A street is defined as ‘contraflow’ or two-way for cyclists (and in some cases pedestrians) where people on bikes (or on foot) are legally able to travel in both directions on a street designated a one-way for motor vehicles. Suitable streets typically have low traffic volumes and low speeds, with one (or no lanes) marked, sufficient width and may already be designated as a shared zone (the Australian term for a living street).

In 2014, the state agency Transport for NSW issued a technical direction permitting contraflow bicycle travel on suitable streets if approved signs and markings are allowed. When provided on suitable roads, these simple street treatments create safe new routes for cyclists with an incredible value for taxpayer funds.

The TfNSW Technical Direction (TTD 2014/002) describes contraflow cycling facilities as “a cost-effective treatment that enhances the cycling experience by improving the permeability of neighbourhoods and by reducing bicycle trip lengths”.

This is by no means an argument against more substantial investment in separated cycleways. The Queensland Government found cycling infrastructure has a 5 to 1 return on investment, and the UK Government found with beneft-to-cost ratios in the in the range of 5:1 to 19:1 – some as high as 35.5 to 1 (that is, a return on investment of up to 3550%). These benefits include improved public health, reduced emissions, reduced traffic, and reduction in expensive taxpayer funded road maintenance (road wear is proportional to the 4th power of axle weight). We can’t afford not to invest in dedicated cycling infrastructure.

New contraflow cycling in the City of Sydney

The City of Sydney has recently approved 159 suitable streets across 24 suburbs, which will greatly improve the network of legal cycling routes in inner city Sydney. The implementation will proceed as soon as budget and works capacity allows.

This blog post is a proposal of additional streets which may be suitable for basic contraflow cycling infrastructure that the council could install in future, with a focus on the utility of OpenStreetMap for researching potential streets.

What makes a safe contraflow street?

Most streets can become contraflow streets with the right infrastructure (a separated cycleway), but this blog post focuses the extremely cost efficient cases where they are feasible with only a sign and/or painted markings.

The TfNSW technical direction specifies:

Contra-flow bicycle facilities should be assessed as a potential treatment on all local low speed, low volume one-way streets, including shared zones.

Ideally, all contra-flow bicycle movements will be delineated by a bicycle lane. A bicycle lane must be installed in locations where:

• Sight distances are restricted due to bends in the road or other features.
• Motor traffic volumes or speeds present a safety risk.
• Bicycle traffic volumes or speeds present a safety risk.
• The gradient and/or other road geometry increase the risk of collisions or unsafe driving or riding behaviours.
• The number or location of driveways present a safety risk.

Note: The NSW Road Rules prohibit parking in signposted bicycle lanes.

If the road space is too narrow to permit a marked bicycle lane and there is good sight distance, motor traffic volumes and speeds are low and the road geometry does not present an unacceptable safety risk, the contra- flow movement can be provided by signage alone.

TTD 2014/002 Signposting for contra-flow bicycle facilities

With this in mind, OpenStreetMap does not include traffic volumes, however by filtering out multi lane roads, roads with high speed limits and roads that are designated as important to the motorway network we can remove from our query most high volume roads and identify further potential candidates for contraflow cycling facilities.

Streets that currently allow contraflow cycling

Below is a map of current streets that permit contraflow cycling. All maps are generated just for you as you load this page – so it’s always up to date.

I make use of open source OpenStreetMap (OSM) data which is a rich data source of cycling and road infrastructure. OSM is collaborative – if you notice any errors you can edit the map, and they will show up here. The dataset is heavily used (and improved) by commercial entities including Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, TomTom, Uber, Strava, Citymapper and government entities such as the Transport for NSW Trip Planner and the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning (who recently made the strategic decision to use OSM as their foundational mapping data source).

A technical note: these maps are using Overpass Ultra – a brilliant, open source, vector map powered OpenStreetMap query engine by Daniel Schep (on Mastodon), inspired by Overpass Turbo. Overpass Turbo shows dots for small details by default which are not possible to disable in a shared map.

