The frequently overcrowded section of the Bay Trail outside the entrance to the Middle Brighton Baths is set for a makeover that will separate bikes from pedestrians.
The number of users on the trail in the vicinity now exceeds its technical capacity, and will continue to grow.
Bayside City has begun to gradually upgrade sections of the trail, including separation of pedestrians and bikes on a nearby section.
Bayside has proposed a short re-routing of the Bay Trail at the baths, and a number of other changes in order to ease congestion and improve safety.
It wants your feedback on the draft plans.
The Bay Trail has become very popular with riders, but on warm days is now also attracting many wandering pedestrians, and the two overlap precariously at the Baths entrance.
The draft plans propose diverting bikes across the car access road at two places at raised platform crossings, appropriately giving riders priority over motor traffic. Several car parking spaces will be removed to ensure sightlines are adequate.
Further north of the baths, on the beach side of the Yacht Club, Bayside proposes to construct a new board walk for pedestrians, allowing the existing trail to become bike-only.
Bicycle Network is concerned that the proposed new section of two-way path is a middling 2.5 metres wide, well short of the Austroads recommended 3.0 metres, and the Victorian guidelines of 3.2 metres.
And we suggest the council take a closer look at the proposed shared-used zone between the baths and the Yacht Club: surely it would be preferable to keep riders to the east of the walkers?
