City’s bike projects go in different directions

THE two parts of the Building Better Bike Connections project are heading in different directions, with a tender put out to build one of the routes but the other route receiving a record amount of feedback.

The City of Greater Geelong project, which is being supported by a $4.7 million grant from the Transport Accident Commission, will build two cycling routes – known as the Southern Link and the Western Link – to better connect central Geelong with its southern and western suburbs respectively.

The Southern Link’s design is by far the more controversial as some traders in Belmont’s High Street are worried about the effect of losing car parking in front of their businesses. The City of Greater Geelong argues those car parks are under-used and there is substantial pedestrian traffic.

In an update on the projects released last week, the city noted it received about 2,600 responses to the High Street potential design options survey, “which is the largest response ever for a survey of this kind”.

The data, including all of the comments submitted, will be analysed over the coming weeks, with a report to be developed and released publicly.

The preferred design will be presented to the council to make a decision on later in the year.

Geelong mayor Bruce Harwood said it was clear many in the community had an interest in the Southern Link and the council “want to make sure that we’re fully aware of all the different views”.

“Given the unprecedented number of responses, it will take some time to go through all the comments and analyse the data, but we expect to release the results in the coming weeks.”

Meanwhile, the tender for construction of the Western Link – along Villamanta Street, Gertrude Street and Sydenham Avenue – was issued at the weekend.

As part of the design, bikes and cars will share the road with treatments such as speed humps, slow points, raised intersections and line marking applied to the road to slow car traffic and provide a safer environment for all road users.

There will be new and modified signalised crossings at Latrobe Terrace, Pakington Street and Shannon Avenue.