Some of the more successful pop-up bike lanes that mushroomed across inner Melbourne’s sombre COVID-era streets will be converted into permanent facilities.
The pop-up lanes – constructed out of temporary materials – added 94.6km of improved and additional bike routes to streets in a bid to deliver better facilities to a generation of riders who took to the roads during the pandemic.
The Department of Transport and Planning (DTP) has completed monitoring and evaluation of the routes and reports generally strong increases in rider numbers and overall satisfaction.
Always planned as a trial, with the opportunity for alteration or removal, DTP says much of the temporary infrastructure will become permanent, particularly in the cities of Yarra and Darebin.
Further consultation with councils and communities is planned and the transformation is expected to be finished during 2025.
The identity of the upgrade routes is yet to be announced, but DTP has made it known that the Westgarth Street speed limit will drop to 50km/h.
Heidelberg Road and the intersection of Napier Street and Queens Parade require further planning, while the temporary infrastructure on Wellington Street will remain, pending results of a council-led community consultation.
Disappointingly the planned pop-up lanes on Mount Alexander Road in Moonee Ponds were never delivered because of other works along the street, so there is nothing to make permanent. Plans for separated lanes on this section of Mount Alexander Road (between Buckley Street and the junction) were first proposed in 2012.
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