Wellington Street has been an important cycling route for many years. The number of people cycling has grown as Council has made improvements on other sections of Wellington Street and nearby streets. Today, it is the busiest on-road cycling route in the City of Yarra and one of the busiest in Victoria.

This is mainly because it is a north-south route that connects many local businesses, schools and community facilities. It also provides a direct link for people in Yarra and other parts of Melbourne to and from the CBD.

There is significant data showing the need to improve safety and encourage active transport on Wellington Street. Nearly 70% of all crashes between 2018 and 2022 resulted in at least one person on a bike being injured.

The number of people riding bikes on Wellington Street has increased significantly after Council upgraded the section to make the street safer. Since the Stage 1 and Stage 2 upgrades, usage has increased by 56% to over 2,000 people travelling by bike every day.

Improvements to other routes nearby have also contributed to this increase. These include the State Government's Pop-up Bike Lanes program.

We will be looking at nearby streets as part of this project to understand any benefits or impacts as a result of any changes. This will include collecting data before and after any construction, to evaluate the project once it is built and plan measures needed to mitigate any impacts.

There are over 1,200 on-street car parking bays on Wellington Street and surrounding streets within the study area. This includes 177 on Wellington Street itself between Johnston Street and Queens Parade. The changes required vary between each option for each street section.

For the South section of this project, there are currently 81 car parking bays on Wellington Street:

• If Option 1 progresses, 10 on-street car parking bays will need to be removed within this section of the street. This would bring the total to 71 bays, or a 0.8% reduction within the project area.
• If Option 2 progresses, 12 on-street car parking bays will need to be removed within this section of the street. This would bring the total to 69 bays, or a 1.0% reduction within the project area.

For the North section of this project, there are currently 96 car parking bays on Wellington Street:

• If Option 1 progresses, 13 on-street car parking bays will need to be removed within this section of the street. This would bring the total to 83 bays, or a 1.1% reduction within the project area.

• If Option 2 progresses, 66 on-street car parking bays within this section of the street will need to be removed. This would bring the total to 30 bays, or a 5.4% reduction within the project area.

In the interest of community safety, we are investigating all types of measures to improve road safety. Lowered speed limits are one component of this. Internationally recognised research shows that a person walking or cycling who is hit by a car, has a 90 percent chance of being killed if the car is driving at 50km/h, a 40 percent chance of being killed at 40km/h and only a 10 percent chance of being killed at 30km/h.

Results from our first 30km/h speed limit trial in 2018 showed a 51 percent reduction in all crashes and a 70 percent reduction in serious crashes in the 5 years leading up to the trial compared with the 5 years following in 30km areas.

Nearly 70 percent of crashes on Wellington Street between 2018 and 2022 involved at least one person riding a bicycle and that cyclist being injured. 6 percent of these crashes resulted in at least one pedestrian being injured.

Someone riding a bicycle is at least twice as likely as someone driving a car to be in a crash and then seriously injured on this street.

A modal filter is a road treatment used to reduce traffic on busy local streets. This is achieved by using a physical barrier to remove the ability of non-local motor vehicles to travel from one part of a street to the other. People walking, wheeling or cycling can still travel through. It also maintains local access for any people who need to drive to the local area. Non-local motor vehicles are diverted onto arterial roads that are designed to carry higher volumes of traffic.

These can be partial modal filters that divert traffic from one direction, or full modal filters that divert traffic from both directions.

The modal filters proposed within this project are designed to divert traffic away from Wellington Street and onto nearby arterial roads via other local roads. This reduces traffic, improves local air and noise pollution, and reduces the chance of crashes. These are commonly used across Yarra and Australia.

A Bicycle Street is a type of street designed to prioritise bicycle traffic, often with low-speed limits and treatments that discourage through-traffic for motorised vehicles but still allowing local access. A local example of a “Bicycle Street” is Napier Street in Fitzroy.

Napier Street in Fitzroy is an example of a Bicycle Street and has been a key cycling route in the inner north of Melbourne for many decades. In 2019 it was upgraded and transformed into a Bicycle Street as part of the State Government's Preston to CBD Strategic Cycling Corridor project.

A Bicycle Street is a type of street designed to prioritise bicycle traffic, often with low-speed limits and treatments that discourage through-traffic for motorised vehicles but still allowing local access. A local example of a “Bicycle Street” is Napier Street in Fitzroy.

A modal filter is a tool used to reduce traffic on busy local streets. This is done by using a physical barrier to remove the ability of non-local motor vehicles to travel from one end of a street to the other. People walking, wheeling or cycling can still travel through.

It also maintains local access for any people who need to drive to the local area. Non-local motor vehicles are diverted onto arterial roads that are designed to carry higher volumes of traffic.

These can be partial modal filters that divert traffic from one direction, or full modal filters that divert traffic from both directions.

A pedestrian refuge island is a raised median in the middle of a road that provides a safe place for pedestrians to cross busy streets in two stages, rather than one long, difficult crossing.

It allows people to cross one direction of traffic at a time, giving them a place to rest and wait for a gap in the traffic to safely complete their journey across the entire road.

Unidirectional bike lanes allow cyclists to travel in one direction usually in parallel with motor vehicle traffic.

This is in contrast to bidirectional lanes which allow cyclists to travel in both directions on a single path.

Zebra crossings are an area of road painted with broad white stripes, where vehicles must stop if people walking wish to cross.

These can also be raised to make it easier for drivers to see people walking as they cross the street.

Protected bike lanes physically separate cyclists from other traffic, including drivers and parked cars, using a physical barrier like a kerb or bollards.

They reduce the risk of collisions with drivers, including "dooring" incidents from parked cars and encourage more people to cycle, especially those who are hesitant about riding in traffic.