You can click on highlighted streets to view more data, such as:

• name
• lane count
• road classification
• whether it’s a shared zone / living street

View/edit query

(note: some of the map embeds are currently broken, please follow the “View/edit query” links)

Previously approved but not yet built contraflow streets

Below is a map of streets where the contraflow infrastructure (signs and/or road markings) is approved but under construction, or not yet built (previously approved). I have mapped them on OSM with oneway:bicycle=construction.

View/edit query

Potential future contraflow streets

Below is an automated query of streets that are potential contraflow street candidates. As the data is automated there may be streets not suitable, such as circular one-way service roads. The intention of this queried data is to provide a helpful starting point, from which to filter for potential candidates, through use of the easily accessible, open source data. You can run the query yourself here and modify it if desired. See the wiki for the available OSM tags relevant to bicycles to filter by.

You can read the full query on which roads are shown in the appendix below.

View/edit query

A proposal of streets that may be suitable contraflow streets

These are a non-exhaustive manual selection of streets from the above query (in no particular order). Some I have taken width measurements using Lidar on an iPhone.

I’ve excluded lanes that appear to be very narrow and lanes where an alternative is very close (eg. William Ln & Corfu St).

There may be errors or other reasons they aren’t suitable – any feedback or corrections is welcome in the comments below!

Other notes

• Devonshire St would be very useful, but a paint & sign treatment likely not sufficient
• There are plenty of one way segments on the pedestrianised George St which would be perfect for cycling – the cycling situation on George St likely needs it’s own blog post

Appendix

More maps

Contraflow permitting streets globally

Potential future contraflow streets globally

All the Overpass queries!

Query: CSV of candidates of contraflow lanes

https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1ytu

Note:

• See the OSM Wiki for what tags mean
• This is an automated query of open source data – there may be errors

Query: Current streets allowing bicycle contraflow

[out:json];
(
  // Relation 1251066 is COS boundary:
  // https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1251066
  rel(1251066);map_to_area->.region;
  way(area.region)["highway"]
  ["oneway:bicycle"="no"]->.ways;
);
.ways out geom;

Query: Streets that CoS will turn into contraflow

[out:json];
(
  // Relation 1251066 is COS boundary:
  // https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1251066
  rel(1251066);map_to_area->.region;
  way(area.region)["highway"]
  ["oneway:bicycle"="construction"]->.ways;
);
.ways out geom;

Query: Potential future contraflow streets

[out:json][timeout:25];
(
  // Relation 1251066 is COS boundary:
  // https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/1251066
  rel(1251066);map_to_area->.region;
  
  // Select roads
  way(area.region)["highway"]
  
  // Only roads which are marked one way,
  // and don't allow bicycle contraflow
  ["oneway"="yes"]
  ["oneway:bicycle"!="no"]
  
  // Exclude already approved contraflow lanes
  ["oneway:bicycle"!="construction"]
  
  // Excluded roads under construction
  ["highway"!="construction"]
  
  // Excluded proposed roads
  ["highway"!="proposed"]

  // Exclude driveways
  ["service"!="driveway"]
  
  // Don't include roads that are bidirectional,
  // but are separated (and appear to be one way)
  ["dual_carriageway"!="yes"]
  
  // Don't include if a cycleway is already mapped as separate
  ["cycleway"!="separate"]
  ["cycleway:left"!="separate"]
  ["cycleway:right"!="separate"]
  
  // Don't include if a cycleway already present
  ["highway"!="cycleway"]
  
  // If a road is customers only it's likely
  // in a parking lot
  ["access"!="customers"]
  
  // Don't include roads where public access not allowed
  ["access"!="no"]
  
  // Don't include link roads (on ramps/slip roads)
  ["highway"!="motorway_link"]
  ["highway"!="primary_link"]
  ["highway"!="secondary_link"]
  ["highway"!="tertiary_link"]
  
