Wednesday, 11 September 2024

Cyclist safety

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (18:51): (1145) My adjournment is to the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. CrowdSpot recently released their BikeSpot 2023 report, the culmination of 10,000 individuals across Australia making 73,000 submissions about the places they feel safe or unsafe when riding their bikes. The key findings echo what road safety advocates have been saying for years: greater separation of cars from bikes is the key to safer riding. Seventy-eight per cent of spots marked safe relate to having more space from motor vehicle traffic, while 76 per cent of spots marked unsafe relate to insufficient or inadequate bike infrastructure. Chapel Street in my electorate is a good example of a whole corridor lacking safe infrastructure. In other cases, like the Upfield shared path, good linear infrastructure is undermined by dangerous intersections.

Research from Monash University has shown that 79 per cent of Melburnians want to ride their bikes more but they do not feel safe doing so. One dangerous intersection can mean a potential cyclist leaves their bike at home. If they get in a car instead, this increases traffic congestion and carbon pollution. To get more people onto their bikes, bike routes need to be complete and they need to be well connected. Whether it is traffic-calming measures or infrastructure that effectively separates cars and trucks from people riding bikes, we know how to make our roads safe for people. The BikeSpot 2023 report also celebrates a number of these success stories, including Canning Street in Carlton, with its filters that separate cars from other road users, and the separated bike lanes along St Kilda Road. The solutions are so clear. What we need is for the government to make safe bike infrastructure a real priority. The action I seek is for the minister to commit to increasing funding for safe cycling infrastructure across Melbourne and across regional Victoria.