ecodev.vic.gov.au  if you’re interested in asking them what they’ve been doing the last couple of years)

We’ve seen a few new cycle routes, such as those under the new Skyrail (unfortunately these are shared routes— definitely not best practice, or comfortable for pedestrians OR cyclists).   But very little in the way of making sure our principal bicycle routes are safe, and many missed opportunities to upgrade bike routes when other road works are being undertaken. 

In particular, plans for improving the key St Kilda Rd route have been put on ice.

New promises for this election:   Labor has promised to build separated cycle routes on St Kilda Rd.  While many local residents would prefer curbside lanes allowing them to safely access homes and workplaces, the plan for a cycle way in the centre of the road would be better than the current situation, and be particularly convenient for people travelling from the suburbs to the city.

Labor are also promising an upgrade of the trails network in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

Liberal Party:  C

Cycling doesn’t seem a priority for the Liberals:  they’ve announced a few tourism-related projects in regional Victoria, and they support minimum passing distance legislation, but there isn’t much else on offer.

More seriously, they would like to grade separate many road intersections.   This would be disastrous for cycling and walking— imagine the mess of St Kilda junction replicated across our city, for example at the intersection of Glen Huntly and Brighton Roads.    It could well be that conditions for cycling will decline under a Liberal government.

Greens:  A

The Greens’ policy includes a $250m commitment to cycling, which will cover (among other things) a 17km Elsternwick-to-Sydney Road separated cycling path, taking in St Kilda Rd and Swanson St on the way.  It is also promising that cycling infrastructure will be funded independently of road works.   

Animal Justice Party:

While the published policies are mostly about animals, in the response to our survey local AJP candidate Tamasin Ramsey said: On the basis of [our] values, we support creating dedicated and separated bike lanes. This gives equal consideration to cyclists, in an environment where cyclists are vulnerable to bike lanes that exist alongside moving traffic, that included a growing number of heavy and imposing vehicles. Supporting cycling is rational because it enhances human health (both physical and mental), engages people with their community, and often improves their engagement with the natural world, including appreciation of – and sensitivity to - other species. All of these factors contribute to the wellbeing of our neighbours and thereby support healthy neighbourhoods.

Now, to the candidates (this is not an exhaustive list— just the ones we were able to make contact with):

ALBERT PARK ELECTORATE

Martin Foley, LABOR (incumbent).   The BUG has met with him twice in last term of government, and while he is clearly interested in and supportive of cycling, we’ve seen very little follow up on the issues we’ve raised, with the notable exception of St Kilda Rd separated lanes.

Andrew Bond (Libs):   As a local councillor, he’s come along on a BUG ride to see local infrastructure issues.  He’s also personally supports the St Kilda Rd separated lanes (not matched by his party).  

Ogy Simic (Greens):  As a local councillor, Ogy has come along on our infrastructure rides and advocated for cycling improvements.  He’s sought out the BUG for comment on various issues and is a frequent bike rider himself.

Tamasin Ramsey (Animal Justice Party).   The AJP is not campaigning strongly on issues related to cycling, but Tamasin often commutes by bike and has a good understanding of the issues facing local cyclists.

BRIGHTON ELECTORATE

James Newbury (Liberals).  James was keen to meet with the BUG before the election.  He doesn’t have much experience cycling, although he does personally support the St Kilda Rd separated lanes project (not matched by his party) and seemed happy to listen to our concerns.  He has been a vocal supporter of a signalised pedestrian crossing of Glen Huntly Rd, at the canal.

Katherine Copsey (Greens).  As a local councillor, Katherine has been an advocate for cycling infrastructure, especially the St Kilda Rd separated lanes and other separated cycle ways, such as the Kerferd Rd improvements.   She has come along on both our infrastructure bike rides, and sought out BUG comment on various issues.   In her response to our survey, she writes: As an everyday cyclist myself I understand the difference dedicated bike infrastructure makes and am committed to advocacy and action so more people than ever can enjoy the freedom, fitness and fun of getting around safely by bike.

PRAHRAN ELECTORATE

Sam Hibbens (Greens), incumbent: In the last term of government Sam Hibbens was able to get the traffic flow on Union St changed, to allow cyclists to travel straight ahead. He had been an advocate for separated lanes on St Kilda Rd and improving safety on Chapel St.

Ogy Simic, Katherine Copsey and BUG members checking out Kerferd Rd.

Andrew Bond checking out the infrastructure on Fitzroy St

Responsibility for election comment taken by Julie Clutterbuck, 93 Spray St Elwood.

Victorian State Election: candidate survey

We have an election coming up in November!

Port Phillip BUG has sent a survey to our local candidates (seats of Albert Park, Brighton, and Prahran, and the upper house Southern Metropolitan division). The questions are:

• Separated cycles lanes are the safest option for cyclists. Will you (and your party) support separated cycle lanes on St Kilda Rd and prioritise installation by 2021?

• There are many VicRoads controlled roads that are part of the Principal Bicycle Network. Will you (and your party) support VicRoads upgrading the routes in your seat to separated bicycle lanes?

• Please provide a link to your cycling policy.

• If you gain office, are there any actions you plan to take, in addition to your party policy, to get more people cycling, more often, and more safely? (Incumbents: you may include actions you've taken over the last term of office).

We’ll post responses here as we receive them. (If you are a candidate and haven’t received a survey, email portphillipbug@gmail.com and we’ll send you the link).