  // Don't include major roads
  ["highway"!="primary"]
  ["highway"!="secondary"]
  
  
  ["lanes"!=2]
  ["lanes"!=3]
  ["lanes"!=4]
  ["lanes"!=5]
  ["lanes"!=6]
  
  ["access"!="private"]
  
  // Don't consider parking isles
  ["service"!="parking_aisle"]
  
  
  

  ->.ways;
);

.ways out geom;

Query: All streets with bicycle contraflow allowed, including outside City of Sydney council

[out:json][timeout:25];
(
  way["highway"]
 
  ["oneway:bicycle"="no"]
  
  ({{bbox}});
);
out body;
>;
out skel qt;

Other useful data

Ethan’s Sydney Bike Map

One of the best OpenStreetMap powered maps of cycling infrastrure, including proposed and under construction paths: https://sydneybikemap.ethan.link/

Possible further work

• Categorising sightlines of road segments computationally to narrow down the list of possible candidates
• Creating an Overpass Turbo query of manual candidates

The post Contraflow streets in the City of Sydney first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

Greenwich said the Gadigal people had used the site to fish, canoe and swim for thousands of years, and the opening of the new swimming hole was a win for community groups who had advocated for lifting the ban.

Sydney Morning Herald

I didn’t get a chance to take a dip on the “opening day” but I did cycle over after work.

Both articles reported that after this summer the government will consider adding decking or ladders at the site.

Also next to Marrinawi Cove is a cold outdoor shower among the sandstone blocks and grass, a very modern public toilet in an older building, and plentiful bicycle parking. See photos below.

Marrinawi is the Sydney Aboriginal word for large canoe, and was used to describe the vessels of the First Fleet into Sydney Harbour (Barangaroo Delivery Authority).

Planning history and local advocacy

The the winning proposal in the 2006 international design competition for the Barangaroo precinct, lead by Philip Thalis, proposed three ocean swimming pools. This plan has been modified beyond recognition as Clover Moore and others have written about in recent months (see “Barangaroo’s ‘phallic forest’ a monument to Sydney’s impotence”, Oct 22, Clover Moore, SMH ).

Matthew Moore wrote in 2009:

Within a day [after competition victory], [Phillip Thalis’] fears were realised when the agency in charge of the site, the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, advised the first job was to delete the three swimming pools they had proposed at the end of Millers Point, companions to the pool across the harbour at North Sydney. After the judging, Keating [former state premier] had no formal position but he was the man to whom the competition winners were sent to discuss the modifications.

Storming the headland, Matthew Moore, Sep 19th 2009, SMH

When the City of Sydney built Pirrrama Park in 2010 in Pyrmont, according to Clover Moore’s talk in 2021 its design allowed for swimming when it was legally and safely possible.

In 2019 the City of Sydney engaged Andrew Burges Architects to create concepts for swimming places in Sydney harbour to look at options for harbour swimming. This firm was also one of the designers of the Gunyama Park Aquatic and Recreation Centre in Green Square.

These are not firm plans, scoped and ready to go – they’re a visual representation of what’s possible, over time, if we can improve the Harbour water quality.

The treatment at Beare Park shows how short term, minimal intervention might look to get people swimming safely as soon as possible. 

Clover Moore, Team Clover website

Some renderings from https://architectureau.com/articles/making-sydney-harbour-swimmable/:

Yasmina Bonnet, Anne Warr, Tim Schwager and John Dunn from the Millers Point Community Action Group wrote a proposal on Jan 1st 2020 called Return To The Harbour for the Public Space Ideas Competition.

Our scheme is to reimagine Marrinawi Cove as a swimming spot for all to enjoy. Beautiful, sheltered and north-facing, native flora and carefully sculpted tessellated sandstone line the cove, extending along the headland.

