300 Sydney business owners take on Clover Moore’s $70m bike lanes

Hundreds of business owners across Sydney are fighting back against Clover Moore’s controversial $70 million bike lanes.

Sydney business owners who claim the City of Sydney’s proposed $70 million worth of cycleways will send them to the wall have taken to the streets themselves to see whether the usage figures measure up.

After The Sunday Telegraph revealed last month the plans to spend millions building bike lanes on some of the Sydney CBD’s busiest roads appear to be based on inflated cycling usage numbers, an alliance of 300 business owners have begun a cyclist census themselves.

The group yesterday began a 24-hour marathon counting exercise to note down the number of cyclists travelling from Centennial Park along Oxford St towards the city centre from 6am Tuesday until 6am today, after the council claimed upwards of 2701 cyclists passed through the intersection of Oxford, Bourke and Flinders Sts each day at peak hour.

Business owners Michael Penny from Parlour X, Jeannie Bourke from Venustus and Liberal Candidate for Wentworth Ro Knox, and Liberal Candidate for Paddington Alexander Andruska fight back against bike lanes. Picture: Tim Hunter.

Liberal candidate for Wentworth Ro Knox said the alliance of small businesses had decided to take action as they wouldn’t survive the cycleway’s construction process.

“In peak hour this morning we had 188 bikes, and the numbers being used by the City of Sydney and Clover Moore are about 2700,” Ms Knox.

As of 4pm on Tuesday afternoon, this number had only increased to 213.

“It’s a question of proportionality - we’re building a whole new bike lane that is going to significantly impact these Australian businesses for such a small number of bikes.”

We’ve been here for 33 years, and we know what’s going to happen” said Venustus owner Jeannie Bourke, 59, who witnessed a previous large-scale construction along Oxford Street resulting in the end of “70 per cent of businesses.”

Bourke questioned the reasoning behind the decision to spend millions of dollars to move the cycleway from Moore Park Road to Oxford Street when the vast majority of locals did not request the bikeways.

“Someone wants it, but we don’t want it,” said Bourke.

The group’s findings for the total 24-hour period will be presented by Ms Knox and a selection of business owners later today.