News & Discussion: Adelaide City Council

[ChillyPhilly]

Yes. It gives me cancer.

[Vee]

Photos and comments from social media on the opening of the new Frome St Bikeway today. Huge turnout for the mass ride and lots of appreciative comments from cyclists.

Here is a selection, captured this morning.
Check out the photos from participating cyclists.

@Banjoroam: Thousands turn out for #fromestreet #bikelane - #Adelaide needs more cycling infrastructure. Congrats @CityofAdelaide
http://t.co/xRdFkVpxNM

@KeithConlon: New Frome Street bikeway ceremonial procession! All working very smoothly. Thousands out. #Adelaide @cityofadelaide
http://t.co/8etAG8j7zy

@heardaboutsa: Brilliant turnout for Frome Street Bikeway! #Adelaide @bicyclesa
http://t.co/4S7znGJ0vq

@nickpeety: Started Frome the bottom, now we're here. #Adelaide
http://t.co/1Qlzj1qYx7

@aleunig: Frome St comes alive.#adelaide Safe cycling path for my mum (74) or my youngest child (11) . @VeloCityAdel http://t.co/dQ8TaEDRAv

@Velo_fringe: Bicyclists as far as the eye can see at Halifax Cafe... #FromeStreet #bikeway #Adelaide http://t.co/fdFnzpbhOL

@Floorey: This is what #free #coffee does to #cyclists. #fromestreet #bikeway #adelaide @ Halifax Cafe http://t.co/6owEH685PL

@douglasmaeda: Overwhelmed by the number of people behind #FromeSt #Bikeway Its gonna be a hard fight, but its off to a good start
http://t.co/eDFkouEK7b

@StephenYarwood: Frome St Bike Lane swamped with riders - all about transport choices in #Adelaide http://t.co/tXywcHW12u

@katykat: So wonderful to see so many friends & riders at the Frome Street Bikeway opening! #cycling #adelaide @… http://t.co/xgcljgGhy3

@RaniSurya_: Bike riders cheer as @StephenYarwood greets them on the #fromestreetbikeway #adelaide #cycling http://t.co/R1yDtj5gfP

And the 'drivers and cyclists divided' news article, including comments from naysayers, is here:
News.com
http://www.news.com.au/national/south-a ... 6917054919

The Advertiser reports on a 'motorist backlash' and an independent review.

[Nathan]

I didn't make it for the mass ride, but did get to ride along it just after 9am. A nice easy ride up to Pirie St. The crowds had well and truly died down by that point, but still a few cyclists around and saw Yarwood on the corner of Wakefield St giving an interview. Given it was after 9, peak had finished as well, but still there was hardly any car traffic - certainly no where near enough to need 2 lanes each way.

[metro]

I think if council starts removing the Frome St cycleway, then perhaps the state govt need to intervene and take away the ACC's responsibility of roads, cycleways and traffic. I can see two benefits there: more cycleways for the state capital, and better traffic light sequences for the trams.

[Nathan]

Council has put together a collection of tweets and photos from this morning:
https://storify.com/cityofadelaide/from ... pening-day

Looks like it was a huge turnout. Good to see a fair number of kids in the mix as well.


Edit: plus video from InDaily. Look at all the car congestion it's caused - they even get up to two cars at one of the sets of lights!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB4ftTSn7sU[/youtube]

[Waewick]

I think if council starts removing the Frome St cycleway, then perhaps the state govt need to intervene and take away the ACC's responsibility of roads, cycleways and traffic. I can see two benefits there: more cycleways for the state capital, and better traffic light sequences for the trams.

I'm not a cyclist.

but if they do that, I'd be happy to join people in standing on the garden beds in protest

as I said, I don't cycle, but can clearly see the benefit in providing people with a safe alternative.

[monotonehell]

I think if council starts removing the Frome St cycleway, then perhaps the state govt need to intervene and take away the ACC's responsibility of roads, cycleways and traffic. I can see two benefits there: more cycleways for the state capital, and better traffic light sequences for the trams.

I'm not a cyclist.

but if they do that, I'd be happy to join people in standing on the garden beds in protest

as I said, I don't cycle, but can clearly see the benefit in providing people with a safe alternative.

Same here. I haven't mounted a bike in over a decade, I live on Frome Street. I often see motorists doing dangerous things involving cyclists and would like to see more segregated cycle lanes.

A green gutter does not a cycle lane make.

[rev]

You all know, I'm sure, what I think of cyclists on roads, particularly the arrogant packs of cyclists(who I've got another name for starting with c and ending in s )

But I think it's a good idea, having clearly separated lanes for each.
Now if only some of that $80 billlion for road infrastructure that Abbott's going to spend, can be allocated to such things, it would make my level of road rage decline so dramatically I'd be like the Ghandi of the roads.

[Nathan]

Here's the speech David Burton of Dash Architects gave to the council last night, in response to Cr Moran's motion.

Lord Mayor, Councillors, Thank you for the opportunity to address this meeting on the motion before you later tonight.

I am David Burton, convenor of the Adelaide 2050 group, comprising myself, Jason Schulz, Director of DASH Architects, and Mario Dreosti, Director of Brown Falconer Architects. I am also before you tonight in collaboration with Phil Harris, 2014 Australian Institute of Architects Gold Medalist, James Hayter, Director of Oxigen Urban Designers and Professor at the University of Adelaide Department of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and on behalf of Andrew Penn, Brendan Harslet co President of the Design Institute of Australia, and with the support of Richard Hoskin Australian Institute of Architects, and Tim Horton, Chair of the Committee for Adelaide and former Integrated Design Commissioner.

We collectively implore you not to support this Motion on notice brought to you by Councillor Moran.