A good current flows through this tidal cove, keeping the water clean and sparkling for swimmers. The scheme retains the naturalist beauty of the cove while gently inserting timber platforms and steps to allow safe access to the water. A shark net encloses the outer edge of the inlet.

Return To The Harbour proposal

In December 2020, Alex Greenwich (Member for Sydney) received a reply from Infrastructure NSW on his submission regarding the Millers Point Community Action Group Proposal “Project Billabong” for a local Barangaroo swimming spot. It stated:

Infrastructure NSW is in the early stages of exploring the opportunity for a swimming area at Barangaroo. Various locations and formats will form part of this review.

Letter from INSW to Alex Greenwich, Dec 2020

On May 30th, 2021 the Sydney Morning Herald published an article highlighting the advocacy of the Millers Point Community Action Group for a swimming place at this location, titled “‘Let us swim’: Push to bring back harbour bathing at Barangaroo”.

In October 2021, the City of Sydney Major Clover Moore addressed the Sydney Water Innovation Festival, stating the council’s ambition for harbour swimming.

The City has long had a dream for a clean, swimmable harbour and when we built Pirrrama Park in 2010 in Pyrmont, its design allowed for this possibility. Then in 2019, we commissioned an architect to examine options for creating a swimmable harbour – a dream the Covid pandemic has made more alluring. Indeed, there is strong community interest, especially from residents in the Pyrmont and Millers Point area.

Pirrama Park can be easily transformed given it has been designed into our existing infrastructure. But there are many sites that have potential, like Barangaroo and Rushcutters Bay. We also looked at potential designs for Beare Park and the Glebe foreshore. 

There is so much potential in having a swimmable harbour – from relatively simple swimming sites for locals, to the development of key harbourside swimming attractions for tourists and Sydneysiders alike. 

Clover Moore, Sydney Water Innovation Festival, 2021 (Transcript)

She also made it clear all the proposals rested on greater collaboration with Sydney Water and others to clean the Sydney Harbour water quality

This, of course, is dependent on improved water quality which we can make happen through our growing collaboration with Sydney Water.

If you have anything to add/correct on this timeline please comment below or email me at jake@jakecoppinger.com!

Facilities and more photos

I assume the shark net is to keep the bull sharks away.

The post Swimming in the Sydney CBD – Marrinawi Cove first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

Transport for NSW (TfNSW) has recently installed these around the Sydney CBD – a sticker on top of a pedestrian “beg button” explaining the button must be pressed between 10pm and 6am. Not only does this sticker look like it will last a few weeks, but if you have to explain how something works, it isn’t designed well.

The Active Transport strategy recently released by TfNSW specifically states (on page 12) that key initiatives for metropolitan and urban areas include:

prioritising pedestrian movements at key destinations, including prioritising pedestrians at traffic lights

and

upgrading existing paths and streets for better walking and cycling experiences

This begs the question – if a key TfNSW initiative is to prioritise pedestrians in urban areas, and we’re prepared to automatically give pedestrians a green light every cycle during the day when car traffic volumes are highest – why not prevent the confusion and remove/cover the buttons permanently?

Even more perplexingly – we previously had fully automated buttons and they were accepted (if not widely celebrated by pedestrian & cycling advocates), so why go backwards?!

Fully automatic crossings during the pandemic

From March 2020, pedestrian crossings across the CBD were automated so that touch contact wasn’t required.

At first, no physical alteration was made, however behaviour is hard to change so signs like this were installed:

Eventually blue covers were affixed so pressing the button wasn’t possible, while audio-tactile feedback of the PB/5 units was left uncovered to assist visually-impaired pedestrians.

Not only a sensible decision to reduce physical contact during a pandemic (especially when virus transmission was less understood), you probably aren’t surprised that automatically guaranteeing pedestrians a traffic light cycle makes walking easier and faster.

