By Chloe Booker
Melbourne’s CBD, St Kilda and Footscray are among the scariest suburbs to ride in, according to cyclists.
Bike riders have been pinpointing Victoria’s most dangerous and safest spots for cycling using an online interactive survey that will inform local and state government road infrastructure policy.
CrowdSpot director Anthony Aisenberg with Michael Barrett, who says he started taking different routes after colliding with a car on St Kilda Road last year.Credit: Simon Schluter
More than 3000 cyclists have so far used the BikeSpot 2020 crowdsourcing map, developed by CrowdSpot with funding from cycle safety charity Amy Gillett Foundation, to highlight more than 8000 locations.
There are 258 votes for dangerous spots in the CBD, with cyclists identifying unsafe or missing bicycle lanes and dangerous intersections as their top concerns.
The city centre is followed by St Kilda (96 votes), Footscray (93), South Yarra (82) and Brunswick (65).
But the most feared locations don’t always match with collisions data included in VicRoads' official crash statistics, which are listed according to local government areas.
There is some overlap in crowded areas, such as the City of Melbourne, where there were 73 crashes involving a bike in 2019, 15 of which were serious.
However, Maribyrnong, Footscray’s LGA, recorded one of the lowest crash numbers, with five listed last year, of which just one was serious.
“Crashes and perceptions of unsafe spots, they largely don't correlate,” CrowdSpot's Anthony Aisenberg, one of the study's authors, said
“But how people feel is the major influence on their behaviour.”
“Crashes and perceptions of unsafe spots, they largely don't correlate.”
CrowdSpot founder and director Anthony Aisenberg
Mr Aisenberg said feeling unsafe was the biggest barrier to increasing cyclist numbers.
Michael Barrett was riding downhill on St Kilda Road on his way to work when a car cut into his bike lane as he turned left onto Queens Road.
“You’ve got a lot of cars trying to sneak in, stay in the middle lane until very late and then cut across,” the media producer said.
On that morning in February last year, the car was forced to suddenly stop when another car didn’t let it in.
“I went straight into the back of it,” Mr Barrett said. “I was just kind of shocked.”
The 37-year-old only suffered a few scratches but later arrived at work shaking.
It wasn’t the first time he had trouble at St Kilda Junction, which has received 29 unsafe spot votes, with cars almost hitting him multiple times.
“Some of those near misses were scary because it was cars just screaming across in front of me,” he said. “If something had happened, it would have been a lot worse.”
But the crash was the last time he rode on the junction.
“That was the last straw. I really just started taking different routes,” he said.
"I probably rode a little bit less, immediately afterwards."
Mr Aisenberg said the project aimed to help governments, including 11 participating local councils and the transport department, identify which areas needed upgrading to encourage more cycling.
Locations where riders reported feeling most stressed were where bike paths and roads merge together.
“What the data really reinforces is that people want … to have physical separation from motor vehicles,” he said.
Cycling numbers have soared during lockdown as road traffic fell by 88 per cent.
“As restrictions ease, we want to... maintain that as a healthy habit,” Mr Aisenberg said. “Now's the time to build a safe network.”
Melbourne City Council is replacing car parks with footpaths and 12 kilometres of pop-up cycling lanes to allow people to socially distance in the CBD.
A cyclist negotiates the dreaded Haymarket roundabout. Credit: Daniel Pockett
The CBD’s Haymarket roundabout, dubbed the "roundabout of death", was given a $100,000 upgrade after CrowdSpots’s 2016 survey identified it as one of the state’s most dangerous spots.
This year's two-month project is set to be completed at the end of May.
The most dangerous and safe spots in Victoria’s suburbs and shires will be released in June.
Eleven cyclists died in Victoria in 2019 out of a total of 266 road deaths.
This article has only included suburbs with 30 or more votes as of Thursday. There were no suburbs with more than 30 safe votes.