Is Adelaide’s cycle city dream vanishing in the rear view mirror?

YEARS after Adelaide declared it would join the world’s great cycling cities, numbers are down and tensions with drivers continue to add to the roadblock. So what went wrong?

• Little support to rip up Frome St bikeway
• Vegan cyclist filmed in angry exchange with Adelaide motorist
• Cyclists’ traffic offences are rising
• Where you’ll find Adelaide’s busiest bikeway

IT WAS May 2014, and Adelaide was at the centre of the cycling world.

Hundreds of international experts were in town for Velo-city, a prestigious global conference geared towards sharing the best and brightest ideas about what it takes to create a two-wheel metropolis.

Then-lord mayor Stephen Yarwood spruiked the four-day event as the springboard Adelaide needed to become “one of the great cycling cities of the world”.

Transport Minister Stephen Mullighan, whose government kicked-in $450,000 to lure the conference to SA, pedalled the same view.

“Adelaide is an increasingly bike-friendly city,” Mr Mullighan said after the conference.

“And we are aiming to double the number of people cycling in South Australia by 2020.”

Three years on, that lofty goal appears to moving further – and faster – out of view.

The number of people riding a bike in SA has this year dropped to 239,000, a 20 per cent fall since 2011, according to the latest National Cycling Participation survey.

Those plummeting participation rates played a part in Burnside Council’s decision late last month to abandon its cycling strategy.

The council also blamed residents’ resistance to designated bikeways and the “reality” that cycling was dangerous for the strategy’s failure to get cars off the road, reduce traffic accidents and encourage more children to ride to school.

Cycling advocates criticised Burnside for not supporting its rate-paying riders, but they, too, have concerns about the state of cycling in Adelaide.

So, then, what hope for our City of Churches becoming a City of Cyclists, as envisaged by the peloton at Velo-city?

“I think that we have the potential to be one,” Bicycle Institute of SA chair Fay Patterson tells Eastern Courier Messenger.

“You have the street networks – with lots of parallel routes, which is important – and the climate as well as the topography.”

Mrs Patterson says Adelaide was once a national leader in cycling before the introduction of mandatory helmet laws in 1991 triggered a downturn in numbers.

From there, she says, cycling has slipped further down the transport hierarchy – in the eyes of commuters and policy makers.

“It is called the Department of Transport, but really it is the department of highways,” she says.

“If you read any strategic document it talks about cycling, but if you look at what they do the cars come first.”

Recent RAA figures show Adelaide has the highest percentage (79 per cent) of people commuting to work by car of any Australian capital city.

The motoring body’s senior road safety manager, Charles Mountain, says Adelaide remains “a fairly car-friendly city”.

“Generally speaking, and major roadworks aside, we do not have huge problems with congestion,” Mr Mountain says.

“And city carparking charges – which are relatively low compared to places like Melbourne or Sydney – mean people can still choose to drive to work.”

But Mr Mountain stresses that there need not be a conflict between cars and cyclists.

The key is to keep the two apart, ideally with concrete barriers rather than painted lines.

Bicycle Institute of SA chair Fay Patterson questions if Adelaide really is a cycling city. Photo: Mike Burton/AAP

Truly separated bikeways have long been heralded as the solution to increasing cycling participation because – as research suggests – they encourage the large number of people who want to cycle, but feel uncomfortable doing so, to hop on two wheels.

But the projects have proved a lightning rod for the controversy – the Frome St saga being the most prolonged and pertinent case.

Adelaide City Council has started work to rip up a section of the CBD route, before it will be relaid and extended from Pirie St to the new city high school.

It follows almost three years of complaints about the bikeway, which reduced parts of Frome St from four lanes to two.

Amid the seemingly endless controversy, the State Government and City Council last year announced a $12 million investment that would involve a new separated cycling lane on Flinders and Franklin streets.

Unley Council, too, is spending money to give cyclists priority over cars along its most popular cycling route – the Rugby/Porter St bikeway – despite some opposition from residents.

“We know from comparing with other cities such as (Melbourne’s) Yarra Council, that it pays to invest in urban cycling,” the council’s deputy mayor Don Palmer says.

“Cities that invest into bicycle infrastructure see much higher numbers of cyclists.”

Bike SA chief executive Christian Haag agrees.

“The evidence shows that when local government invest in good infrastructure, people will ride,” Mr Haag says.

“That means more active citizens, lower costs on our health system, lower congestion, emissions and a more welcoming city.”

Mr Mullighan is bullish about Adelaide’s credentials as a cycling city, despite the increasingly likelihood that the government will not reach its 2020 target.

He points to statistics which show 10,000 people cycle to and from the CBD every day – a 50 per cent jump in the past decade and the highest amount on record.

The State Bicycle Fund will this year provide $770,000 to projects in SA, while cycling infrastructure has been built into the O-Bahn tunnel extension and South Rd upgrade.

“We continue to support and invest in cycling infrastructure and educational material to encourage people to take travel options and in particular increase the number of Adelaide’s cyclists,” Mr Mullighan says.