In 2007, Copenhagen firm Gehl Architects wrote a report for the city of Sydney evaluating public spaces, which specifically highlighted the Australian phenomenon of prioritising motor vehicles at street intersections:

Push buttons are a widespread phenomenon all over Australia and in Sydney, where all crossings are supplied with push buttons. The installation of push buttons is part of State Government law. Here you have to apply to cross the street and if you press the button in time the digital device will give you between 7 and 10 seconds of green light to step off the kerb, before the lights start to flash red to tell you to finish walking across the road. Red periods are long, often lasting between 60 and 90 seconds. This system takes the elderly, children and people with disabilities hostages since they will often not be capable of moving across the streets at the pace needed. It also sends a clear signal that cars have higher priority than people.

Sydney – Public Space Public Life, 2007, Gehl Architects

TfNSW removing automatic operation

On Friday the 16th of December, Transport for NSW announced:

From mid-December 2022 Transport for NSW is removing the push button hard covers but maintaining the automation of pedestrian crossings at traffic signals during daytime hours. This is to reduce overnight noise for local residents and allow for more efficient intersection operation for all users when activity is low.

TfNSW Argument 1: More efficient intersection operation

Requiring manual pedestrian button operation does improve intersection operation for cars at the expense of all other modes.

However, car traffic volumes are lowest at nighttime and congestion is decreased, so intersection efficiently does not need to be ruthlessly prioritised at those hours.

Remember, the TfNSW Future Transport Strategy states (page 9):

We will focus on getting more out of our existing investments, by reallocating road space to more efficient modes of transport like buses, walking, cycling and micromobility devices.

and

Our vision for transport in NSW “We will stabilise traffic levels in Greater Sydney to improve productivity and manage congestion, ensuring we accommodate growth without sacrificing quality of life.”

So we now have in writing that TfNSW say that they are no longer prioritising traffic volumes at the expense of all else.

Sydney aspires to be a city with a vibrant nightlife, and there are often large pedestrian volumes late into the night and morning. Pedestrians at these hours are also most likely to be under the influence of alcohol and if inconvenienced, may be more likely to “jaywalk”

TfNSW Argument 2: Reducing overnight noise

Noise from the pedestrian buttons “activating” when pedestrians are allowed to cross is an interesting argument. I can emphasise with urban dwellers in noisy environments (I currently live in Inner Sydney), but the automated signal map covers few (if any) streets with low rise residential buildings – this is the centre of the largest city in Australia after all!

The National Cooperative Highway Research Program study Accessible Pedestrian Signals: A Guide to Best Practices, has been adapted by the NCHR into this online best practice resource. It states:

• All devices respond to ambient sound, both for the locator tone and the WALK indication.
• APS [Accessible Pedestrian Signals] are sometimes turned off at night due to neighbors’ complaints about noise.

This implies that the the noise produced is lower at nighttime when there is less traffic noise, and there is already a precedent for pedestrian signals being turned off selectively at nighttime due to noise concerns.

Perhaps it makes more logical sense that only those pedestrian buttons that receive complaints should be set to manual overnight, with a prominent & permanent sign rather than a sticker.

Globally our little PB/5 units are so beloved that they’ve even been bestowed with a Grammy, their design so ubiquitous with simplicity that their main job is to almost blend into their environment, so why not let them and save them from our grubby fingers?

With a simple software update, that was already successfully tested during the pandemic, we can improve the walkability in the City of Sydney – and with any luck, everywhere else!

(…and after that, shorten cycle times and improve light phasing)

The post Sydney CBD is bringing back pedestrian “beg buttons” first appeared on Jake Coppinger.

Map live at SydneyAdvertisingMap.com. See also: Max Bo’s analysis of how many placed next to Telstra telephones: https://observablehq.com/@mjbo/sydney-qms-panel-public-telephone-pairings

If you live in Sydney you will have seen them – the 86 inch advertising screens in the City of Sydney Council. These advertising panels are known as communication pylons in the language of the developer approvals. The Sydney Morning Herald reported the City of Sydney paused the rollout due to community backlash.

