Every year CycleSydney and friends announce the best new cycling infrastructure across the whole of Sydney. Previous prize winners can be found here 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018
and links to early infra superstars
To win, there must be an increase in the numbers of people using the path or facility, the path or bridge or tunnel has to pretty safe, good looking and fun to ride. It doesn’t have to be long if it makes existing trails better. Money or delays in creation do not figure in the selection process.
2024 ——-
Cyclists of Sydney Celebrate! It’s the cyclesydney.wiki 2024 Infrastructure Awards!
If you want some suspense – why not head over to the audio broadcast on Spotify here or view on YouTube otherwise read on
It’s been a fantastic year for cycling infrastructure in Sydney, with amazing projects popping up all over our city! We, at cyclesydney.wiki, are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2024 Sydney Cycling Project Awards, as chosen by YOU, the Cyclists of Sydney!
Let’s raise our handlebars to the dedicated teams and individuals who’ve made these wins possible and celebrate the incredible additions to our cycling network.
And the Winners Are…
Taking home the Bronze…
- The Toongabbie Creek bridge and cycleway from Constitution Hill. This project transformed a route that had a tricky crossing of a busy road into a simpler, shorter route that now has a really nice quiet bridge and a small park.
The new cycleway and bridge over Toongabbie Creek are part of the T-Way project, which aims to provide safer active transport options from Windsor to Parramatta. The project includes a 25-meter bridge with approach ramps on either side, designed to accommodate both pedestrians and cyclists. The bridge’s alignment was chosen to preserve the highest value trees along Toongabbie Creek.The cycleway features separated paths for cyclists and pedestrians where space allows, and it avoids a slow, three-stage crossing of the Cumberland Highway. The project also includes improved paths through Constitution Hill and Northmead, with lighting and landscaping enhancements. The park at Toongabbie Creek will be restored and re-opened to the public once the project is complete. The T-Way cycleway is a 30 km off-road shared path used by approximately 4,000 cyclists and 8,000 pedestrians each month. The project is expected to open later this year.
Note. The new route is 250m shorter than the old one and has only one road beg button. The old route went in front of a few industrial estates and an ambulance entrance and had a horrible crossing of the Cumberland Highway. Ref
Cruising into Second Place…
- Cooks River Upgrades including the very impressive tunnel under Canterbury Rd. This is a standout example of how to make a really easy-to-use crossing of a super busy road that ventures below high tide levels. The new cycling tunnel under the Canterbury Road bridge officially opened in December 2024. It is 100 meters long and 3.5 meters wide.
This tunnel is part of a broader initiative to enhance the Cooks River path and cycleway, making commuting not just easier, but a whole lot safer and more enjoyable for the community. The Cooks River cycleway, also known as the Bay to Bay Shared Pathway, is a 30-kilometer-long shared path for cyclists and pedestrians. It stretches from Settlers’ Park in Ryde to Botany Bay at Kyeemagh, passing through various parklands and green spaces along the way.
Before its recent upgrade, the cycling tunnel was not liked. Originally constructed in the mid-20th century, it was a simple, narrow passage primarily used by pedestrians and local cyclists. Over the years, it became prone to flooding and suffered from poor lighting and maintenance, making it less safe and less appealing for regular use. When the upgrade commenced, the engineering project stalled. Cooks River cyclists were diverted into the streets south of the river for two years and this was not fun. The recent upgrade has transformed this once-neglected tunnel into a modern, safe, and accessible tunnel and will become an example of how to build a below sea level path under an existing bridge. Read more on the council website
And, in a Spectacular Tie for First Place…
- The Sydney Airport Cycleway. With its fabulous bridge and tunnel and quite a long shared path next to the pipeline, this project was equally matched by the game changer in the city. The new cycleway from Tempe Park to Sydney Airport’s Domestic Terminal is part of the extensive Sydney Gateway roads project. The cycleway runs past the airport and connects with the Cooks River trail to the west and Cronulla to the south. To the east, it connects to Eastlakes, Mascot, and onwards to the city.
- Castlereagh St with its connection between Liverpool St and King St and its world-class implementation of hook turns to join other city streets. Construction on the cycleway began in August 2023. The plan was to create a seamless cycleway stretching from King Street to Liverpool Street. This new path would not only connect Circular Quay to Central Station but also link up with other cycleways on Liverpool, Oxford, Pitt, and College Streets.
