City in Motion: Construction Updates for Cyclists
4 July 2025
It’s becoming a regular interest for me to ride around this huge construction site and to see how much has been done during the past two weeks.
The site has been tidied up. The footpaths and bike paths have been improved: they are wider and better finished with fewer bumps and kinks. When a path has been moved the new path has been improved, making it more convenient for bikes and walkers, ith fewer sharp corners, blind corners or very narrow sections, with clearer direction signage. It almost looks like practice is making everything better!
Even the direction signs to the police stations have been restored! Maybe the police were getting bored because nobody was going to their station any more – I guess we’ll never know…
London Circuit is being seriously dug up at the moment with deep trenches with big sewer pipes and concrete supports to allow access under the road for present and future pipes and wires to keep the City humming.[2 x images ‘ Lon Cct deep trench’] Once the rail track is in place it can’t be dug up again so it’s worth doing a good job now to prevent the need for future digging.
Some good fine-tuning has been built into the north west corner of be ‘new hotel’ building site between Bunda Street and Garema Place. The narrow path where Gus’ used to be had a blind corner built-in by the site’s hoardings, making it tricky for cars and pedestrians, as well as bike riders to see each other in good time as they approached the corner. The contractor has now put see-through mesh into the hoarding, giving everyone the opportunity to see approaching traffic before they reach the corner. This is a great safety improvement; it will make this busy intersection safer to use by everyone with a simple change that many people will not even notice or appreciate. This is ‘safety by design’. [image ‘Blind corner sightline’]
Car congestion is getting worse now, and it will be for a while as heavy works happen along Parkes Way. The busy dual carriageway on Parkes Way is down to one lane, causing long queues for vehicles. The news sites are expressing concern about delays to cars and suggesting that commuters can consider public transport instead. It is disappointing that the choice of active travel has not been mentioned as a viable alternative. The contractors have gone to great lengths to make a viable, well connected and signed path routes throughout the construction sites which are quite good enough for bike riders to use.
For the very confident bike riders I have found it is much faster to pass the road traffic on the road by bike where necessary, and then move back onto paths where that is more suitable. Furthermore, bikes using the good quality access routes will have good access to the businesses affected by construction works, and as before bikes can usually be parked much nearer to the destination than the nearest bus stop or car park.
Other City issues,
West Acton basin looks fantastic with te grass growing, and the playground being built. However, there is one concern at he north end, where the path from the footbridge over Parkes Way crosses the high speed bike path going round Lake Burley Griffin. The path coming down the bridge can now continue straight ahead on the new path across the park land where it is easy to ride fast, unlike the previous T junction which made it necessary to slow for the corner.
Now, we have two converging high-speed bike lanes with restricted visibility making it likely that crossing bikes may not see each other, resulting in a high speed collision.
Until some form of bike speed-calming infrastructure is put in place at this junction, please approach the junction with caution and look out carefully for crossing traffic.
Can you help? Road and route closures and traffic congestion will change often. If you see anything that you think should be mentioned here, please call or email Pedal Power (communications@pedalpower.org.au) and help us to keep this regular bulletin up to date. Thank you!
