Sydney’s footpaths to nowhere have walkers fuming

Have you ever been walking on a footpath, only for it to abruptly stop and spit you out on to a busy road? These are the paths to nowhere and they’re found all through Sydney.

They’re the footpaths to nowhere – paths along main roads and even suburban streets that simply stop – and they have pedestrians up in arms.

More than just an annoyance or a quirky planning failure, these dead-end footpaths are a nightmare for mums with prams and wheelchair users, with paths leading pedestrians on a route only to spit them out on grass or on to a busy road.

The Saturday Telegraph found multiple examples of these paths to nowhere, including a head- scratching footpath on Richmond Rd at Colebee, near Marsden Park.

Despite connecting to a wheelchair ramp for the local shopping centre, the footpath extends about 200 metres from the nearest road crossing before abruptly stopping, forcing pedestrians to turn back.

In Milperra in Sydney’s southwest, a footpath abruptly ends on part of Henry Lawson Dr, giving pedestrians the choice of walking directly on a parallel road, or on the nature strip.

Sarah Kalousian with her son Anthony on a footpath to nowhere in Colebee. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Just a few streets away, one suburban footpath stops not even a metre from an intersection, leading pedestrians again to just a nature strip.

At Campbelltown Rd in St Andrews, a shared pedestrian and bike path leads directly into the side of the road, with no footpath on either side for pedestrians who are forced on to the busy road.

The Ave at Voyager Point footpath stops before a bridge.

Marsden Park mum Sarah Kalousian said not only are the footpaths to nowhere a headache but the lack of footpaths in general make her worried about her child’s safety.

“Without footpaths it’s hard to push my pram, and my kids have to ride their scooters on the road, which is really dangerous,” she said.

At Keysor Place, Milperra, a footpath stops abruptly after an intersection.

Ms Kalousian was shocked to encounter the Richmond Rd footpath to nowhere and wished more could be done to make the area pedestrian friendly.

Urban planning enthusiast and university student Sharath Mahendran has found a unique form of YouTube fame, earning tens of thousands of views with each video he makes on his Building Beautifully channel.

A recent video on bad pedestrian infrastructure in Sydney has had a huge response from fuming Sydneysiders sharing their own examples of footpaths to nowhere, long waits at crossings and poorly maintained paths.

“We are in a vicious cycle. If the M4 just stopped abruptly, no one would put up with that but in Sydney we know we can’t rely on pedestrian infrastructure because it’s bad,” he said.

“So if no one is using it, no one complains, so nothing gets done about it and then no one wants to use it because it’s bad … that’s the cycle.”

Mr Mahendran said the success of his channel, which has more than 30,000 subscribers, shows that Sydneysiders are interested in how our city gets planned and want to see it improved.

Another Sydney footpath to nowhere – Campbelltown Rd at St Andrews.

David Levinson, Professor of Transport at the University of Sydney, said Sydney is designed by car users for car users.

“It’s going to discourage walkers … there‘s the view from the driver’s seat type of design that’s going on and it affects traffic engineers, planners and decision makers who, because they aren’t walking there themselves, they don’t see the pedestrian point of view.”

Professor Levinson said a combination of council oversight, protests from homeowners unwilling to maintain a footpath, old developments not matching new ones, and an overall lack of planning for pedestrians is likely to blame for these footpaths to nowhere.

Another footpath to nowhere in Bligh Park.

A spokesperson for Blacktown City Council said Richmond Rd and Schofield Rd were government controlled, however, the council was doing work to extend missing links across the government area, including 280 projects up for funding consideration.

“In this year’s budget, council has allocated $500,000 to complete missing sections of paved pathways in the city,” the spokesperson said.

“In addition, we also construct paved pathways to the value of $3m a year in our city’s developing areas – the North West Growth Area.

“Our council builds footpaths in urban release areas when housing development is at 75%

completion rate.

“This minimises the damage that can occur in the house building process where laden tippers,

concrete agitators and brick trucks need to cross footpaths to gain access to building sites.”
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