Shared path plan pedals eastward

DEVELOPMENT works to add a shared pedestrian and cycle way along the southside of the Sturt Street Gardens in the section controlled by the City of Ballarat have progressed further following approval by a majority of councillors.

The OK for the addition of the pathway between Dawson and Grenville streets came at the Wednesday, 22 April meeting and the works will closely match those planned by Regional Roads Victoria along the section between Pleasant and Dawson streets.

Some councillors dissented against the original motion, arguing for further public consultation on the work before it was approved

They included Cr Amy Johnson who pushed for an alternative motion that would have resulted in the plans being put out for feedback.

“There is a sense that some people want minimal scrutiny around this item,” she said. “We know that so many people in the community are interested and passionate about what happens in Sturt Street.

“There are going to be some really big changes there [between Lydiard and Grenville streets] and I believe the community will be very interested and very keen to provide feedback.”

Cr Mark Harris was also vocal in his support for further community consultation.

“I find the whole project just hideous, a travesty and something generations will look at and wonder why we did it in the first place,” he said.

“Regional Roads Victoria, to my mind, never had a broad community consultation. They had focus groups, they had reference to some stakeholders, but never, in any way, shape, or form, could they say that it was a broad community consultation.

“Maybe making this whole asymmetric, hideous, change to beautiful Sturt Street might have some validation in the community, and I probably just need to sit down and shut up if that is the case. But if it’s not I think this council has done this community no service by fast tracking it in this way.”

Yet deputy-mayor Cr Belinda Coates pushed back against further widespread engagement saying works had been in the offing for a number of years.

“The debate has been done to death, seriously,” she said. “If people think three years since the project has been mooted and 18 months of community consultation, some of it has been with focus groups, but certainly a lot of it was quite extensive to the whole community.

“Councillors who are not supportive of it, I think, have had a fair go at listening to community concerns, had a fair go at whipping it up in the media… and getting on the bandwagon of a lot of the misleading information that was bantered around.”

Cr Daniel Moloney also supported the original motion as it was presented to council.

“If this was the very first time we started talking about a cycling or more appropriately a shared user path in Sturt Street I’d say sure, let’s delay it, let’s have another round of consultation,” he said.

“This has been probably the key theme of this term of council. It’s been in this chamber several times, it’s been debated that many times over.

“We’ve got a job as councillors to get on and actually do works once in a while.”

With money for the project coming from two main external funding sources, the TAC’s Ballarat Cycling Connections Project and Federal government’s Black Spot program, the city’s director of infrastructure and environment, Terry Demeo, said delaying a decision on the works, potentially past 30 June, could impact chances of securing the latter cash.

“That has been put off for a number of years in order to ensure the project in terms of cycling and Black Spot work was done concurrently,” he said.

“It would be clearly preferable, desirable, to have that committed this financial year… If it were to slip beyond this financial year there would potentially be risk associated with that funding.”

Ultimately the alternative motion was defeated, with Crs Johnson, Harris and Taylor supporting. The original proposal was subsequently approved.

The works will include a two-and-a-half-meter wide shared pedestrian and bike path along the south of the gardens, with a small raised kerb buffer between the path and oncoming traffic from Dawson and Lydiard streets.

Between Lydiard and Grenville streets the pathway will head into the space currently occupied by 60-degree angle parking, with the bluestone gutter retained and the loss of the third, right hand turn lane.

Parking will be shifted across and the ultimate appearance will be like a Copenhagen style bike lane, albeit on the inside of the median.

The works will also result in the addition of 33 new trees and should be completed sometime this year.