South Bank Boulevard

[Nik Dow]

Tomorrow's council meeting will consider a draft plan for Sth Bank Bvd and likely put it out for public consultation.

Please take a minute to write in support of this excellent plan which the Urban Design group at CoM has put together, with input from us, mainly due to excellent work from Jonathan Nolan.

The plan includes separated lanes almost the length of SBV except where space isn't available near St Kilda Rd, and even there a bike lane is included where there is none at present.

There is also good linkage to the Yarra where SBV reaches Queensbridge Plaza, an area the Council Engineers told us some time ago "bikes are not wanted". Potentially with some work on the other side of St Kilda Rd linking back to the river via Alexandra Gardens could be an alternative to the overcrowded river bank path.

Any queries about the design, reply here and I'll attempt to answer based on the briefing we had when the draft was being prepared.

Get the draft plan at http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/about-council/committees-meetings/meeting-archive/pages/future-melbourne-committee-18-july-2017.aspx

Submit via https://comdigital.wufoo.com/forms/rly4bj60tdagsg/  before 10:00 Tuesday morning.  

[Nik Dow]

Council has put Sth Bank Bvd out for public comment https://participate.melbourne.vic.gov.au/southbankboulevard#/  please take a look and comment.  

That page doesn't show you all the detail of the bike lanes, but suffice to say there will be separated lanes, mostly with low plants between bikes and cars, everywhere in Sth Bank Bvd except for east bound between Dodds St and St Kilda Rd where there will be a painted lane c.f. nothing at the moment.  Intersection design is greatly improved with sharper turning radii for cars and slip lanes removed.  Bikes will be able to get between the river at Queensbridge Square and Sth Bank Bvd, creating an alternative to the crowded river walk. 

One left turn lane in St Kilda Rd will be removed and there is only one traffic lane heading west from St Kilda Rd, with separated bike lane next to it.

Lots of good things in this plan with huge thanks to Jonathan Nolan who put enormous effort into drawing up improved designs based on the earlier draft. 

Congratulations to Council's Urban Design group and Steve Perumal in particular on receiving unanimous approval from the recent Council committee meeting which endorsed the plans.

You can leave comments and view the plans at https://participate.melbourne.vic.gov.au/southbankboulevard

[Thijs]

Very happy to see the new designs, and thanks to Jonathan for his efforts. Good to see perseverance pays off!

It doesn't look like there's an option for comments just yet. The main question I have is how the access to the Southbank Promenade will work. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of space there at the moment with the entrance to the Crown car park taking up most of it. This will be a critical link though, the current situation where effectively bikes have to dismount between the shared path and Southbank Blvd is a silly solution.

[Jonathan Nolan]

I was given full plans which I've been asked to keep confidential which is fair enough since I wouldn't be surprised to see things change: it seems Crown are spending $15m fixing up this whole area and it's not being built until 2020. 

All I would say is that you won't need to dismount, and there is space for a 2m bike lane on each side of the car park. Currently it's under utilised grass area and the big red stairs which might be gone soon. Council has an incentive to make the entrance to the new bike lanes prominent because it will reduce the number of cyclists on the promenade. 

[Tyler B]

Hey nice work everyone and Jonathan in particular.

New designs look good. Nice to see CoM building some proper separated lanes. Any idea why it's gonna take till 2020 to get everything built?? Frustratingly slow progress!

[Jonathan Nolan]

It's a fair point. They're spending $35m on the park next to the bike lane so it's not surprising they want to split it over a few budgets. Also they're waiting till Australia 108 is done before they do that section which seems fair enough. 

The most important thing is that concrete is in the ground early next year which will make it harder not to finish the job. 

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[Nik Dow]

Further to Jonathan's remarks, when I met with CoM they were already on board with the idea of providing a safe and attractive route that avoids the river bank path between Queensbridge and the Swan St Bridge.

Swan St bridge is currently getting better bike/ped facilities as part of the bridge widening - although as an aside, why is it a shared path yet again? Victoria just decided not to legalise footpath riding yet they build more of it?

So access to the Bvd via Queensbridge Sq is very much part of their thinking, and the red stairs/ampitheatre will shrink to allow this.  Apparently locals don't like the big stair thing as it is because it's too bulky and doesn't improve the view. 

This is a big turn-around since I pointed out to CoM engineers some years ago that St Bank Bvd had plenty of room for bike lanes, to which the response was "but what would it connect to" and when I pointed out it connects to the Yarra Capital City Trail at Queensbridge Sq they said "we don't want bikes there".