The Sydney Airport cycleway is a shared user path along the north side of the Alexandra Canal and a path along Qantas Drive, connected by a large pedestrian bridge across the wide waterway. There are several great vantage points for plane spotting, and the cycleway also includes a bicycle pump and a pleasant picnic area. The new cycleway from Tempe Park to Sydney Airport’s Domestic Terminal is part of the extensive Sydney Gateway roads project, which has improved connections to the airport from the Tollway tunnel network. The cycleway runs past the airport and connects with the Cooks River trail to the west and Cronulla to the south. To the east, it connects to Eastlakes, Mascot, and onwards to the city. The route starts at Tempe Reserve, where there is a side path to the International Terminal for walkers and cyclists. It has junctions on the east side of the Alexandra Canal to the Domestic Terminal and also connects to the old Coward St on-road cycleway that heads to the city. This cycleway provides a traffic-free route for cyclists and promotes healthy lifestyles for the airport community, offering an alternative to driving or taking the train. Coward St in Mascot through to Kendrick Park in Tempe is 3.5km. It is all separated pathway. This runs past the airport and connects with the Cooks River trail to the west and to Cronulla to the south. This is great to know if you live in the East and there is a great free carpark at Tempe Recreational Reserve. See the trail on the Eastern Sydney map here >> Notes: On the weekend there are plenty of car parks in Coward St, Mascot but not during the week. All bikes can go on this path. If you want to put your bike on the train at Mascot, take two lifts down, or get out at Mascot and start riding. A couple of things have changed in these photos – good news there is now a fancy new cycle bridge (video) and a path to domestic airport (video) Some history here Sydney Gateway Project Update – Bicycle NSW | The Castlereagh St shared path in the city Liverpool to King In the heart of Sydney, Castlereagh Street was a sad old car street with footpaths abutting. Starting in August 2023, construction crews began creating a cycleway from King Street to Liverpool Street, connecting Circular Quay to Central Station and other cycleways. Map Link Video 1 Footpaths were widened, new trees planted, and street furniture added. By late 2024, the street had become a vibrant corridor with a smooth, safe cycleway separated from traffic. Cyclists and pedestrians could enjoy the new space and greenery. On Christmas Eve, 2024 when this video was filmed, the cycleway was lit by the morning sun, with Christmas music and firefighters’ laughter adding to the festive atmosphere. The new cycleway symbolized Sydney’s commitment to a greener, more connected future, promising a safer, more enjoyable journey for all. A great cycleway with many state of the art connections to the cross streets. Until this street was completed, only Kent St on the west side of the city allowed you to ride safely in a north south direction. This is a a truly world class city-cycleway, check out the video to confirm this yourself. |
Honourable Mentions
While not taking home top prizes, these projects deserve recognition for their immense potential:
- Caringbah Cycleway
- Muddy Creek Cycleway
- Alfred St Cycleway
These projects are still works in progress, but are steadily becoming top-tier cycling routes. We can’t wait to see them finished! Congratulations once again to all the winners and nominees! Your hard work has made a tangible difference for cyclists in Sydney. Let’s keep pedalling towards a brighter, bike-friendlier future!
Alfred St Bridge and shared path to Granville (almost complete)
One of Sydneys best walking and cycling bridges starts at the bottom of Albert St on the edge of Parramatta. This connects with the very popular Parramatta River cycle path and the shared path that follows the Carlingford Rail Trail. It also becomes a shared path on the edge of Albert street that runs across to the M4 cycleway and to the busy Parramatta Rd. Here you can cross to Clyde and Granville if you use the foot crossing shown near the end of the video. Note: The path wasn’t finished by end of 2024 but this should be rectified in 2025. Read more https://cyclesydney.wiki/parramatta/
The pedestrian and cycle bridge at the north end of Alfred St in Parramatta is fantastic. It certainly is finished but as it will be part of the partially completed Alfred St Cycleway, it will be considered during 2024. Here are two pictures of the bridge. Find the bridge on the map here
Muddy Creek – Barton Park
The new shared path along Muddy Creek next to Barton Park is part of the Barton Park Recreational Precinct upgrade. This path enhances connectivity and provides a scenic route for both pedestrians and cyclists. It runs along the Muddy Creek foreshore, integrating with the Rockdale Wetlands Corridor. The path offers a safe and accessible route for walking and cycling, connecting the surrounding areas of Arncliffe, Banksia, and Wolli Creek. Designed to improve the interface with the Landing Lights Wetlands and other adjacent open spaces, it promotes environmental education and bird watching. The upgrade includes improved lighting, landscaping, and tree planting to enhance the overall experience. This shared path is part of a broader effort to create a welcoming space for recreational activities, organized sports, and family outings. Read more about the area Map Link
Trust me, when this is complete through to Presidents avenue and beyond, this might win the best. Likely to be 2026
Carringbah to Miranda Shops
Look for the purple line from Shark Park on the water to Caringbah Station (which is terrific) and then the decent path with lots of driveways from there past the Sutherland hospital and onto towards Miranda shops. This was filmed early on Boxing day so the very busy Kingsway didn’t have the cars.
