The number of people cycling in central Sydney has risen by 13 per cent in the past year, despite no extra bike lanes being completed in the city.

However, Sydney's half-finished network of cycle paths should soon be extended with plans to build a partial east-west city crossing through Liverpool Street next year.

"In the last 3½ years the number of people cycling through central Sydney had more than doubled". Credit:Michele Mossop

The most recent City of Sydney Council figures showed that in the last 3½ years the number of people cycling through central Sydney had more than doubled even though the pace of growth had slowed in the past two years, after the O'Farrell government called a halt to work on lanes while it completed an access plan for Sydney's central business district.

That plan, released in October, committed the government to a three-fold expansion of CBD bike lanes. Work on the first - an extension of an existing path on Kent Street from Druitt Street to Liverpool Street - is under way and expected to be completed by the middle of next year.