This engagement is now closed

Thank you to everyone who submitted feedback during this trial. Our final survey closed on Sunday 7 May 2023 and Council Officers will make their recommendation to Council on 13 September 2023. See the project update for more information.

Bicycle lane trials

In 2021, we commenced trials on new ways to make it easier and safer for our Merri-bek community to walk and cycle around their local neighbourhood

Trials allow us to gather community feedback, research effectiveness, and optimise our long-term plans for improving road and cycling safety in Merri-bek.

This commitment is strongly supported by the Council Plan and State Government commitments such as the Victorian Cycling Strategy.

Trial separated bike lanes Kent Road, Pascoe Vale

In June 2021, we installed trial separated bicycle lanes in Kent Road as well as other sites in Pascoe Vale to create the "Coburg to Glenroy Bicycle Link". This is a low-stress cycling route, suitable for cyclists of all confidence levels, that safely and effectively connects to shops, schools, open space and community facilities.

Following a 12 month trial, Council resolved to continue the trial separated bicycle lanes on Kent Road for an additional 12 months, exploring more design options in consultation with the community.

Changes to the bike lanes

Based on community feedback, we modified the design of the Kent Road bike lanes. These changes, installed in December 2022, included:

• additional space near driveways to improve access for cars and waste collection,
• improved design to allow street sweeping vehicles to access the bike lanes
• installation of narrower lane separators and hatched pavement markings in place of the refuge islands used in the previous 12 months
• gaps between the lane separators to improve accessibility for pedestrians crossing the street or exiting parked cars.

We will also design and obtain approvals for a new raised pedestrian crossing near Joffre Road.

Over the coming 12 months, we will assess the impact of the design changes through observation and further engagement with the community. Council will consider how to proceed with the bike lanes following the completion of this extended trial in mid-to-late 2023.

Final engagement

In 2023, we consulted our community on their experiences and thoughts on the changes to the Kent Road bicycle lane trial. Community members could provide their feedback through an online survey that was available on this page.

As well as the online survey, we conducted in-person surveys with people who use Kent Road. These surveys took place at different times on different days in order to organically capture road usage. As such, the times were not advertised to our community.

Residents of and nearby Kent Road received hard-copy surveys via post to complete.

These surveys will helped us gauge the success of the trial, and inform our recommendations for the Kent Road bike lanes. These recommendations were put to Councillors at a Council meeting in September 2023, where they made the decision to end the trial and remove the infrastructure. More information about this decision is available in the Project Updates section at the top of this page.

Previous engagement

At a Council Meeting in September 2021, Council resolved to explore more design options for the Kent Road, Pascoe Vale Trial Bike Lane project in consultation with the community.

In order to optimise the Kent Road bike path for our community’s needs, we engaged an independent community engagement specialist, Max Hardy Consulting. Over a 2-month period, the community were provided with a range of opportunities provide feedback on 6 possible design options. This included:

• A webinar to discuss the different design options.
• A survey to gauge community sentiment about the design options.
• A Community Review Panel process

This engagement, as well as our technical findings and anaylsis, informed the Council report considered in August 2022, and ultimately resulted in the extension of the trial.

View our public webinar

We held a public webinar on the Kent Road separated bike lane project held on Thursday 28 October 2021.

The webinar was an hour-long discussion facilitated by an independent consultant. We presented on the project background, rationale, the 6 potential design options and the new engagement program. Watch the webinar recording here.