Map link here Video from Mirandah
When this finally connects to the cycleway at Kirrawee, this will be an exeptional cycleway through some tough car jungles.
Other Projects Across the City in 2024
There was quite a lot of work at the Macquarie Uni end of the wonderful Shrimptons Creek. Video link Map Link
Check out the new airport cycleway – a great way to start or finish the Cooks River trail
Check out the Castlereagh Cycleway – New section is show in Gold
2023 Winners ——-
1st Place – Carlingford Rail Trail
The Carlingford RT is a wide concrete path that follows the old train line that will soon become the new Carlingford to Westmead light rail. It starts at Carlingford at an altitude of 100m and heads down and over the Parramatta River to the edge of Parramatta. A distance of nearly 6km. It is a great smooth ride, the path goes under busy roads, it connects well with the super popular Parramatta River trail and soon will connect well with the M4 cycleway and Granville Station. Connecting into Parramatta is its one flaw, hopefully that will be resolved in the next few years. Easily the best completed cycling infrastructure in Sydney in 2023.
See on map (look for Carlingford at the top of the purple track) >>
Usage: Medium by both cyclists and local walkers
Distance: 6km
Cost: Compared to the light rail, modest.
See photos of the area or view a video that includes the Carlo RT here
2nd Place – Doncaster Avenue and Houston Rd Cycleway
1.6km of pretty good separated path down a busy road on a street that is very popular already with cyclists. There were a lot of sceptics on the usefulness of this path compared to riding on the road. Now that it is built, riders are gravitating to the path. Delays in finishing of this path this seemed to be caused by the drainage in the area. There are number of steel drains across the path in the south which detracts from the look. The slowest bit on this path is crossing Anzac Parade which can take upto 2 minutes and the whole path takes about 6 minutes. One issue is the start near at the corner of Allison Rd. Cyclists tend to ride diagonally across Doncaster to the crossing at Alison Rd which is not ideal. One other interesting point is there are dual cyclist and walker lanterns which are a good saving of infra dollars and I have not seen these before.
Personally I rarely rode Doncaster before as I hated the busy road and the potential for car dooring. Now I ride it a lot. It is a worthy second place in 2023, other councils should look for roads this wide and see if they can replicate the model. Randwick Council writes about it here
See the video of the Northern End or photos or view the path on the map just south of Centennial Park.
Distance: 1.6km starting from south Centenial Park.
Usage: Medium
Third Place – Rozelle Parklands
Rozelle Parklands is the key to connecting Annandale, Leichardt, Rozelle and Balmain to the city and all those places are within comfortable riding distance, especially on an eBike. The infrastructure into the city from Rozelle is very scenic and fine with the very big Anzac Bridge and the good cycle paths through Pyrmont into the city. So they built a decent big park with great paths, a fantastic big tunnel under Victoria Rd and a terrific bridge over City West. This took a long time but cyclists should be very happy with the park. But for some reason, the councils and the State Government just plain forget about every single exit from the park except for Anzac Bridge and the exit to Blackwattle Bay. There are complicated bollards heading towards Whites Creek Lane, a broken plastic ramp for Lilyfield Rd cycleway, a dangerous crossing to Gordon St and a disgraceful surface with many obstacles on the Victoria Rd path around to Balmain.
And right at crunch time the State Government realised that all the car tunnels to bypass Victoria Rd were not going to work so they reneged on their promise to make Victoria Rd a peoples road and kept the current 6 lane monster as is. In summary, Rozelle Parklands was a good chance to WIN but they didn’t do any planning with the councils or even think thru the design of the car tunnels and now we will be waiting till 2028 to gain the full benefit of the park if at all. And Victoria Rd will continue to be a blight on the cycle network of Sydney.
Video of the park starts at 1:30 into this video.
See a video of the park starting from Whites Creek lane here
Distance: 1.5km of bike paths in the park
Usage:: Was high until the asbestos issues in the garden mulch in early 2024.
Cost: Negligible compare to the 24 billion spent on the badly organised tunnels underneath.
See photos of the parklands See on map >>
Honourable Mentions for 2023
The bridge across Hawthorne Canal got a fancy upgrade and so did the trail under the bridges. The path on the canal was never mentioned in past dispatches but makes this a great little zone of cycling rejuvenation. See on map here. Kudos to the council for taking the time to make this area better. Now we need the Lilyfield Rd cycleway to be converted into the cycle highway all the way to Rozelle Parklands. Read more about Iron Cove here
Upgrade Of the Cup and Saucer Creek Trail
This is in Earlwood. 1km of new track just south of the Cooks river added near the end of 2023. Well done Canterbury Bankstown council. I have loved this track long before it was upgraded. It is a fun way to head towards the M5 Cycleway. 