The Frome Road Bike-lane is a good, thoughtfully designed and well integrated step in this city's urban development and maturity.

We are more than a little concerned about the negativity and superficiality of the debate about this particular piece of infrastructure, and the lack of understanding of the benefits and the more far reaching effect on the makeup of the city as a better place to live and work when there are more safe transport choices. The bike lane debate has been, with respect, hijacked by political opportunism, lack of vision, and misrepresentation and in fact ignorance of sound urban planning principles

The motion you have before you shifts unwarranted priority back to the private motor vehicle at the expense of safe alternate choices. It is a slippery slope back to the policies of the 1950s and 60s and a stumbling block to the germinating renewal that has been evident in the CBD led by place making and an emphasis on a traffic calmed environment.

For the city is an environment, and like any environment, planned or organically evolved, it can be viewed like a complex ecosystem. Eco Systems that are mono-dimensional wither and die, or at the very least are not effective and bland. This is about providing choice. A mature city has a complex series of transit choices - bikes, pedestrians, cars and public transport. All need to be accommodated and conceived together and EQUALLY.

Adelaide has over 41000 public off street car parks in the CBD...more than 4 times that of Perth and double that of Brisbane - cities with almost double our population...more than 20% of traffic in the CBD is just passing through and not stopping, we have ONE tram, ONE train station, and starting today, ONE segregated bike lane - this is not indicative of a balanced transit choice or a healthy ecosystem..it needs more work and more balance.

To all concerned that the design of the bike lane will cause congestion, we can tell you that all evidence says that inviting more cars into a CBD via reducing opportunities for other safe options...will almost certainly breed MORE congestion. Frome Road is one of several routes through the city ideal for this type of infrastructure. It is not a North South vehicle corridor, it stops at Carrington street. It provides a safe cross town link to new and existing bikeways north and south including the linear Park bikeway, and the Mike Turtur bikeway...but then you already know this because it is in your agenda and the Administration has forcefully and sensibly argued for the retention of the bikeway in its current format.

The current arrangement allows adequate width, good separation and green landscaping. By reinstating two lanes of traffic at peak periods, when commuter cyclists are likely to be using a bike lane, you are simply putting people in harms way, when there is little need, and a perfectly good solution already constructed.

The level of this debate is getting tiresome as it is rooted in a them vs. us mentality and not on what is a sustainable future and the best outcome for ALL . No one is asking EVERYONE to ride their bike into town. But for those that can, and have the opportunity, why not encourage them with a safe option? Are we that myopic that we can't understand that if we provide a SAFE and attractive opportunity, some people WHO ARE CURRENTLY NOT CYCLING will take it up? - BY CHOICE. It should be about creating an environment in the city that people WANT to visit either to shop, work or live. Calming traffic, providing green refuges, and safe transport OPTIONS will do this. Inviting ONLY cars and compromising other initiatives will not do this.

This isn't an argument about a bike lane. It is about choice. It's about how far behind the rest of the country we choose to fall if we ignore the lessons of others.

This motion before you is not about compromise or sensible planning, but it is about capitulation in the face of modest untested resistance. What concerns us most is that even in the face of sound urban planning principles, we are cultivating a society with an unwillingness to try. Please do not support this motion to change what we haven't even tried!

[Vee]

Thanks, Nathan for posting David Burton's speech.
Hope it gets wider readership.

[jk1237]

Ah thank goodness for the people like David Burton to give a speech to the ACC and to try and put sanity to the 2 moronic pro car city councillors (who both incidently live in North Adl).

Well done to all involved in this cycle route. Have used it a few times now, look forward to the next stage between Pirie and North Tce. The amount of negative, sensationalist nonsense by 2 councillors and the media, is creating so much publicity that it will make even more people use it for a cycle route. Usually a problem exists for something new if there is no publicity and no one knows that it exists, this is quite different.

[obituary resider]

[david]

Councillor David Plumridge Notes - Issue 111

MY APOLOGIES, I UPLOADED THE WRONG NOTES TODAY

The correct version is attached below.

Notes from Councillor Issue 111.pdf

(482.06 KiB) Downloaded 189 times

David Plumridge

[Brucetiki]

If Anne Moran and her ACC friends want to shrug off the 'we're not snobs' reputation North Adelaide residents rightly have, are doing themselves no favours with their attitude towards Adelaide Oval patrons.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... 6918015182

If you want to shrug off the snobbish reputation, Sandy Wilkinson's 'people from the suburbs' comments is not the way to go about it. The ACC needs to tap the shoulders of the likes of Moran and Wilkinson and ask them to retire so that more progressive councillors who don't just sit around moaning and groaning with their anti-progress views. For as long as you have the likes of Moran and Wilkinson on the ACC, they're going to rightfully be a laughingstock of the state.

[Mants]

Councillor David Plumridge Notes - Issue 111

MY APOLOGIES, I UPLOADED THE WRONG NOTES TODAY

The correct version is attached below.

Notes from Councillor Issue 111.pdf

David Plumridge

Thankyou David, I was going to let you know this this afternoon when I downloaded the incorrect file actually. I always find your notes quite interesting.

I'd like to personally commend you and other like minded councillors who can see the benefits of this piece of infrastructure through the CBD. Hopefully it is just the beginning of a greater and more accessible network throughout the city and North Adelaide.

Regarding the development on East Terrace, I would actually have to agree with your stance on the matter. I do not believe that mid-highrise development south of Pirie Street/Bartels Road is appropriate. East Terrace remains a relatively unspoilt stretch of grand historic homes and whilst I generally always support development and higher density living options in the CBD, there are a multitude of other potential areas across the CBD which would be more suited to such a development.