Overview
In September 2024, the City of Booroondara finished some bike lane upgrades to Willsmere Road and Kilby Road in Kew.
The upgrade added, in different areas:
- Concrete kerbs
- Green paint
- Rumble strips
- Chevron buffers
You can find the official council PR stuff here:
Old Infrastructure
As you can see from Google Maps, the route already had a bike lane separate from the parking lane, but it lacked any safety features.
Motivation
Firstly, why Kilby and Willsmere Roads? To answer this we will have to refer to the Boroondara Bicycle Implementation Plan. On this, the route is marked as a “Municipal Route (C3)” on a scale where C1 are the highest priority cycling corridors and C4 the lowest. Specifically, this route was specifically called out as action 3.4 A, whose goal is to:
Upgrade existing on road bicycle lanes (including physical separation where feasible) and provide safer intersection treatments for bicycle riders along the following Council-managed major and collector roads.
It seems likely that this route was originally chosen because it’s a council-managed road, and therefore possible to modify without escalating to VicRoads, and secondly because it spans quite a long distance, making it suitable for commuting.
Connections
Another part of the choice of this route might have been what it connects to.
Going from the south-west to the north-east, the route joins to other shared bike paths:
- The Anniversary Trail
- The Main Yarra Trail (via a crossing under the M3 freeway)
- Glass’s Creek Trail
In terms of shopping centers, this route passes through three recognised by the council:
- Willsmere Village, Kew. A few cafes and eateries here.
- Belford Court, Kew East.
- Dickens Corner, Kew East and Balwyn North. This is the largest of the three, and has a Coles.
Finally, it connects to Hay’s Paddock: a large park with sports fields, barbeques and an accessible playground.
All things considered, this is meaningful connectivity, because it lets people get to places they want to go, by bike.
Concrete Barriers
Infrastructure
These new barriers are surely the most obvious and impactful change. They are present from about the Jack O’Toole reserve up to Page Ave, namely everywhere on the route without street parking. Once on-street parking is available on the road, it reverts back to a buffered but not protected bike lane.
It’s worth noting that these barriers are painted yellow and white, compared to the standard grey used for example in the City of Melbourne.
My Take
As a bike infrastructure fan, this is very exciting! Unless I’m mistaken, these are the first kerb-protected on-street bike lanes in Boroondara.
I’m always supportive of concrete barriers, and this is no exception. Not only will they protect current cyclists, but they are a really visible and solid piece of infrastructure that I hope will attact new cyclists who might be deterred by unprotected road riding.
The bright yellow and white paint also seems like a meaningful safety improvement for both cars and bikes riding at night.
My only feedback is that:
- They’re a bit too small: I worry that a big SUV or truck might drive right over them
- There aren’t regular gaps in the barrier. These are important so that cyclists can leave the lane if it somehow gets blocked. Of course the gaps shouldn’t be large enough for cars to be able to enter
The Unprotected Section
Everywhere other than the concrete barrier section discussed above has the same three security features.
Green Paint
The green paint is welcome because it’s quite a clear indicator both to cars that this isn’t their lane, and to bikes that this is a safe route. The paint is supposedly quite expensive, so it’s not used everywhere on the route. However, it’s great that council has prioritised putting it at intersections where visibility matters the most! I also haven’t seen anyone complain about this (drivers included), because to be honest, it doesn’t make that much of a different to safety or convenience from either side.
As far as novelty goes, this route already had some green paint around Willsmere Village, as did other locations in Boroondara such as Glenferrie Road, so this isn’t new.
The Rumble Strips
The rumble strips are small bumps on the edge of the bike lane that should vibrate cars that drive over them. These are interesting, because I haven’t seen rumble strips used to mark bike lanes before. I assume they work the same as highway rumble strips but haven’t gone over these in a car. As with the lane colour, this seems pretty unabtrusive, but honestly might be more effective than the paint because they cannot be so easily ignored. I wouldn’t be surprised if other unprotected bike lanes get these in the future.
Chevron Buffers
The upgrade also added a marked buffer to the left and right of the actual bike lane. On the left, this acts as an anti-dooring lane, while on the right it separates the bike traffic from car traffic. Technically this buffer space always existed on the bike lane, but marking it helps to indicate that cars can’t park there, and might help newer cyclists to know not to ride there.
I actually measured the buffers, and they’re 61.5 cm wide, which is absolutely better than nothing, but still isn’t quite as wide it should be. The VicRoads report suggests that the lane might need to be 1.2m to avoid a complete door, and mentions Glenferrie Road having 80cm anti-dooring lanes. Still, my attitude is that any progress is good!
Car Parking
The biggest issue with bike lanes is typically how they interact with on-street parking. As we have seen, the concrete section was too narrow to ever have on-street parking, while the buffered section was wide enough to support on-street parking and a buffer. Unfortunately, the south-west section of the route, between the Anniversary Trail and Hyde Park allows on-street parking in the bike lane, so it’s completely pointless.
Ideally the council would have just removed on-street parking, but we know that isn’t popular with home owners who believe the council owes them permanent use of public land. Considering this, I would rather they just delete the bike lane from this section and use sharrows to indicate a shared bike and car lane. The speed limit here is 50 so neither the best nor the worst for a shared lane.
Community Criticisms
As with any infrastructure change, especially when bikes or cars are involved, this has its critics.
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that both of these complaints come from entitled drivers who are LARPing as road cyclists.
Drivers firstly shouldn’t complain about cost when roads surface improvements necessiated by car damage will cost the council $14.11m in 2024-2025 compared to $284,574 for the Bicycle Strategy (see page 110).
It’s true that street sweeping of bike lanes is something that Boroondara probably hasn’t had to deal with before, but it’s not a difficult fix. City of Melbourne employs mini sweepers that can fit in the bike lanes to solve this.
The concern about the danger of the barriers themselves is overstated as they’re quite visible.
If there’s one thing we can agree on it’s that the barriers won’t do enough! Obviously they should be larger.
Wrap Up
Hopefully this was informative, and you are excited as I am about the new infrastructure!