Hutt Street could have been killed for the sake of spoiling cyclists rotten | Peter Goers

If the city’s cyclists had their way one of the best streets in Adelaide’s CBD would still be on death row, writes Peter Goers.

Life becomes an eternal search for a carpark.

The older you get, the first thing you think about when contemplating going anywhere is, “Where am I going to park?”. Urban planners complicate this with their obsession to remove carparking. They hate cars.

King William Rd, Hyde Park, was expensively redeveloped to make parking an agonising challenge. The remaining carparks along that strip are higher than the road. Why?

The redevelopment and renovation of a shopping street means removing half the carparks, widening the footpaths for the clutter of restaurant and cafe tables and chairs, and the installation of ugly planter boxes and, of course, bike lanes. This is planned for Hindley, O’Connell and Melbourne streets.

The Adelaide City Council plans to spend $12m it doesn’t have to remove half the parking along Hutt St and change it from angle to parallel – and add a bloody bike lane.

An artist’s impression of what have happened to Hutt Street. Picture: Supplied

Hutt St is a busy commercial strip with lots of trees. You want to pop into the excellent Ideal Shoe Repairs or the brilliant Oxfam Bookshop, the nice newsagency or go for nosh and a libation at the Arab Steed Hotel or the General Havelock and you have a fair chance of getting a park.

Take half of those parks away and where do you park? Not in the side streets because they have so many permit parks for residents.

TELL US WHY IN THE COMMENTS

Opposing this ridiculous plan, Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith rightly suggested how absurd it would be to have to park on Greenhill or Glen Osmond roads or Dulwich Ave and walk to and from Hutt St to buy a lottery ticket, a newspaper and get a decaf almond milk frappuccino with a caramel twist.

It’s not often I agree with Councillor Henry Davis, but he’s right when he said that this plan “would potentially kill the street”.

Mercifully, wisdom prevailed and the ACC has postponed this expensive and ruinous plan in favour of an expensive review. If in doubt, commission a review.

Adelaide Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith Picture: NCA NewsWire / Emma Brasier

Adelaide councillor Henry Davis. Picture: Supplied

If only the Holdfast Bay Council was as perspicacious.

It is spending $40m it doesn’t have to remove carparks from the beloved Jetty Rd, Glenelg. Council rates have skyrocketed because of this.

My council rates have increased by $300 this year partly to pay for this development that I, and most other people, don’t want.

Jetty Rd will be a building site for three years. Oddly, the Jetty Rd traders wanted this redevelopment despite being the first to complain about disappearing custom in 1993, during the last redevelopment, and more recently when the tram tracks were replaced – and still more recently when two minor lanes off Jetty Rd were tarted up.

Jetty Road, Glenelg. Picture: Kelly Barnes

Cyclists in 2014 riding in then-newly opened bike lane on Frome Street, between Flinders Street and Wakefield Street, Adelaide. Picture: Stephen Laffer

Bike lanes spoil everything.

They cause traffic congestion. Why can’t cyclists share the road? Why are they special? We don’t have Uber and taxi lanes or gopher lanes or scooter lanes.

The self-righteous, kinkily Lycra-clad cyclists cost us a fortune in infrastructure for bike lanes which are seldom used, or used on a recreational whim.

Frome St has been ruined by a bike path.

Cyclists hated the first, expensively-installed bike path which had to be replaced by an even more expensive one that causes traffic chaos.

Bikes are unregistered and cyclists are unaccountable and daily flout road rules. They terrify pedestrians on shared paths. Yet they are favoured by urban planners and spoiled rotten by councils and governments.

Less carparking creates huge difficulties for truck drivers delivering goods to businesses. Ask yourself – are you less likely to visit somewhere to spend money if you can’t get a park?

Councils want entry statements on the approach to redeveloped shopping streets. What about, “Forget it! You’ll never get a carpark, so go away!”.

Maybe I should go and live in wonderful Whyalla where you can always get a carpark.

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David Matthews – journalist, author and a good, sweet man