Below is our submission from 2018 to the City of Melbourne QV Market renewal project.
Bicycle parking has not been addressed. There is still plenty of parking in the centre of the market where there is the highest concentration of pedestrians, but no bicycle parking. Council’s priorities are clear (and wrong).
Missing from our submission was the expectation that the Queen St to Therry St rat-run would be severed, this was the original plan so we didn’t need to mention it. Quietly dropped by City of Melbourne. When Therry St was redesigned, no counter-flow entry for bikes was provided. In fact there is no way of entering the market from the east on a bicycle. From the north the only entry is from Victoria St, a scary prospect. From the West there is access but only if approaching south-bound.
Our proposal for a safe crossing of Dudley St is yet to materialise. While car-loving NIMBYs have been delaying the redevelopment of the old car-park, the promised bike path which will continue from Franklin St to Dudley, coming out close to the William/Dudley round-about is anticipated, but the round-about needs to be abolished and replaced with traffic lights.
Submission by Melbourne Bicycle User Group regarding Queen Victoria Market renewal proposal (2018)
Car Park
In addition to car parking spaces, we would like to see secure bicycle parking in this area as well. This secure parking should cater for QVM employees as well as customers who request additional security, for example because they ride an expensive e-bike that they would not want to park using the standard above-ground facilities. We think the secure bicycle parking area should therefore be split into two parts. One part for employees only, accessible by swipe key and including end-of-trip facilities, and the other part for customers using bike lockers (http://www.cora.com.au/bikelockers/cyclesafebicyclelockers/ for example).
Access
We feel that the QVM infrastructure and surrounding area should be inviting people to walk or ride their bicycle to the market, and doing so should be rewarded. This reward can come in many flavours, most importantly a sense of safety and comfort relative to using a car. The ‘inviting infrastructure’ consists of several elements in our view.
Firstly, being able to safely access the new QVM by foot or bike will be paramount to its success in our opinion. With car ownership and use being actively discouraged with new developments in the CBD, many of the CBD residents will come to market as pedestrians. At the same time, the trend in surrounding suburbs is quite clear as well: bicycle use for everyday transport is on the rise and this will continue into the future as more and more people realize the convenience of riding a bike in and around the city. The City of Melbourne Transport Strategy states: “We are a walking and cycling city, and Council provides infrastructure to improve the safety and convenience of cyclists and pedestrians” (p4).
Assets that help to provide bicycle access to the QVM are the separated bike lanes on La Trobe St and part of Elizabeth St north, and the improved bike lanes planned for William St . However, the Elizabeth St lanes do not reach all the way to Victoria St/Therry St, and the William St lanes need to continue the length of Peel St, being the continuation of William St immediately adjacent to the QVM. The City of Melbourne Bicycle Plan 2012-16 states “Investigate options for a separated or quality route from Dudley Street to Royal Parade and Flemington Road. This route will also service the Queen Victoria Market and Flagstaff Gardens.” (p20).
In addition, the redesign of Franklin St provides an opportunity for council to equip it with protected bike lanes and a safe crossing at the new Franklin-Peel-Dudley intersection. Elimination of roundabouts at Peel/Dudley and Queen/Franklin will improve access and safety for pedestrians and cyclists. Franklin Street provides four traffic lanes plus parking which is excessive relative to its local function, and this should be reduced to two traffic lanes to provide safe space for bicycles and more pedestrian space. Retaining four lanes in Franklin St and creating a new four lane road on the market’s southern boundary will create and perpetuate a barrier between the market and the City: as stated in the Summary of Proposals: “The streets around the Market form barriers to the local area and make it difficult to walk around”. Safe bicycle lanes in Franklin St will improve access to the Market by connecting to other bike routes such as William St and Swanston St.
We also feel that the connection to QVM from Cobden St and/or O’Connell St should be improved for bicycle access to/from Queensberry St which would be the preferred route for most of North Melbourne and Kensington. We strongly encourage council to design a “Bicycle Access Plan” for QVM which integrates the above points and potentially other routes. This should be included in the QVM masterplan.
Another important element to create the inviting atmosphere is the provision of bicycle parking facilities. In addition to the secure bicycle parking in the car park area, we feel there should be ample bicycle parking available at various strategic locations around the QVM making it easy to park your bike close to where you need to go. These locations need to relate to the bicycle access routes shown in the “Bicycle Access Plan”.One can even think about “shopping carts” to be supplied at the bicycle parks to make it easier for people to carry their purchases around and back to the bike. It’s easy to carry 5-10kgs of fresh produce on your bike in a pannier or basket, but it’s much less fun to carry it around while shopping. Well positioned parking and innovations such as “shopping carts” will also encourage cyclists to use the parking facilities provided and avoid bicycle clutter at other locations.