The original motion was moved by Councillor
Weldon, seconded by Councillor Jarrett.
It is
resolved that:
(A) Council note:
(i) our public duty to ensure that any cycleway installed by the City of Sydney Council (including any pop-up cycleway) is safe before and after it is opened, encouraging cyclists to use it in the reasonable expectation that all safety issues have been fully assessed;
(ii)
data
available on the NSW Centre for Road Safety confirms in the five-year period
2018-2022 the City of Sydney had by far the highest number of cyclist
casualties from crashes of any Local Government Area;
(iii) high volumes of vehicle traffic combined with cycling rates much higher than other Local Government Areas in NSW mean that there are relatively high number of crashes involving cyclists in the City of Sydney;
(iv)
from
2018 to 2022 there were 398 cyclist casualties from crashes in the City of
Sydney;
(v)
this
data excludes cyclist collisions where the cyclist was injured but not
hospitalised and police were not called to the incident;
(vi)
in
September 2020, a temporary pop-up cycleway, which is still in place, was
installed for six months by Transport for NSW (TfNSW)
on Bridge Road, Glebe between Lyons Road and Taylor Street to ease overcrowding
on public transport during Covid-19;
(vii)
the
temporary cycleway on Bridge Road was installed by Transport for NSW;
(viii) the legal authority for the cycleway to be in place for six months was a Ministerial Order made under Section 10.17 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act,1979, signed by then Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Rob Stokes on 29 May 2020. It was extended for a further six months in 2020 and a further 12 months in 2021;
(ix) on 28 March 2022, the Review of Environmental Factors (REF) was finalised enabling the pop up cycleway to remain in place;
(x)
the REF
for the permanent cycleway on Bridge Road has never been exhibited publicly by
Transport for NSW;
(xi)
a REF
was conducted and publicly exhibited for each of the temporary cycleways
installed by City of Sydney under the Ministerial Order made under Section
10.17 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, before they were
made permanent;
(xii)
correspondence
between City staff and Transport for NSW in 2022/23, which has been released to
the Glebe Society under GIPA, indicates:
(a)
City
staff have repeatedly warned Transport for NSW that the temporary cycleway on
Bridge Road is dangerous; and
(a)
City
staff have serious road safety concerns regarding the design proposed by
Transport for NSW for a permanent cycleway on Bridge Road;
(xiii) on 25 January 2023, Transport for NSW issued
a community update that the construction of the permanent cycleway on Bridge
Road would commence in mid-2023 following completion of roadwork on Bridge Road
related to electricity supply for the Fish Market redevelopment;
(xiv)
on 25
February 2023, a senior Transport for NSW official wrote to the City advising
‘we have no formal agreement in place and no budget to progress [the
construction of the Bridge Road Cycleway]’;
(xv)
it was
reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on 5 October 2022, that Mark Fozzard, a
leading Barrister specialising in Planning Law, had provided a legal opinion
that the cycleway on Bridge Road has been being kept in place without legal
authority since 31 May 2022;
(xvi) on 22 March 2023, Transport for NSW called a tender to build the permanent cycleway which is still under consideration according to the Transport for NSW website;
(xvii) three weeks after the tender to build the cycleway was called, on 17 April 2023, a road safety auditor who is part of CCHD PTY LTD conducted an “independent” road safety audit on the project phase of Pre-Construction Detail Design developed by the same company, which the City of Sydney has no record of;
(xviii) on 29 May 2023 CCHD PTY LTD published ‘Design Report Detail Design (Issue for Construction)’, which the City of Sydney has no record of;
(xix) on 10 October 2023, Transport for NSW issued a community update on their website and via email, stating upgrades to the cycleway will include replacing the lightweight barrier between the cycleway and traffic lanes with a more durable barrier made of concrete separators, and that the project has a revised construction date of early 2024;
(xx) Transport for NSW is committed to upgrading the temporary cycleway on Bridge Road to a permanent cycleway so that it is safer for people walking and bike riding, as well as for other road users;
(xxi) the latest Transport for NSW automated counts on the Bridge Road cycleway show an average of 340 trips per day, which is expected to increase once it is integrated into the broader cycleway network and made permanent;
(xxii) according to NSW Centre for Road Safety data there were 16 crashes on the Bridge Road pop-up cycleway between Lyons Road and Taylor Street between September 2020 when the pop-up cycleway was installed and December 2022 (latest data). Of those, seven crashes involved people riding with five of those caused by vehicle drivers; and
(xiii) in addition to raising road safety concerns
regarding the cycleway, residents and some cyclists criticise the methodology,
integrity and conclusions of the community consultation process undertaken by
Transport for NSW prior to the decision to make the cycleway permanent in March
2022;
(B) the Chief Executive Officer be requested to
write to the Secretary of Transport for NSW requesting:
(i)
copies
of the design stage road safety audit and final design for the proposed
permanent cycleway on Bridge Road;
(ii)
advice as
to whether the design stage road safety audit was conducted on the entire
design for the cycleway and, if not, which elements of the design were not
included in the audit and why they were excluded;
(iii)
advice
on what information the auditor claims was not provided by Transport for NSW
and why these items were not provided to the auditor;
(iv)
advice
on the reasons why a nighttime road safety audit was not conducted as part of
the design stage road safety audit;
(v) advice as to how Transport for NSW will address safety issues with the cycleway design identified by the City of Sydney in previous correspondence sent to Transport for NSW;
(vi)
a
record of all known cycling accidents on Bridge Road from 1 September 2020 to
23 October 2023 including date, location, nature of injury and whether
pedestrians were injured in the accidents;
(vii)
information
regarding litigation in which Transport for NSW are being sued in relation to
accidents and or injuries which have occurred since the temporary cycleway was
installed on Bridge Road in July 2020; and
(viii)
in the
interest of good governance, the release for public exhibition of the REF
conducted in relation to the proposed permanent cycleway on Bridge Road; and
(C) the Chief Executive Officer be requested to
provide Council with:
(i)
a
summary of safety issues of critical concern regarding the proposed design of
the cycleway on Bridge Road;
(ii)
City
records of all known cycling accidents on Bridge Road from 1 September 2020 to
23 October 2023 including date, location, nature of injury and whether pedestrians
were injured in the accidents;
(iii)
information
regarding litigation in which the City is being sued in relation to accidents
and or injuries which have occurred since the temporary cycleway was installed
on Bridge Road in July 2020; and
(iv)
responses from Transport for NSW in relation to the
matters raised in (B).
Amended
motion was carried unanimously.
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