Willoughby City Council has recently made public two draft reports which contain sections that confirm what many of us have known or suspected about cycling around Willoughby, and more specifically in the Chatswood CBD. These reports are firstly the "Draft City of Willoughby Road Safety Plan" (contained in the November Traffic Committee Agenda here), and secondly the "Victoria Avenue Movement and Place Plan" available here.
Quotes relevant to cycling in the first document are: "Casualty detail indicates that there were proportionately more people seriously injured in Willoughby LGA crashes than in crashes in Greater Sydney or NSW over the same period. This is because of the higher proportion of crashes occurring in Willoughby LGA involving vulnerable road users (i.e. pedestrians, motorcyclists and pedal cyclists) and the higher likelihood of vulnerable road users being seriously injured (or killed) in a crash event." and "Bicyclists are also over-represented as a road user group in casualty crash data, with 6% of total casualties from 2018 to 2023 on the Willoughby LGA road network in the pedal cycle rider road suer class, in comparison to Greater Sydney (5.42%) and NSW (4.76%)".
The second document evaluates the cycling infrastructure in and around Victoria Ave in Chatswood and notes "As illustrated, the current stress levels along Victoria Avenue range from level 3 between Anderson Street and Hercules Street, increasing to level 4 from Hercules Street to Penshurst Street. Additionally, there is a scarcity of streets in the surrounding area with low stress levels (level 1 & 2) that connect to Victoria Avenue. This high stress environment only attracts the ‘strong and fearless’ and ‘confident and enthused’ rider types. This demonstrates Victoria Avenue is failing to encourage the ‘interested but concerned’ rider types who represent the ‘all ages and abilities’ demographic. This is evidenced by the low-levels of cycling participation for journey to work trips (ABS Population and Housing Census, 2021), and three cycling crashes along Victoria Avenue recording from 2018 to 2022 (TfNSW, 2021)."
Readers are strongly recommended to download and peruse both documents.