Past meets future on one of Canberra's most iconic roads

2024 Protest Ride

As Pedal Power campaigns for separated cycle infrastructure on Northbourne Avenue, many users of the current cycle lanes would be unaware that they have their own contentious history, with many parallels to current events.

Challenges for cycling in the new century

There were cyclists using Northbourne Avenue in Canberra’s early history, but decades before this story begins in the late 1990s, they had nearly all been driven off this road by ever increasing motor vehicle traffic and lack of any cycling space.

Then, just as now, alternative routes on short lengths of parallel streets or the Sullivans Creek shared path suited the individual trip origins and destinations of some cyclists, particularly for short trips to parts of the City Centre or ANU. But for many others, those routes were inconvenient or completely impractical for regular commuting.

Pedal Power at the time faced two main challenges. The first was the practical problem of getting a straight-line cycle route through North Canberra and the Parliamentary Triangle that would offer speed and directness for regular commuting, while also connecting many other routes.

The second challenge was cultural. At that time, prevailing community sentiment, including among many politicians and public officials, was that cyclists had no legitimate place on roads at all, particularly major ones. Aggression against cyclists who violated this ‘rule’ was common, and there were regular calls for cyclists to be legally, rather than just culturally, banned from roads.

The solution to both problems was to achieve the construction of cycle lanes the full length of both Northbourne and Commonwealth Avenues to create a continuous cycle route through the heart of inner Canberra.

Our campaign

Politically, this was no small undertaking; Canberra at the time had barely any cycle lanes, and the concept of formalised on-road cycling was almost completely alien to the community and government alike. Nonetheless, from 2000 onwards the campaign took root, and eventually became the centrepiece of Pedal Power’s policies for the 2001 ACT elections.

To press the issue, a cohort of Pedal Power members set up Canberra’s first bike bus. Named the ‘Southbound Commuters Ride’ it left from Downer just before the Mouat Street/Antill Street intersection at 7.30am sharp each weekday morning. With its riders two abreast in the left lane, obeying all road rules and ignoring the horn honking and abuse, it proceeded along Northbourne Avenue, Vernon Circle, Commonwealth Avenue and Capital Circle, terminating at 7.55am at The Lodge, where the Adelaide Avenue wide shoulder commenced. Prior to the election, in a similar manner to Pedal Power’s event in April this year, a protest mass ride took place from Downer to the City Centre, attracting hundreds of participants.

Meanwhile in the media, The Canberra Timesletters page ran hot with the outrage of drivers, as well as those who thought it scandalous that a facility for cyclist safety and convenience should take even a few metres of the carriageway’s generous overall width, or cut into its verges or median.

To its great credit, the then Labor opposition adopted the proposal as an election commitment despite the pushback, while the governing Liberals dismissed the need for it, offering a few cosmetic upgrades to local backstreets instead.

Victory

Labor won the 2001 election, and the cycle lanes were installed. Northbourne Avenue’s sacred verges and median were ultimately protected (at least until the light rail came along), and costs minimised to a politically acceptable level by reallocating space from all three of the general traffic lanes, allowing a 1.5 metre cycle lane to be marked on existing road space, consistent with Australian best practice at the time.

We would have preferred separated facilities of the type we are now campaigning for; even back then they were commonplace in some European countries. But they barely existed, if at all, in Australia, and the complex roadworks and much greater expenditure that would have been required meant there was no hope of achieving them at the time. We were lucky, as it was, to persuade just one side of politics to endorse implementation of minimalist, regular cycle lanes; separated infrastructure was technically possible but politically far out of reach. It was a pragmatic compromise that was clearly better than over-reaching in our demands and achieving nothing at all.

The entire route was officially ‘opened’ by Chief Minister Jon Stanhope in a ceremony in Haig Park on 7 September 2004. The furious backlash continued for several years after the election, as opponents at first sought to have the election promise broken, and then, after the lanes were installed, campaigned desperately to have them removed before their popularity could become evident.

As we predicted, there was a massive increase in cycling on Northbourne and Commonwealth Avenues, with very little impact on the numbers cycling on alternative routes. Cyclists were also, at long last, visible citizens, entitled to take direct routes to their destinations instead of bumping along footpaths or having to skulk unseen on winding back-routes, and this had a city-wide effect.

Fitting cycle lanes on new and upgraded roads became standard practice and Canberra now has a substantial network. Anecdotally, aggression against cyclists on roads, including those without cycle lanes, dropped markedly in the following years as motorists adjusted to the now officially sanctioned concept of cyclists as legitimate road users. Pedal Power won a national cycling advocacy award for its achievement.

The push for full separation

However, what was a substantial practical, political and strategic victory for Canberra cycling twenty years ago has become unfinished business in the present.

Although these marked cycle lanes are much safer than cycling directly in general traffic lanes, collisions, some serious, have inevitably occurred, as must be expected over two decades of high-volume use. They are too narrow for cyclists to overtake other cyclists in, too close to traffic, and many would-be users remain excluded by legitimate safety concerns about lack of proper separation. Once considered modern by Australian standards, they are now outdated and long overdue for replacement by modern separated cycle infrastructure that combines the speed and priority of on-road cycle lanes with the separation of off-road paths.

Back then, we didn’t think the cycle lanes in their current form would be there for long, believing that the ever-increasing number of riders meant that separated cycle infrastructure would surely follow sooner rather than later.

In 2011, the ACT Government conducted a major study on fitting a busway on Northbourne Avenue. Our submission argued strongly for separated cycle facilities as a key project outcome.

The busway project eventually became light rail, but, despite Pedal Power’s continued efforts and overwhelming evidence of the need to upgrade the cycle infrastructure as part of the project, the opportunity was negligently and unforgivably squandered.

The time has come

Northbourne Avenue today is markedly different to 20-25 years ago. The population surrounding the corridor continues to increase at a higher rate than the ACT average, also offering the prospect of thousands of short distance cycling trips to destinations in the City Centre, other areas like Dickson Shops, and along Northbourne Avenue itself. The case for modern cycling infrastructure nowadays is obvious.

Criticism of Pedal Power’s campaign can be encountered in on-line forums, letters pages and elsewhere, but so far is not backed by any organisations or significant individuals, and is muted compared to the early 2000s.

We have other advantages too that we didn’t have then. Separated and prioritised cycle facilities that 25 years ago were largely unheard of and untried in Australia are increasingly commonplace.

The busway project eventually became light rail, but, despite Pedal Power’s continued efforts and overwhelming evidence of the need to upgrade the cycle infrastructure as part of the project, the opportunity was negligently and unforgivably squandered.

But, most importantly, this time around we don’t need to prove demand. We already have hundreds of riders on Northbourne Avenue daily who make the best of what we currently have, but who know that their taxes and their contribution to reducing congestion, parking issues and air pollution entitles them to a much safer, higher design standard of cycle facility, one that will attract many more riders than the current lanes.

Twenty years ago, completion of the existing Northbourne Avenue cycle lanes proclaimed, on one of Canberra’s most iconic roads, that the era of cycling on faster, direct routes had arrived throughout Canberra. With Pedal Power’s renewed campaign, installation of modern, high quality separated cycling facilities on this same road could proclaim that the era of high safety standards suitable for people of all cycling abilities has also now truly arrived in our city.

As past meets the present, the time has come!

This article was first published in our members-only digital magazine, June 2024 edition.