Riding down Cup and Saucer Creek to the Cooks River (youtube.com)
Not Really New Cycling Infrastructure BUT
a) Sydney Transport has almost completed adding lifts to every single station on the Greater Sydney network. No more do you have to carry your bike up and down stairs to take your bike on the train. Sure you have to wait until other commuters leave a big space in the lift but this is generally not a problem. Sample Central Station lift here
b) It was a really big year for the Greater Sydney BikeTrail (web page) with the Facebook group swelling from 700 to 2000. The ride got a two page spread in the Sydney Morning Herald thanks to some terrific publicity at Bicycle NSW. Given that this ride follows trails of 220 km (or 150km) around the city with the odd bit of road connections, people can see that connecting Sydney by bicycle infra is possible. When are you going around ?
Other Projects in 2023
Some of those changes were done in previous years, some last year. It just highlights that inner city projects take a lot of design work to get correct. City of Sydney is the guiding light to all the other councils.
Here is Ashmore and Harley which is mentioned in the City of Sydney notes.
Meadowbank. After a long and an annoying detour, Meadowbank is now open again and has a better gradient path and a good looking creek with the stone and plant finishes that are all the rage these days. Find on the map here
Sandringham had the same long pause but now will be capable of handling the large numbers of walkers and cyclists that pass thru. This used to be a narrow concrete path. Many casual cyclists would pass thru here every day. Road riders head further west.
Best Project in NSW
The best project in NSW in 2023 was the 22km long Northern Rivers Rail Trail with a patronage that has already past 75,000 in less than a year. Work continues on that project to make it much longer. Proof that Australians love cycling
West St in North Sydney will be considered in 2024 as it needs a more work to be useful.
How was 2023 ?
If you look at the winning projects and add up the total kilometres it was barely 15km of paths. There are usually small projects that are parts of new suburbs and new cycleways that are attached to big roads but we didn’t see them this year. Soon we will see Cronulla to Sutherland, Muddy Creek and the A6, the A12 to the airport in about 3 years, paths to the domestic airport. But 15km this year is not very much. At that rate I will have given up mapping before any real network is put in place. Less talk and more action please.
This was the 2024 peoplesVoting Section
This year is the first time that voting is open to the fellow Sydney cyclists and the way to do that is
To vote in the Sydney Cycling 2024 Infrastructure Awards, try to ride as many of the nominated routes as possible or watch all seven videos. Then, enter your winner in the comments of the first video in this YouTube playlist using the following codes: TOON for Toongabbie Creek Bridge, ALF for Alfred Street Cycleway and Bridge, CAS for Castlereagh Street in Sydney City, COOK for Cooks River upgrades, AIR for Sydney Airport, MUD for Muddy Creek, and BAH for Caringbah to Miranda Cycleway. To be counted you also need to subscribe to the YouTube channel “BikeTrail”
If you want to find out where the rides are, watch the How to Vote video.
If you don’t want to do the YouTube thing, follow the Facebook page CycleSydney to vote. If you follow Bicycle NSW, you will find some voting options in their social media.
Some of the Early Infrastructure
The Parramatta to Liverpool Rail trail was completed in 1999.
The brilliant Cordia Way in Artarmon was completed in 2001
The 47kms of M7 shared path was complete late in 2005
Gore Hill and Epping Rd cycleways were completed around 2007.
Bourke St Cycleway was completed in 2011
The Iron Cove path was mostly completed in 2011
The bridges that completed the Narrabeen Lagoon loop were finished early in 2015
The earliest recorded instance of cycling in Centennial Park, Sydney, dates back to 1891.
In that year, the Suburban Bicycle Club requested permission to close Centennial Park to vehicular traffic for an hour on September 19, 1891, to hold an open road bike race. This indicates that cycling was already a recognized and popular activity in the park by that time.
Furthermore, Centennial Park’s Cyclists Avenue officially opened in 1900, five years before cars were permitted, and a Cyclists’ Pavilion was refurbished in 1908, highlighting the park’s early and sustained embrace of cycling.
Oatley Park
Started in 1950 when Charlie Manins, Ron Mills and my father Ron Bates approached Councillor Mallard, Mayor of Hurstville and gained approval to race there amongst the car drivers, walkers and picnickers. In 1976 was able to convince Council to close off the race course at Steamroller Park and make it an enclosed circuit with no cars. The circuit was reduced by 800 metres to the current circuit which is now exactly 3 kilometres. Some of Australia’s greatest riders developed great skills on the circuit – none more than Gary and Chris Sutton