Bicycle Network Victoria: Metro Routes

Come and celebrate the path opening

25 October 2010 Councilor Sel Sanli, the Mayor of Maribyrnong will open the West Footscray Path this Thursday, 29 October 2010, at 1pm at the corner of Cross and Russell Streets (Mel Ref 41 H 4). Providing a fully separated route from Ashley St to West Footscray Station. 

But wait, there's more!

25 October 2010 Minister Pallas celebrated Ride2Work Day, not only announcing the 'mainstreaming commitment for bike facilities as part of all major transport projects, but also revealed that VicRoads will be laying down bike lanes along Buckley Street between Geelong Rd and Albert St Footscray.

As the pieces start to fall into place riders in the west can start to more than dream of a viable route from beyond Sunshine into the CBD. Bicycle Network Victoria's attention is now heavily focussed on the iminent reconfiguration of the Napier St 'teardrop' site, the Moreland St Truck Action Plan upgrade of Shepherd Bridge widening and truck route to the south, plus the Regional Rail Link project west of Ahley St. We have had several meetings with the relevant project teams and senior VicRoads staff. Watch this space for furhter developments as we will be calling upon your support should these issues need your support. 

Path construction underway

01 July 2010 Construction has begun for the path between Ashley St and West Footscray Station.
This section is indicated in purple on the map shown on right of this page.

It is essentially a path along the northern side of the rail corridor. It is a high quality 3 metre concrete path which has been well designed to overcome some challenging constraints. Some sections had space constraints with rail and landscaping infrastrucutre nearby.

This section is part of a critical link for the western suburbs of Melbourne but the job is not finished yet. It is vital that this path's success is maximised by connecting it at both ends. There is an opportunity to link the western end to Sunshine and beyond through the Regional Rail Link process.

We have asked the State Government to invoke the 'mainstreaming' commitment and deliver a bike link as part of the Regional Rail Link Project. We believe it is crucial that this link be completed so that residents in the west have a viable route to travel from Sunshine to the CBD.

The missing links and our attentions now swing to the other two thirds of this route:

1. West Footscray Station to Shepherd Bridge - Along Buckley and Napier Streets to join the Footscray Rd path into Docklands (Orange on map). More detail available here
2. Ashley St to Sunshine Station - this section is relatively easy and ready to build with ample space and access just needing a commitment to build (Red on map). More detail available here

Cross St path design released

28 August 2009 Maribyrnong City Council has released the design of the path between Ashley St and the Western Oval

On the whole it is good news for riders however we have asked Council to consider some elements which we believe could be improved.

• Path should have right of way over entrances
• Many of these entry ways appear to have line of sight issues with placement of trees too close
• Path width is 1.65m at rear of 65-67 Rupert St due to lack of space and property boundaries. With solid fencing on both sides this effectively takes 40cm off the useable rider envelope on both sides, reducing it to a practical 80cm. Part 14 guidelines say minimum 2metre width and VicRoads has just revised this to minimum 2.5m
• Unnecessary vegetation between Rupert St and abovementioned pinch point
• Suggest straightening alignment on approach to Russell/Cross corner due to unnecessary conflict in curvature
  Desireable to achieve a better degree of separation between path as it is immediately adjacent to curve just east of Russell St and adjacent to Clarke St
• Ped/bike refuge at western oval crossing does not look wide enough to accomodate bike. We suggest making this a raised crossing
• The path does not appear to link up to rail overpass
• The path continues easterly on the north side of Cross St. We are unsure where this is linking to

Regional Rail Link - an opportunity too good to miss

June 2009 Read more about the Regional Rail Link and the opportunities for bikes here.

Path needs investigating

October 2008 We have asked Maribyrnong and Brimbank Councils to investigate the feasibility of achieving a high quality path along this corridor. Maribyrnong Council have recieved funding from the Department of Transport to progress this.This route is part of our inner 10km Congestion-busting network. Refer Cheap, Quick and Easy. This path will act as a major bike network arterial serving the west wanting to get into Footscray and the CBD and help alleviate congestion in the inner west of Melbourne.

Some sections already exist, some are currently being worked on, other sections will present few obstacles and others will be challenging.

Some sections north of Sunshine Station already exist, but are poor quality.

The section between Albion and Sunshine Stations will be challenging.

The section between Sunshine Station should be relatively easy to construct with few physical constraints however it will require permission from VicTrack to get access to some of the land along the north side of the rail corridor. The intended alignment does not interfere with current nor potential future rail expansion along the corridor.

The City of Maribyrnong are also working on a shared path as part of a Local Access project near West Footscray Station, along the south side of Cross St.

The answer is not clear between the Western Oval and Shephards Bridge and Footscray Rd. Refer to the yellow area line on the map, right. The Principal Activity Centre reinvigoration project which is underway by Department of Planning and Community Development may present some solutions to this challenging section.

In May VicRoads announced that Shepherd Bridge will be widened. We have recently learned that the entire bridge is up for review due to the high demands placed upon it for freight transport and we have asked that a high quality separated bike facility be incorporated should that proceed.