Maggi Luke, Byron Bay
I have a dream of a safe mostly on road bikeway from Suffolk to town as Karin Kolbe wrote about in last week’s Byron Echo. It is more important in my view than the bypass (sorry, Tony Narracott). This stretch of road is not only very busy with our children cycling to and from their schools, but used by many different people of all ages.
We travel up and down our NSW coastline from Noosa to Seal Rocks twice a year, visiting most small towns, some of which have good bikeways, but is only when we arrive back in Byron and travel the stretch from the Green Garage roundabout to Suffolk that we see so many cyclists. It’s actually a joy to see and gives us a sense of loving this place and being glad to be home.
When I was on the bikeway committee (eight years) we did many surveys along this stretch of road, listing the number, type, age, time, place etc, but after all our efforts nothing changed.
There was a serious incident a few months ago with an elderly male cyclist crossing over from the bikeway to Cemetery Road. I witnessed his injuries and sat with him until the ambulance came.
Living in LilliPilli I do not cycle any more; neither do a lot of people my age because this route to town is too dangerous to risk accident. It’s not that we are not fit enough or do not believe in cycling; we heal more slowly and value our independence too much so we have to walk or drive.
We need to have a wide safe bikeway with bikes having priority. At present to cycle along the bikeway/footpath from Cemetery Road to Green Garage roundabout you have 10 feeder roads to contend with, with the traffic having right of way! It gets worse on the way to Suffolk: there is one spot where there is no verge at all for cyclists to travel off the road. My friend’s daughter on her way to the high school was knocked off her bike three months ago.
I would like to start a group to encourage this to happen. Please email me at [email protected] if you are interested in joining or have any better ideas.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
