On Monday, 9 September 2024, CrowdSpot released their final results from BikeSpot – Australia’s largest crowd-sourcing cycling safety project – revealing the best and worst places to ride a bicycle in New South Wales.
It’s been over six months since the BikeSpot map, which allowed people to share their safety experiences of riding a bike anywhere in Australia), closed from further submissions.
You can read the full report here and the NSW report
The BikeSpot 2023 report noted that a lack of safety is widely recognised as the major barrier to people getting on their bikes. How safe it feels to ride a bicycle has an impact on people’s willingness to ride.
BikeSpot 2023 allowed all Australians to share their perceptions of cycling safety (safe or unsafe) via a web-based interactive map.
The data collected will help develop fresh insights into prioritising cycling safety improvements across the country.
The map was open for submissions (spot, comments or ‘supports’) for over two months between 19 October 2023 and 31 January 2024 and attracted over 10,000 individuals to add 72,844 submissions.
Along with providing their Safe or Unsafe Spot, users were also able to provide location-specific information that included the sub-category (cycle lane ends, traffic speed, etc.), a cycling stress rating (applicable only for Unsafe Spots), and personal information such as the individual’s level of cycling confidence, age, and gender.
Overall, key insights uncovered from the crowdsourced data set include:
Greater separation the key to safer riding
- 75.6% of Unsafe Spots relate to insufficient or unsafe cycling infrastructure
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- ‘Dangerous intersection’ (20.4%), ‘No bicycle lane’ (18.5%) and ‘Narrow’ (13.4%) were the top three main sub-categories of Unsafe Spots
• 77.7% of Safe Spots relate to having more space from motor vehicle traffic
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- Off-road path’ (45.2%), ‘Separated bicycle lane’ (17.7%) and ‘Not much vehicle traffic’ (14.8%) were the top three main subcategories of Safe Spots
No cycling infrastructure stressful for cyclists
- The ‘No bicycle lane’ category is the highest stress-related experience, rating 4.14 out of 5 (5 = Highest Stress) for all Unsafe Spots. This was followed by ‘Too much vehicle traffic’ and ‘Traffic speed’ with rating of rating 4.12 and 4.05 respectively more confident riders.
Female riders are relatively younger, less confident and experience higher levels of cycling stress
• On average, female riders expressed higher rates of cycling stress than male riders across most issue categories.
Driver behaviour, a daily concern
• ‘Poor driver behaviour’, ‘Car dooring’ and ‘Aggressive behaviour’ were the top three issues where users indicated them as being experienced on a daily basis.
Intersections a significant issue along priority cycling corridors across capital cities
It was noted the Epping Road Lane Cove cycle path is off-road but contains stressful moments at intersections where motor vehicles cut across the path to either turn into side streets from Epping Road or cut across the shared path to turn into Epping Road.
Poor sight lines and a lack of signage also contribute to the feeling of unsafeness in this section of the path.
Dangerous Intersections
Cyclists were particularly concerned about the Cox’s Lane, Moore Street and Munro Street Lane Cove North intersections.
You can view the unsafe spots on Epping Road and comments made by cyclists here.
One of the reasons Cox’s Lane intersection was noted as an unsafe spot was:
“Drivers rarely look left for bikes coming uphill, only to the right for cars coming downhill. Signage to say there is a cycle lane is non-existent. Sight lines are dangerously restricted.
The following comments were made about the Cox’s Lane intersection.
“Ridiculously dangerous intersection. You almost must look the driver in the eye first, before attempting to cross this, just to make sure they have seen you.”
“This is another dangerous intersection along the Epping Road shared path. Drivers block the crossing when they wait to enter Epping Road, and bike riders have no priority. This end of Cox’s Lane should be closed, and local traffic detoured via the roads with signalised intersections with Epping Road. This would eliminate the hazard of conflict between drivers and bike riders.”
A Bird’s Eye View
If you have never ridden down this cycle path (ITC, did it once during the Big Family Fun Ride, and there were marshals standing at each intersection to keep us safe), watch the video below by Riding in Ryde as he takes you on a journey from Longueville Road to Macquarie Park.
Not only does he remark you must take care at the intersections noted above, he also lets his viewers know that there are other obstacles, like bin day and cars entering and exiting the BP on Epping Road. However, he still believes that cycling to Macquarie Park is quicker than driving.
Lane Cove Council Bike Advisory Committee and Bike Plan
Lane Cove Council has a Bike Advisory Committee, which worked with the Lane Cove Council to prepare the 2019 Bike Plan and its predecessors. You can read the bike plan here.
A summary of all cyclist-related crashes in the Local Government Area, over a five-year period is included in the 2019 Bike Plan.
The data indicates that there have been no cyclist related crashes which have resulted in fatal injuries over the five-year period. However, approximately 70% of the recorded crashes have resulted in moderate to serious injuries. The cause of crashes varies; however, many crashes involve conflict between cyclists and vehicles emerging from an intersection or a driveway.
