A northern suburbs council that built an elaborate separated bike lane on a residential street has been forced back to the drawing board after furious motorists twice ripped out bollards that had reduced the width of the road.

The two-way bike lane, built for $85,000 at ratepayers' expense in the working-class suburb of Glenroy, has been indefinitely removed after the Moreland City Council decided it could not afford to keep putting the vandalised bollards back in place.

Paul McKay riding along the road. Credit:Simon O'Dwyer

It will instead seek to design a different bike lane that Glenroy motorists will tolerate.

The one-kilometre, two-way bike lane was installed in June along Cardinal Road, which is used by 3000 cars a day, but within three weeks a row of bollards erected to keep vehicle traffic out of the lane had been removed.