Duncan Gay has made it his mission to rid Sydney of its network of segregated bike lanes. Cyclists and the lord mayor are up in arms at what they see as a dangerous backward step in the city’s development

There are currently posters on bus stops all over Sydney saying: “A metre matters.” An initiative of the Amy Gillett Foundation, the campaign has a simple aim – stopping drivers from hitting cyclists. Gillett died on 18 July 2005, when she was struck by a teenage driver while training in Germany with the Australian cycling squad.

If Duncan Gay has seen those posters, however, he has not let it affect his views. Gay, a member of the junior party in the Liberal-National coalition, is minister for roads for New South Wales, and has described himself as “the biggest bike-lane sceptic in the government”. The NSW government is about to get rid of a much-loved and much-used AU$5m (£2.4m) protected cycleway in Sydney’s city centre – a move Clover Moore, lord mayor of Sydney since 2004, describes as “a shocking breach of trust”.

Gay’s move seems to go against the flow, with cycling increasingly feted as a potential congestion and pollution game changer in major cities around the world. Take the segregated bike lanes currently under construction in the centre of London, for example, or the introduction of protected cycleways in New York, where pedestrian and cyclist injuries are down and traffic is moving quicker.

But he is not alone. Earlier this year Gainesville, Florida, returned bike lanes to cars on a 1.6km stretch, resulting in cyclists moving to the pavement. In San Antonio, Texas, the city council removed 3.7km of bike lanes, which the local Express-News paper described as “a failure of leadership from council”. And, in Toronto, the colourful former mayor Rob Ford oversaw the removal of bike lanes at a cost of CA$300,000 (£147,000).



Safe, separated cycleways are essential for fixing congestion and protecting people who choose to ride Sydney mayor Clover Moore

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cyclists on Sydney’s College Street segregated bike lane

Stephen Hodge, a former professional cyclist who now works for Australia’s Cycling Promotion Fund, says the decision will put cyclists at greater risk. “The one unifying measure everyone agrees on, that has been shown to increase both perception and actual safety of cycling, is infrastructure such as cycleways,” he said. “Duncan Gay is a hero to Nationals for breaking through barriers. By hook or by crook he has got his mind fixed on [removing the College Street cycleway], so he’ll do it.”

“The government’s own city centre access strategy, the blueprint to unclog our congested streets, has a target of doubling the number of bike trips in Sydney by 2016,” said Moore. “Ripping up cycleways will send Sydney in the wrong direction. We won’t get the results everyone agrees Sydney needs without a network of safe, separated cycleways … [which] are essential for fixing congestion in the [city] and protecting people who choose to ride.”



The chief-executive of Bicycle NSW, Ray Rice, says the NSW government’s move is bad for motorists as well as cyclists. “They are saying over 2,200 riders per day will have to use other paths, but they are not providing them. Riders are going to continue to use College Street, but mixed in with traffic. That’s not safe: it’s going to hold up the cars and it’s going to piss everybody off. It’s an incredibly bad message. Gay is prioritising cars over active transport – bikes and walking.”



Sue Abbott, a cycling advocate who pays her own way to international conferences on the benefits of bicycles, does not mince her words: “Gay wants to destroy cycling in Sydney,” she said. “When you go to conferences such as Velo-city, we are completely backwards. Not just a couple of years – we’re a couple of decades backwards.

The car is history and the rest of world is getting it. But, in Sydney, we have Duncan Gay running our show Sue Abbott

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cycling advocate Sue Abbott in Tokyo. She says Sydney is decades behind other world cities

“At the conference, you listen to other city leaders; whether they are engineers or in politics or urban design, they’re all talking about looking at the bicycle, looking at public transport. Basically, the car is history and the rest of world is getting it. But, in Sydney, we have Duncan Gay running our show.”

British cycling journalist Simon Withers has personal experience of how dangerous Sydney can be for cyclists. “The roads are geared for the motor vehicle at the expense of cyclists and pedestrians,” he said. “I was injured – I broke a finger – when I was hit by a car door in Oxford Street [in Sydney’s city centre], which wouldn’t have happened in the UK. In Britain, I would have been cycling further into the centre of the lane, where you’re safest, but Australian drivers overtake so closely.

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“British drivers aren’t great by any stretch of the imagination, but I believe Australian drivers are even more aggressive when it comes to cyclists. Sydney is borderline terrifying, and that’s from somebody who has cycled all over the world. It’s not much better than Kuala Lumpur or Los Angeles, which is an indictment in itself,” said Withers.

Moore says the NSW government is on the wrong side of history. “Data shows young people are buying fewer cars and driving less, and so it makes sense to support other options, including cycling. Cycling as a chosen mode of transport is rapidly increasing. We need to support people’s decision to ride rather than simply looking out for people who choose to sit behind the wheel,” she said.

“The value of cycling in Sydney has been undermined by hysterical claims that bike riding will cripple the city’s economy, misleading stories that distort data to proclaim that less people are riding, and wilful ignorance of good practice overseas.”

Cycleway wars are being fought city by city around the world, but the situation in Sydney seems unlikely to improve under the current NSW minister for roads.



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