Councillors ride March 2025: East St Kilda, Balaclava, Ripponlea, Elwood

On Tuesday the BUG took new councillors Libby Buckingham and Justin Halliday for a ride around their wards and surrounding suburbs.

From left: Julie (PPBUG); Cr Justin Halliday; Mya (PPBUG); Cr Libby Buckingham; Pierre (PPBUG and Back2bikes volunteer).

The route over St Kilda Hill is dangerous, with heavy trucks using the left-most lane alongside cyclists with only a line of paint separating the two. A door zone adds extra hazard. This is a State responsibility, but would benefit from Council support.

Over St Kilda Hill, cyclists are expected to ride alongside heavy traffic.

We also visited some excellent cycle infrastructure. Since the construction of these protected lanes on St Kilda Rd, rider numbers have increased by 200-300%.

However south of Wellington St, the protected lane ends and only a door-zone lane is provided.

We then went along Wellington St, a shimmy route— which means a bicycle route with little dedicated infrastructure, but some traffic calming and bike symbols painted on the road (sharrows).

Once in Alma Park, we rode one of the few off-road bicycle paths alongside the railway line. This is part of the proposed Green Line route.

We made our way down to Ripponlea along Williams St. At Ripponlea we discussed the possibility of reducing the speed limit to 30km/hr, as this is a high-pedestrian area, as well as a state Strategic Cycling Corridor. The only provision for cycling here is a narrow, door-zone lane. The lane also narrows rapidly after the railway crossing, creating another hazard.

We headed over to Elwood. Here we looked at the location for the long-promised signalised crossing of Glen Huntly Rd. We also looked at the road treatments at the Primary School, which includes a one-way road with drop-off zone on Poet’s Grove, and the closing of Mitford St (which has been incorporated into the primary school grounds). These are good models for the new primary school at Fishermans Bend.

Then up to Dickens St, where there is a very unsatisfactory crossing of Brighton Rd, to connect to the Primary School. Outside the primary school a new pocket park has been created, with space for kids to play and a well-used basketball hoop.

Thanks Crs Buckingham and Halliday! We wish you well in your term on Council.

Photo credit: Simon Kosmer.

St Kilda Rd separated lanes, Junction to Carlisle: lobbying our local MPs

This January, we’ve been talking our local MPs, Nina Taylor (MP for Albert Park) and Ryan Batchelor (upper house MP for Southern Metropolitan Region.

Nina Taylor (left) with Dan, Lorelle and Julie from PPBUG.

Both of them listened to our concerns about the immediate safety risks posed by the unprotected, door-zone lane in close proximity to heavy trucks; and about the need for a plan to make all the strategic cycling corridors fit for purpose.

Neither made any commitment to improve the situation or had any news that planning to fix these problems was underway.

Our meeting with Ryan Batchelor was in conjunction with our campaign partners Stonnington BUG and Bike Melbourne.

More about the campaign here.

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.

Strategic Cycling Corridors: when will these be fit for purpose?

In August 2024, a 27 year old Southbank man was killed in an (alleged) hit-run on Plummer St, Port Melbourne. He was working as a food delivery rider.

Every death is a tragedy for the family and loved ones. This one is particularly sour as Plummer St is one of the sparse network of roads designated as Strategic Cycling Corridors. Plummer St is partly 4 and partly 2 lane, very wide, and characterised by fast speeds and truck traffic.    

Strategic cycling corridors in Port Phillip. Plummer St top left, highlighted in yellow.

According to State Government, “SCCs are the main routes of the bicycle network, similar to how arterials are the main routes of the road network. They identify the most important routes for cycling for transport that connect to key destinations of metropolitan and regional significance, including key employment areas, activity centres and railway stations.”

However, unlike arterials, the conditions of the SCCs are currently massively unfit for for purpose, and there is no plan for systemically upgrading the infrastructure. Some routes have been upgraded as a by-product of other projects such as the Level Crossing Removal Project (for example, there will be a separated route on Queens Avenue, Caulfield). The local flagship project of the St Kilda Rd bike lanes took over 20 years of lobbying, during which several people were killed. (And that project remains incomplete, with only painted lanes between the Junction and Carlisle St).

Here is a scary clip from Lorimer St (also a SCC).

Screenshot from the clip (the cyclist was not squashed thank goodness).

Given the lack of progress on infrastructure, it’s fair to ask whether these are nothing but lines on the map.

Following the death in August, Port Phillip BUG wrote to Road Safety Minister Melissa Horne, asking her to prevent future injuries and deaths—- including of delivery riders at work—- by upgrading the SCC routes.

In November, we received a response from Stuart Johns, Executive Director of Modal planning.

“Victoria has adopted the safe system approach to road safety, which recognises that we as humans are vulnerable and make mistakes that shouldn’t cost us our lives. ”

“For people riding bicycles or using other micromobility devices, the practical application of this approach means that on-road facilities should be physically separated from motorised traffic in environments where traffic operates at speeds of more than 30km/h. Earlier this year, DTP adopted a policy outlining that any of its new or upgraded projects that occur on SCCs should include treatments to this effect.
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— Stuart Johns, Department of Transport and Planning

“Bicycle facilities, typically off-road shared use paths, are also included as part of all major state transport projects (road and rail) and a combination of off-road shared use paths and exclusive off-road bike paths are being progressively delivered as land develops in our growth areas. The policy also requires turn controls at new and significantly upgraded signalised intersections which will further improve safety for cyclists.”

Link to the new policy.

This is a long way short of a funded, systematic program that would deliver suitable infrastructure on SCC routes within any defined timeline. However it does represent a very very small shift in DTP policy. It’s not clear how many decades it would take for SCC routes to be fixed under this incremental policy.

The response did not share any plans for new or upgraded projects on Plummer St.