Shared Paths - Separate Responsibility / Joint Ownership
About this page
Reviewing what bike facilities you have becomes necessary over time, to help keep pace with demand and maintain a level of quality to keep people riding in your area.
Trail Clubs
To a rider the Maribyrnong River Trail may represent a Sunday morning ride, stretching from Brimbank Park down to Footscray Rd and return. There is only one continuous section of path and they become aware of all its varied elements along the way. These varying elements are currently separately managed by City of Hobsons Bay, Maribyrnong City Council, Moonee Valley City Council, Brimbank City Council and Parks Victoria.
These stakeholders recently gathered to discuss working as a team to help improve the quality and community use of this path. Sharing knowledge, skills, resources and funds on a shared path will help them embrace the 'Separate Responsibility / Joint Ownership' approach. This will not only lead to better quality and use of community assets but also help to attract government agency funding.
The City of Yarra, Moreland and Darebin in conjunction with Parks Victoria have jointly started an audit process of The Merri Creek Path, with a consultant having progressed an extensive draft report.
With the completion of the Eastlink project rejuvenating the Dandenong Creek Path, Manningham recently gathered the Knox, Whitehorse, Dandenong and Frankston councils to discuss signage and other issues. The full club also includes Parks Victoria and VicRoads.
Warrnambool and Moyne Councils recently joined forces to advance the Warrnambool to Port Fairy Trail. Due to their team approach and putting together a compelling application, the path recently recieved $850,000 in funding.
Flow Clarity Conflict
We believe these 3 elements are the major barriers to a successful bike path
Some of the things that are best done by a 'club'
Sharing
- Audit work and results
- Maintenance of vegetation
- Production of maps
- Costs of key priorities currently hampering the success of the entire path
Joint efforts
- Marketing initiatives
- Funding applications
Consistency
- experience of initiatives shared
- the rider experience is maintained
- Signage is predictable for the entire route
Where to from here?
SOme initial steps to help grow the community asset for all to benefit from a joint persepective
- Audit
- Obvious ‘quick wins’ such as centre lines, etc
- Map/Branding
- Signage/Junctions
- Festivals / ‘Path Discovery Day’
Further inititiatives to consider are:
- Identifying Land Tenure as part of audit process will be beneficial
- Installation of a Counter Loop would be beneficial in short term.
- Record of past issues/comments from users may be beneficial for reference
- Bicycle Victoria can do an online survey of members in the area
- Other possible stakeholders, Parks Victoria, water corporations, developers etc
Bicycle Victoria are happy to coordinate and/or host the inception of new 'trail clubs'.
Contact our campaigns team for more information.