Tasman Bridge: Incident on pathway highlights need for upgrade, Ryan Posselt says
Upgrades to the pathways on either side of the Tasman Bridge have long been planned but a recent incident has shown just how urgently they are needed, according to a Hobart City councillor.
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A farcical incident on the Tasman Bridge has highlighted the need for pedestrian and cycling infrastructure upgrades after an elderly man using a mobility scooter was forced to reverse for 15 minutes just to let a cargo bike past on one of the bridge’s pathways.
With a width of only about one metre, the narrow paths cause headaches for people trying to cross the bridge using active modes of transport, frequently requiring cyclists to squeeze past each other.
Hobart City councillor Ryan Posselt and his four-year-old son were travelling on a cargo bike from the Eastern Shore towards the city on Monday when they encountered an older man on a mobility scooter travelling in the other direction.
There wasn’t enough room for them to pass each other and so the man on the scooter had no choice but to reverse the device all the way back to the western shore of the bridge so that Mr Posselt and his son could go on their way.
“It probably took about 15 minutes and involved two other cyclists coming from one of the directions each … [who] also stopped and had to lift their bikes around [us] to get past,” Mr Posselt said.
“One of the cyclists didn’t look on the road at the right time and he lifted his BMX bike over the road deck and it was centimetres from a passing truck.”
Mr Posselt, who is the chair of the council’s city mobility committee, said he was “so frustrated” that the pathways had not yet been widened.
“Meanwhile, every day, cyclists are going through the type of palaver that I experienced [on Monday],” he said.
The state and federal governments have jointly committed $130m to upgrade the Tasman Bridge pathways, a project that would involve the construction of 3.5 metre shared paths on each side of the bridge, as well as higher safety barriers.
Construction was originally supposed to commence late last year and was expected to be completed by late 2025. However, works still haven’t begun and the project has not yet been put to tender.
Bicycle Network Tasmanian public affairs manager, Alison Hetherington, said anyone who had tried to ride over the bridge “more than a couple of times” had experienced the “awkward dance” required to pass cyclists coming in the other direction.
She said while the upgrade project shouldn’t be rushed, there was still an urgent need to improve the pedestrian and cyclist experience on the bridge and the state government should be “barrelling along to try and get construction started”.
A spokesman for the State Growth Department, which manages the Tasman Bridge, said users of the pathways were encouraged to be “courteous and patient to ensure everyone can safely transit the bridge while we progress the bridge strengthening and pathways widening project”.
“This is a very complex project that involves significant technical investigations,” he said.
“A dedicated project team is working through the planning, design and staging of works before going to tender.”
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