The proposed ‘Rosewater Loop Shared-Use Pathway (marked in red).

Early this year the Port Adelaide/Enfield Council unsuccessfully sought support from the State Bicycle Fund to build the Rosewater Loop Bikeway, a proposal to connect residents of Rosewater, Ottoway and maybe Wingfield into the Outer Harbor Greenway & Port CBD by upgrading a disused rail line and an informal pathway in the Gillman reserve.

The State Bicycle Fund is the key source of matched funding provided to Councils to support creation of new cycling (and walking) infrastructure. In 2018 the current government reduced the fund to approx. $300K. It has been upped a little to around $700K over 2019-20 but this is still woefully inadequate and far below the $1.5M it was just a few years ago.

Clearly $700K remains ridiculously inadequate for a city measuring around 90km x 30km with with 19 Metro council districts and sharing the fund with regional councils desperate to boost economic activity (and build rail-trails and similar tourism infrastructure). The PortBUG has written to Transport Minister Corey Wingard requesting that the forthcoming November budget increase the SBF to a much more reasonable $3-6M p.a!

We have also requested that he provide Adelaide’s councils and community with a new State Cycling (and Walking) Strategy to ensure councils aren’t ‘flying blind’ when it comes to planning projects and applying for funding. Restoring the SBF to a reasonable level makes a lot of sense for our Active Travel future and for any possibility of a realistic ‘post COVID’ recovery – which clearly cannot be a return to business-as-usual. You can read our letter to Minister Wingard here. Watch this space!

Editing Note: Following further information, the funding for the SBF as originally mentioned above for 2018/19 and 2019/20 has been updated. It still remains utterly inadequate! Ed.

Let’s get development of Adelaide’s Bike Network off & running again!