The City of Hobart has launched its next local area mobility plan, covering the hilly West Hobart and Mt Stuart suburbs.
The city is calling for suggestions to make walking and bike riding connections clearer and easier in the area, and guide its work over the next 10 years.
Suggestions to improve bike riding could include: shared paths, wider kerb ramps, traffic calming, cycleways and quiet street bike connections.
West Hobart has painted bike lanes on sections of Hill Street but no other road treatments to make it more comfortable for people riding bikes.
E-bikes have made suburbs such as West Hobart and Mt Stuart, previously off cycling maps because of their steepness, more accessible because of their proximity to the city.
Informally, some riders use the route of the old trolley bus into West Hobart as the gradients tend to be kinder. These streets might be a good place to map a cycling network through the area and could include Goulburn, Cavell, Hill and Arthur and Lansdowne Crescent.
Mt Stuart is steeper again but with an e-bike certain routes are more achievable than others. The difficulty here is that there are fewer wider roads to accommodate dedicated bike facilities. A route including traffic-calmed streets with deterrents for rat-running car drivers and 30km/h speed limits might be an option in place of separated cycleways.
Hobart Council approved the Lenah Valley mobility plan late last year. This included a separated cycleway on Augusta Road as a priority project, which would be useful for people living on the northern side of Mt Stuart.
The council’s North Hobart Neighbourhood plan is yet to be released, but last year’s discussion paper suggested a link from Federal Street into Elphinstone Road, to link to West Hobart and Mt Stuart.
The plan is open for feedback and comment until 31 May, via an online map.
Workshops are being held on Tuesday 7 and Tuesday 14 May from 5.30pm to 7pm at the Mount Stuart Memorial Hall at 14 Byard Street, with RSVPs essential.
There will also be an information session at The Train Park on the corner of Hill and Warwick streets on Saturday18 May between 10am and 11.30am.