Sensational-Adelaide.com

RAA wary of Frome Street bikeway plan

The RAA said it was assessing the impact of a proposal to reduce Frome Street in Adelaide's CBD to a single lane each way to create a separated bikeway.
Adelaide City Council wants a dedicated bikeway between Carrington and Pirie Streets and its plan is out for public consultation.
Mark Borlace of the RAA said good cycling infrastructure was important in cities but the dedicated bikeway was likely to create congestion in the area.
He said the impact on drivers needed to be carefully assessed.
"This has the potential to be the first of a series of them (bikeways), we need to make sure that this one is done right so if it's to be used as a model for other roads that we don't get it wrong in the first bit," he said.
"You would think that if you were going to pull potentially half of the capacity out of that section of the road then it's bound to have an effect on transit times and congestion."
David Hill of the City Council said it did not believe a separated bikeway would lead to congestion.
"It's probably one of the lesser busy roads in the north-south corridors, so we've chosen it for that reason and the important thing with Frome Street is it provides that connectivity from the inner suburbs for bike routes," he said.

rhino wrote:I understood that Frome St was created in the 1960s, out of a series of narrow streets, involving the demolition of a lot of buildings, so that Frome Road could be better used as an access route into the city.

VROOM! VROOM! Rumm rumm rumm... nerrrrrr nerrrrrrrr vroom! Putta putta puttt SQUEEEEEELLLLL! VROOOOOM!!!!!!

mgb wrote:While they are currently planning this only in the southern parts of Frome Street, and the designs that have so far been published look really good, obviously it is thought that this would eventually extend through to North Tce. I fully support the idea of having dedicated bike lanes in Frome Street by closing one of the lanes.

I really hope though they have looked through the impact of all of Frome street being restricted to one lane will have on the street and the intersecting roads. In the mornings Frome Street has a lot of people entering it from North Tce, Grenfell & Flinders St (fed from Bartels Rd) heading south who then turn right into Flinders, Wakefield, Angas and Carrington Streets. There are no dedicated turn right lanes so this usually blocks the right lane.

Lets also hope they plan for a future tram corridor down this street. Would hate to see the expense of building these new bike lanes and then it all be wasted if a future city tram loop is created down the same street.


mgb

Nathan wrote:
[...]

RAA can moan all it wants, there are plenty of alternative routes for car traffic in the city and losing one lane on the least busy North/South road (that doesn't even extend the whole length of the city) is hardly going to be the end of the world.

[Shuz] wrote:Very supportive of the idea... but it is kind of pointless, especially if the CBD tram loop is intended to go down From Street. There doesn't appear to have been any communication or consensus reached between the ACC and the State Government about how the two will work together.

[Shuz] wrote:Its actually a lot closer than many expect / think.

[Shuz] wrote:Very supportive of the idea... but it is kind of pointless, especially if the CBD tram loop is intended to go down From Street. There doesn't appear to have been any communication or consensus reached between the ACC and the State Government about how the two will work together.