Ban bikes from dangerous Old Belair Rd, Mitcham councillor says

CYCLISTS should be banned from one of Adelaide’s steepest roads to prevent them from taking their life into their own hands, a councillor says.

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CYCLISTS should be banned from Old Belair Rd to prevent them from taking their life into their own hands, a Mitcham councillor says.

Cr Jane Bange said cyclists on the road, linking the Mitcham plains and hills, were “a disaster waiting to happen”.

Councillor Jane Bange.

She believed a sealed, separated cycling path should be installed alongside Belair Rd to move riders away from Old Belair Rd.

“We definitely need to link the hills with the plains and we don’t have a cycling network,” Cr Bange said.

“I think (Old Belair Rd) is really too dangerous. Some cyclists go up at the same time as maximum traffic.

“I would ban bikes, and I think we have the right to do that as a community.”

She used Belair Rd for cycling because it was a smaller incline than other roads, but even that was unfit for riders, she said.

“The worst thing is the potholes,” she said.

“When you’re in a car you don’t realise but when you’re on a bike it’s bad.”

She believed the proposal for a bike track on Belair Rd, which she had taken to Waite state independent MP Martin Hamilton-Smith and Davenport state Liberal member Sam Duluk, would be popular with local commuters.

Traffic on Old Belair Rd.

Belair resident and cyclist Keith Baldry supported the proposal for a new bike path on Belair Rd.

“You’ve got a whole community up in the hills and they’ve got literally no option to safely cycle to and from the city,” Mr Baldry said.

However, he was strongly opposed to the idea of banning cyclists from Old Belair Rd.

“If Jane feels unsafe, I totally understand she wouldn’t want to cycle there, but the fact is cyclists pay rates and taxes for the road like anybody,” he said.

“If the car drivers find it difficult to cope with pedestrians and cyclists, we should be looking at car drivers and the safety of their driving.”

According to a recent national cycling survey, the number of bike trips in SA dropped by 47 per cent from 2011-2015.