The cycleway from Gladesville Bridge to Anzac Bridge approach has a long history now, dating back to the early 2000s. There have been about 3 or 4 upgrades, occurring as road or bridge upgrades have taken place, but it remains substandard, with bumpy pavement, too many poles and posts, narrow squeezes behind or in front of bus shelters, dangerous side street crossings and more.
The Rozelle section, a shared path from Iron Cove Bridge to Anzac Bridge has most recently been altered as a result of the huge Westconnex motorway project. Tunnels under the area have resulted in changed traffic flows, including a halving of surface traffic through Rozelle.
A new wider shared path has been built from Iron Cove Bridge to Springside St, around a tunnel entry and exit. A crossing of Victoria Rd at Terry St has been built, with some improvements to access to the Bay Run. The path did not have raised crossings of side streets, exposing riders to fast turning cars off Victoria Rd, and a narrow section between Springside and Moodie Sts remained.
No real improvements to the shared path between Springside and Robert Sts were made, despite a condition in the EIS for Westconnex to provide a cycleway “in the corridor”. They chose to signpost a back street route to the south of Victoria Rd, on Waterloo, Belmore, Kennif and Quirk Sts. Kennif is very steep, making the route unsuitable for many cyclists.
Bike Leichhardt member Keith Stallard wrote a detailed critique for the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Westconnex project.
Local MP Kobi Shetty also slammed the cycleway improvements but hoped the new city-bound Bus Lane one lane out proved that a kerbside lane could be reallocated to bicycles. It certainly looks that way in the morning peak now, the kerbside lane is often empty.
The narrow section east of Robert St was only repaved and remarked with white lines around the hazardous large poles on the path. A respected traffic consultant declared the job as totally inadequate and dangerous in a SMH article.
Bike groups including Bicycle NSW called for a separate cycle path on Victoria Rd, taking up one road lane, due to the anticipated large drop in traffic on Victoria Rd once the Westconnex tunnels, including a Victoria Rd bypass of Rozelle, was built.
This has actually happened, as can be seen by the traffic counts on the Transport for NSW traffic volume finder, and calls for the bike path have increased. It was included in the Rozelle Mainstreet Masterplan, see last chapter, but this unfortunately has been iced by the Mayor since 2023, and has not gone to public exhibition.
There is some hope that Transport for NSW may at last be considering the path, and Inner West Council has included it in its proposed priority cycleway list, but this has not yet been approved.