Maroubra Rd cycleway: Randwick Council vote against rescission motion to keep plans alive

An attempt to keep plans for a new cycleway in Sydney’s eastern suburbs has failed, following debate at an extraordinary council meeting.

The proposed cycleway on Maroubra Rd. Photo: Randwick Council

An attempt to keep plans for a cycleway on Maroubra Rd has failed, following debate at an extraordinary council meeting on Wednesday night.

Randwick Greens councillors launched the last-ditch push for a rescission motion after nine of 15 councillors voted in favour of deleting plans for a cycleway on Maroubra Rd - which were included as part of the Maroubra Junction masterplan - at last week’s meeting.

At the earlier meeting the Greens councillor Kym Chapple, who supported the cycleway, called Maroubra Rd a “deathtrap” and said it was “deeply disappointing” it was not progressing.

Former Randwick mayor Danny Said said he was in favour of removing the plans for a cycleway as it was already “very hard to drive through” Maroubra Rd and the money – up to $10m – could be allocated elsewhere.

A rescission motion was put forward on Wednesday night by Ms Chapple, her fellow Greens councillors and Labor councillor Kathy Neilson to defer a decision on the cycleway until further community consultation had been conducted.

We will be in person at council tonight 7pm Randwick Town Hall trying to save the Maroubra Road cycleway and keep it in our long term active transport plan - all welcome pic.twitter.com/9YcxJEnWvO

— Kym Chapple (@kymtje) August 29, 2023

Randwick Greens councillor Kym Chapple.

Ahead of the extraordinary meeting Ms Chapple said it made sense to keep the cycleway in the long-term plan for Maroubra.

She said council had received “many emails” calling to save the cycleway with “commuters, parents and residents strongly advocating for a safer cycling option on Maroubra Rd”.

The removal of the cycleway plans were slammed by BIKEast and Randwick Precinct member Elliott Jones who said the decision was despite research showing the benefits of cycling and public feedback.

“Don’t they realise the ‘must-park-suv-right-outside-the-shop’ mentality is outdated and effectively elitist in a city of five million [people] in 2023,” he said.

There was plenty of back and forth during the hour-long meeting, however, the result remained the same as the rescission motion was ultimately voted down with the same split as the previous meeting.