Council will hear submissions on the Budget 2025-26 and Revenue and Rating Plan 2025-29 on Tuesday 17 June 2025. Meeting starts at 5.30pm and the budget is last item on the agenda, so it won’t start at 5:30.
You can make a written submission and/or ask to speak at the meeting. Speaking can be in person or via Zoom. If you already made a submission to the Draft Budget out, dust it off and use it again. Here’s the link to get started: https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/form/future-melbourne-committee-submi
Here’s a link to the meeting agenda: https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/meeting/future-melbourne-committee-17-june-2025
Council, and the Lord Mayor in particular, have been in spin mode, and we aren’t talking about riding bikes in a gym. The spin is designed to cover the savage cut to the bike budget. The Deputy Lord Mayor has a history of voting against bike lanes (against her own team), so the spin is needed to cover the fact that no new bike lanes are included in this reduced budget.
- Before the election, the Lord Mayor team published at least two versions of their bike policy.
Initially it was a promise to spend $5M (proposed in this budget: $1.5M)
Subsequently their promise changed to maintaining the spending of the previous council term. That averaged over $4.5M a year. - The reduced budget will be spent on replacing existing physical separators with bluestone, not on building new lanes. There is no need to replace the ORCA curbing, which is designed to be permanent, is easy and cheap to move or repair and has been used by Yarra Trams to install the curbing alongside tram lines throughout greater Melbourne.
- Shovel ready projects will not be delivered because of this budget cut, including Queensberry St protected lanes and improvements to Royal Parade and Flinders Street. Queensberry St completed public consultation on detailed design over six months ago. Metro Tunnel will re-open Flinders Street between Elizabeth and Swanston later this year and the opportunity for a protected lane east-bound on that block will be missed.
- Council’s transport plan and bike plan call for 50km of new, physically protected bike lanes by 2030. As at April 2024, the City of Melbourne reported that 27.4km of new bike lanes were completed (Bicycle Network research). The City needs to redouble efforts to progress projects to have any chance of meeting their targets.
- If you are wondering about Macaulay Rd protected lanes, as far as we know the funding for these will be carried forward. Worth asking though.