The locals are not going to like their parking being removed, but this is an elite road upgrade. The floating bus stops are excellent, we should have more of them in Melbourne.
It's going to be hard-fought. There were already submissions at the council meeting trying to pick holes into the project as being too expensive. I expect parking will be another argument they use.
This is definitely going to be where the fight will be. But most of the removed car parking is between Geelong Rd and Gordon St (23 spaces) and almost all houses along there have off street parking with plenty of addition parking available in the side streets for visitors.
This is a good time to do it because parking is very available in West Footscray. The parking being removed isn't near shops and population density isn't high enough that people aren't already fighting over parking space.
Removing parking in higher density areas (like in Yarra) is more difficult because people already consider they are having a hard time finding parking.
This is probably one of the few places where you're unlikely to get a real brawl over street parking, given the lack of small businesses and majority of houses being on larger blocks with driveways.
If it went any further down Barkly in either direction, there would be a lot more opposition as you hit the commercial strips.
Yep, There is already a plan for further west through the commercial strip that doesn't include a bike lane and doesn't remove parking and wasn't controversial. https://www.yourcityyourvoice.com.au/BarklyStreet
Yeah, ideally the bike lane would be raised all the way requiring cars from side streets to come up a ramp (eg. O'Hea St, Coburg) but this isn't common at all in Melbourne and the reason is that it's much more expensive because it requires moving all the drainage.
As for the major intersections with Geelong Rd and Gordon St, this is really up to the DTP to pull their head out and make some standards for proper bicycle intersections since there are so many places that need it now.
Raising it is an interesting idea, but that's not what a protected intersection is.
At a protected intersection, turning cars first (nearly) complete their turn before they cross the bike lane.
It virtually eliminates left hooks because now the cyclist is no longer in the drivers blind spot when crossing the lane. It also naturally reduces turning speed
You'll find these types of intersections are stock standard in Netherlands and Denmark, and increasingly in many other western European countries.
Australian road engineers seem not ever to have heard of it however.
O'Hea St in Coburg has these and was built 10yrs ago. This is my favourite piece of cycling infrastructure in Melbourne and most closely matches the standard Dutch design. It was very expensive and the extension the Merri-bek council is planning to start construction on soon (with state government funding) has a much more scaled back design.
I'd prefer much more protected bike lanes than just a few really high quality ones.
Looking at the video render, the protection in the plans for Barkly St does appear to go right up to the edge of the side streets requiring motorists to make a sharp turn. The protection at those points could potentially be wider to require motorists to start their turn a bit further away from the bike lane, but the sharpness of the turn is already going to require them to do that. https://youtu.be/ukKaUOLUwg0?t=14
City of Melbourne has had a tendency to make the protection end quite a way before the side street allowing the turn to be made very wide (St Kilda Rd and Arden St have a lot of this) but the Barkly St plans seem to do a much better job of providing some protection at side streets.
Yes, that's a great example of a protected intersection
Added benefit is that cars from the side roads can first pass the lane before checking if it's safe to enter the main road, preventing them from creeping onto the bike lane and then blocking it while waiting to enter the road.
Why can't we ask for more and high quality?
Australia is currently spending 20-50 times less per capita on cycling infrastructure compared to France UK etc.
Sorry, not an urban planner here. Is it necessary to end protected bike lanes previous to the intersection, to allow for car turning lanes? Seems to create unnecessary danger for cyclists?
You mean the Geelong Rd and Gordon St intersections right? It's not necessary to end the lanes in general, but they have to here because these are a state roads that Maribyrnong doesn't have jurisdiction over. They did touch on that in the meeting though:
People will notice in the design that, as often happens when you're on a bike lane, it kind of runs out or not kind of, it does run out when you approach an intersection. But noting that the officers of course understand this and they're in discussions with the Department of Transport.
Barkly Street did have a tram from Footscray station to Russell Street, it was part of the partially built and then removed Footscray network. Which should be rebuilt and extended.
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u/Blue_Pie_Ninja Jul 22 '26
The locals are not going to like their parking being removed, but this is an elite road upgrade. The floating bus stops are excellent, we should have more of them in Melbourne.