February 2026

Come and say hello at our monthly meeting. For February we are meeting outside in the Community Garden at Borderlands, 77A Paisley St, Footscray VIC 3011. We'll be there from 6PM, on Friday the 13th. All welcome.

Veloway Opened

The Dixon Veloway has opened and is proving to be very popular which is great. The bugbear that everyone has noticed is the severe bumps going over the expansion joints. We'd be very surprised if they haven't led to numerous punctures.

This issue has been raised with West Gate Tunnel Authority but they are in the process of handing over ownership so it is proving difficult to find someone who has any authority to do anything. We'll continue to push for improvements.

Harris St pedestrian crossing

BikeWest are working with the Seddon Cricket Club to come up with some proposals to improve the safety of the pedestrian crossing over the new path on Harris St leading to the bridge over Whitehall. Currently, the number of kids during peak commuting times is not large and the long daylight hours make it relatively easy to see oncomers. However, in winter the poor lighting in addition with wetter weather and more usage from the football club and umpires training will potentially create issues. One of the measures will be a net between the goals and the bike path as many footballs will be kicked directly at the bike path and inevitably one will knock a rider off their bike.

Bollards

The very odd case of the bollards where the Veloway connects to Shepherds Bridge is yet to be resolved but BikeWest has had meetings with the WGTA and are working with Bicycle Network to get a better outcome. This still hasn't been resolved but we hope to get somewhere in the next few months but are not holding our breath.

State Election Campaign

BikeWest are part of the coalition of advocacy groups in conjunction with Bicycle Network. There are meetings soon to discuss priorities for the campaign. Any suggestions are welcome

Westlink

BikeWest is continuing our campaign to lever off the opening of the Dixon Veloway and highlight the gap to the shared user path (SUP) on Cross St beside West Footscray Station. There is a 2km black hole between the Veloway and West Footscray Station and we have drawn up plans that utilise much of the designs the ALP took to the 2019 federal election. We are working with Maribyrnong Council and this will be part of the state election campaign. We have also met with the Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino as this is part of his electorate to discuss the possibility of federal funding.

Incident Report Form

There are far too many crashes, near misses and other incidents that go unreported so BikeWest will be launching an online Incident Report form in the new year. This will give us more evidence to support our advocacy efforts.

BikeWest hope to launch this in the first half of this year.

Maribyrnong Council

BikeWest met with Maribyrnong Mayor Mohamed Semra, Deputy Mayor Same Meredith and two staff members about the priorities Maribyrnong Council has in terms of active transport and specifically cycling. We highlighted the need for a dramatic change in priorities as the forecast population increase from 90,000 to 150,000 by 2050 will mean an increase of 30,000 cars in Maribyrnong with business as usual. Maribyrnong is approximately 30sq km. That's an extra 1000 cars (4WD utes and SUVs) per square kilometre.

Broadly speaking council seems to be on the same page as BikeWest about what is needed which is fantastic. However, it remains to be seen if they have the political courage to reallocate some road space and direct funding towards cycling infrastructure. We pointed out that at the current rate it will take approx 200 years to get a proper, safe bike network.

Maribyrnong still seem to be placing a lot of emphasis on their long awaited Integrated Transport Strategy.

Barkly St West Footscray

One project we hope to see soon is protected bike lanes on Barkly St between Geelong Rd and Summerhill Rd. Plans have progressed and this should be happening soon. Keep an ear out for when the plans are ready for consultation to make sure our voices are heard.

Quarry Park Masterplan

BikeWest has been working with council for many years to develop a bicycle park in Quarry Park. The ask is for extended MTB trails, a crushed gravel running/CX path around the perimeter as well as a Bike Education Centre/Event space with a cafe and deck with the best view in Melbourne. Maribyrnong staff and the consultant are on board. Need to negotiate a way through the NIMBY world. If, by some miracle, it is passed and funding found, this will be the epicentre of all things cycling in the west of Melbourne and be quite transformational.

Infrastructure Types

One of the favourite types of infrastructure in Melbourne is the Shared User Path (SUP). Presumably these are favoured as it is cheaper than separate footpaths and bike paths. However, the shared space inherently promotes conflict with people walking at 5kmh and people on bikes at 15-20kmh. The better option is to make the paths a bit wider and separate out people walking and people on bikes as shown in this recent image from the usual practice in Sweden.

Moonee Valley Council

BikeWest had a meeting in January with the Mayor of MVCC and the Director of Infrastructure. The Mayor Rose Iser is very keen to get some cycling projects going in a local government area that has been a bit of a laggard even compared with other slow councils. We think the Director might take some more convincing.

BikeWest is going to meet with the Moonee Valley Sustainability Group next week to help them develop their active transport advocacy plan.

Research, International News

Multimodal trips with bikes

BikeWest has long held the view that public transport and bikes make a great combination. This dates back to the 2017 paper by Kager and Harms which demonstrated that by including bikes as a way to get to train stations for example, increases the catchment area 9 fold!

https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2017/07/synergies-from-improved-cycling-transit-integration_d6d534a0/ce404b2e-en.pdf

New work looks at how convenience affects the uptake of these multimodal trips

Vision Zero in New Jersey

New Jersey have come up with a well thought through plan to get their road fatalities down to zero. This level of analysis and planning is missing in Melbourne. Transport always seems to boil down to congestion and travel time.

https://dot.nj.gov/targetzero/pdf/DRAFT_NJ_Target_Zero_Action_Plan.pdf