Image: City of Adelaide

The City of Adelaide has put forth plans to renew Wakefield Street from Victoria Square to Hutt Street but has missed a golden opportunity by proposing only minor improvements for cyclist safety along the key corridor.

One new cycling refuge in the median will be installed at Chancery Lane, to allow bikes to cross more easily. The painted bike lanes will remain largely unchanged, gaining only slightly more width and some green paint.

The renewal works also include a range of other changes, including a fresh road surface, new kerbing, a widening of the central median to allow for more trees and plants, and the closure of the median to cars at six points along the street.

Powerlines will also be shifted underground and street lighting will be improved.

While the program document claims the proposed changes will be a benefit to cyclists and “provide a safe east-west cycling route across the city”, it is difficult to not see the project instead as simply a long-term commitment to inaction on real safe cycling infrastructure along this corridor.

Wakefield Street, as a selected street for the failed East-West Bikeway in 2021, is one of the widest streets in the Adelaide and has ample space to safely accommodate motor traffic, car parking, pedestrians and cyclists at the same time.

The proposed plans stop short of offering any kind of protected cycling infrastructure, such as painted buffers around the cycling lane or a kerb-separated lane as exists on Frome Street.

Instead, cyclists will continue to contend with dangers on both sides, abutted by reversing cars (where there is angle parking) and the danger of being doored (next to parallel parking) on their left, while cars and buses – many of which will need to cross the bike lane to turn left – zoom past on their right.

The design also provides no indication of how cyclists are expected to safely turn right from any approach at the intersection of Wakefield and Frome streets. In other locations in the Adelaide CBD, right turns are facilitated with painted bicycle hook turn boxes or painted ‘bike boxes’ placed in front of car traffic lanes.

We think – at a minimum – along the section of Wakefield Street between Victoria Square and Pulteney Street, the car parking and the bike lanes should swap positions. This would allow for almost no loss of car parking, while the car parks themselves could act as a physical buffer between vehicle traffic and those riding their bikes.

In the best-case scenario, we would like to see a separated bikeway installed along the entire length of Wakefield Street from Victoria Square to Hutt Street. It could be an ideal test case for removing some of Adelaide’s overabundance of car parks in favour of supporting quieter, safer, greener, healthier active transport.

Consultation is now open on the proposed design, and Bicycle SA encourages everyone to have their say to get the best and safest possible design outcome for riders.

There are several ways to contribute your feedback. Submit an online submission form, email your comments to yoursay@cityofadelaide.com.au or address your written submission to Community Consultation, Wakefield Street Streetscape Works and post to GPO Box 2252 Adelaide SA 5001.

Consultation closes at 5pm on Friday 21 July 2023. We encourage you to have your say and to let the City of Adelaide know that cyclists across SA want these designs taken back to the drawing board in the name of road safety and a step towards long-delayed real diversification of our transport network.

The project page can be accessed on the City of Adelaide website.