The Sydney Cycling Corridor: Is this a simple, cheap way to help address cycling safety?

OK, so there's been plenty of finger pointing, hand wringing and angst over the 48 hours since the Mascot bike crash but a distinct lack of solutions to address the key issue of cyclist safety. We've had god know how many drivers complaining that cyclists don't pay rego (I've no idea how that would have helped), and plenty of cyclists ranting about poor driving.

So here's the idea. And I do think it quite novel. I can't lay claim to it (I'm not certain of the origin - it came up in an office discussion) but it needs some air to get going.

So the idea is the Sydney Cycling Corridor. Every Saturday and Sunday 10s of hundreds of Sydney Cyclists make the run south from Metro Sydney to Waterfall. Here's the basic route. The precise run varies club to club and group to group, but the journey is largely the same regardless if you set off from Kings Cross, Randwick, Newtown or Ashfield.  It's a solid 80 to 90 km hitout with about 500m of vertical ascent (a decent hitout by most standards). And the ride doubles as a launch point and one can easily bolt on the Royal National Park if you are craving more hills or kilometres.

The ride is popular because the roads are wide and well surfaced, the journey largely uninterrupted and traffic is also light on weekend mornings. Although the speed limits top 80 for cars, being multi lane roads and traffic being light getting around the cyclists is normally no issue. Until Sunday that is.

So why then don't we make the left lane both ways a cyclists only lane from 4am to 10am (the Sydney Cycling corridor) on Saturdays and Sundays? Given the roads are quiet it'll make zero difference to driving times (the cyclists are there already), and drivers are already used to time dependant road conditions (look at bus lanes, clearways, T2 and T3 lanes, school zones, etc). And it requires zero new infrastructure (so will be cheap) - just a few signs and some paint.

That's got to help - it separates the drivers and cyclists, which is universally agreed to make cycling a safer affair. The Sydney Cycling Corridor - not my own idea, but a rather good one I reckon.

Today's Crash in Mascot

There was a fairly hefty cycling crash in Southern Cross Drive in Mascot today, a small pack of Eastern Suburbs Cycling Club riders all hit by a small 4WD.  The only good news is the cyclists all survived. The dust hasn't really settled yet on the incident and the police investigation still has to run its course, but the reaction on social media and in comments sections on assorted  articles has been quite striking. There doesn't seem though to be much debate about the party at fault (the driver appears to the at fault party: cyclists are allowed to ride there; he clearly hit them from the back; the road is straight, flat and the light was good and the roads dry, and there's no traffic lights or intersections nearby for the cyclists to pop out from. You've also got the weight of numbers. Were 6 people all in the wrong or the single motorist?). Indeed the ESCC rides appear to join Southern Cross Drive miles north (near Centennial Park) and rides the route routinely.

Here's an image of the car post-crash. Clearly they hit the riders rather hard:

So the social media stuff threw up the standard array of topics. The cyclists don't pay rego chestnut, as is that was some sort of justification or defence. Given bike rego doesn't exist, it seems rather daft to jump up and down when the cyclists involved didn't purchase it, and nor do the people give any indication how that would have helped them at all today.

Most other comments were similarly silly. They did though a rather striking insight into the depth of angst that exists about cyclists being on the roads. I think this is such a logical place to start addressing the cyclist-driver rift  - a campaign personalising the people in the lycra, and making it clear that they are 100% entitled to be there. That would be a great start to improving cycling safety.

Probably the only question I saw raised that was vaguely worthwile answering was why do cyclists ride there? Given Southern Cross Drive is a 3 lane road (each way) that forms the CBD - Sydney Airport corridor and the speed limit reaches 80 km/h, to non cyclists it probably seems like the sort of place to avoid on a bike. Thing is the same qualities that make it a good transport corridor also make it a good place for cyclists: A well surfaced, quite straight road. No traffic lights, and very few entry and exit points for traffic. That means less stop start, and ducking & weaving (both of which cyclists deal with daily, but don't really enjoy). And in the early hours on a Sunday, there's a lack of traffic, so getting around a slower moving cycling group should be quite easy. It's also 100% legal. There are motorways/expressways where cyclists aren't welcome, but this bit of Southern Cross Drive isn't one of them.

I hope the injuries aren't too serious, and justice is served.