Checking out Melbourne by bike is pretty rad, but you’ll quickly realise that some Melbourne bike rides are much safer than others. Amazingly, four of the five locations below are responsible for 30% of all cycling accidents in the metro area.
Here are the top 5 results of a recent Bicycle Network Victoria report on which streets recorded the most cyclist injuries over recent years.
5. Beach Road
The fifth most dangerous street in Melbourne for cyclists will come as no surprise, despite it being one of the classic Melbourne bike rides. Home of the infamous Hell Ride, cyclists and drivers alike have been much more aware of each other after the sad death of a cyclist on the road. The Black Rock Roundabout along Beach Road recorded the most car/cyclist crashes in any single location in Victoria last year, too.
4. Elizabeth Street
Although this may not cross your mind as an obviously dangerous street, try cycling between Bourke and Flinders Streets and you’ll quickly realise how little room is left on the road for cyclists. Pedestrians also tend to wander over Elizabeth Street like lemmings as if it’s a public walkway, too…
3. Chapel Street
Even when you’re not on a bike, Chapel Street is pretty horrifying. If you insist on riding there on two wheels, you’ve got to contend with trams, pedestrians, car doors and sharing the lane with cars.
2. Collins Street
Collins Street’s cyclist facilities are incredibly patchy, especially west of Swanston Street. You’ll feel like you have to inhale just to cycle past cars, even though you have a dedicated bike lane. Cycling from the Docklands into the CBD along Collins Street is also the city’s finest display of pedestrians acting as lemmings: they’ll absently wander out of Southern Cross Station over Collins Street as if you’re completely invisible. (One of my favourite hobbies is yelling “BIKE!” at them and watching them jump ten feet in the air.)
1. St Kilda Road
Not so much a boulevard as a massively multiplayer game where the goal is avoid Shane Warne at all costs, St Kilda Road is officially the most dangerous street for cyclists in Melbourne. You’re guaranteed to be car-doored by a parked car if you’re commuting to work along this route, it’s merely a matter of time. That’s in addition to a number of dangerous intersections: I dare you to cycle towards the city through St Kilda Junction and see if you survive the onslaught of cars trying to merge into the Kings Way exit, right over the bike lane. You’ll be cut off more times than trying to use dial-up internet in the 90s.
(Images: Google, Rene Cunningham, MM_Andamon, vickykc/sxc.hu)
