By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
GREATER Dandenong’s employment hubs need more off-road bike routes to lift the low numbers of residents riding to work, a Bicycle Network Victoria spokesman said.
The most recent census figures show 246 Greater Dandenong residents rode their bike to work on census day in August 2011. In contrast, 60,505 drove a car to their workplace and 828 walked.
“If you spend the money, more people will use the network,” Garry Brennan of BNV said. “The No. 1 reason why people don’t ride is fear of traffic.
“On these major freight routes [in Greater Dandenong], they are high-speed roads with a lot of heavy vehicles. The bike network has to be made safe for riders by separating them from traffic.”
Mr Brennan said Greater Dandenong’s $250,000 committed spending on bike trails and lanes in 2012-13 was “disappointing”.
The BNV’s BiXE rating system shows the spend was rated $1.79 — three times less than the average per-capita spending of outer-metropolitan Melbourne councils.
“There are new industrial and residential areas just being opened up,” Mr Brennan said. “The council should be building bike paths along the creeks and demanding developers provide off-road bike paths connected to the creek trails. It would provide a reasonably well-linked bike network.”
Greater Dandenong Council is set to build new off-road links on the Dandenong Creek Trail and new links on the Eumemmerring Creek Trail in 2012-13.
Its engineering services director Bruce Rendell said the council had recently built several bike infrastructure projects, adding to 140 kilometres of paths in Greater Dandenong. “The council believes that the provision of cycling infrastructure for our community is more important than the source of the funding.”
He said the council worked with Connect East, VicRoads, Places Victoria, Parks Victoria, private developers and Bicycle Victoria to provide bike routes.
Peter Matthews, who rides from Narre Warren North to his Dandenong South workplace for exercise, believes there should be more direct bike routes.
“The problem with bike paths is they meander and go all over the place. One guy at work rides from Richmond each day. He sticks to bike paths the whole way and it takes him 105 minutes.
”I tend to use [on-road] bike lanes on Princes Highway to ride in. I’m just trying to go the quickest, most direct way.
“Frankston-Dandenong Road is crying out for a bike lane. I wouldn’t be comfortable with riding any further than I do along that road – it’s 80 km/h.”
Mr Matthews said most of Dandenong’s bike paths were gravel and should be converted to concrete for smoother, faster travel.
SAFE LINKS
Greater Dandenong Council’s recent bike route works:
■ New on-road links to Dandenong High School.
■ New bicycle infrastructure at Dandenong railway station.
■ 3.5-kilometre off-road link between Perry and Springvale roads.
Works for 2012-13
■ New off-road links along the Dandenong Creek Trail.
■ New links along the Eumemmerring Creek Trail.
■ Lobbying for bike routes as part of Dingley bypass and the Springvale grade separation project.
■ Lobbying for upgrade of Carrum-Warburton bike trail.
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