Through August and October I visited every QMS advertising panel in the City of Sydney. I surveyed their location and ref code to add to OpenStreetMap, an open geospatial database that powers many maps worldwide. I uploaded photos of many displays to Mapillary, a platform for openly licensed street imagery, which you can view by clicking on pins in the map above.

Travelling on foot and by bike I found many examples of this street furniture blocking footpaths and reducing pedestrian amenity.

I hope this open data, map and photographs encourages and enables further public discussion, such as where problematic panels are located, and what role large format outdoor advertising has on Sydney’s streets.

If you find any screens that aren’t on this list, or any data is incorrect, please comment below or send an email to jake@jakecoppinger.com with “QMS” in the title. If you’re interested, you can head to OpenStreetMap.org and contribute yourself!

Table of contents

Website

I created SydneyAdvertisingMap.com to visualise this data. It is open source on Github (GPLv3), and displays the data in an easy to understand form.

As of October 31:

• There are 144 mapped panels QMS panels (excluding bus shelters) in the City of Sydney (https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1nbB)
• 30 panels do not have a ref code mounted on them (https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1nbC)

Panel placement

Most panels are placed on footpaths in the direction of pedestrian and car flow. They are placed nearest the road.

Many panels are placed next to an existing Telstra public telephone (though many are not). In these cases, the City of Sydney information side is facing the Telephone, and obstructed by the telephone. The commercial advertising side is always unobstructed by the telephone. I also surveyed nearby telephones on OSM while surveying the panels – I have not yet queried the percentage of panels near a telephone but this is possible. Edit: See Max Bo’s analysis of how many are placed next to telephones: https://observablehq.com/@mjbo/sydney-qms-panel-public-telephone-pairings

In their 2007 survey of Sydney’s street life, Gehl Architects noted the amount of footpath clutter caused by the public phones. This issue has seemingly not been resolved.

The pay phones obviously serve two purposes. One is the service of offering the inhabitants a public phone another is to place commercial ads in the City Centre to be viewed by people passing by. In order to place these ads in the best viewable way the pay phones are installed facing the footpath and thus blocking pedestrian movement in a number of streets.

“Public Spaces – Public Life, Sydney”, Gehl Architects 2007, Part 1, Page 58

Some panels are placed where a City of Sydney kiosk used to be. You can see the outside of the distinctive kiosk shape on the pavement in a couple of areas. The removal of the kiosk is also a reduction in pedestrian amenity.

The ref code is on a silver coloured metal plaque on the inside of one of the legs. Some screens are missing a ref code – I am unsure what the development approval status of these are.

Examples of screens blocking footpaths

Advertising screens obstructing seating views

Further reading

• Sydney Morning Herald series: https://www.smh.com.au/topic/qms-19c

• “QMS Reveals First City of Sydney Communication Panels”, QMS Media, 1st June 2022. qmsmedia.com/qms-reveals-first-city-of-sydney-communication-panels/
• Clover Moore’s update on street furniture and advertising panels: linkedin.com/posts/clovermooresydney_i-want-to-give-you-an-update-on-city-of-sydneys-activity-6982951529779527680-1jys

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Appendix: OpenStreetMap survey method

To identify the streets and neighbourhoods the panels would likely be I looked through development approval documents.

I then methodically visited each street, either on foot or on bicycle. I added each advertising panel to OpenStreetMap with the following tags:

advertising=poster_box
animated=screen
lit=yes
operator=QMS
operator:website=https://www.qmsmedia.com/
sides=2
support=ground
ref=...
mapillary=...

(If you have a suggestion for better tags please let me know!)

I took photos of many of these panels, which I uploaded to Mapillary. I also added the Mapillary image ID to the advertising panel nodes.

Some screens are missing a ref code, for these I set ref=none. I set ref=unknown where I forgot to survey a ref code (only one or two).

Appendix: Geospatial data

Download geospatial data of QMS ad panels (surveyed by me, under ODbL licence). This is already out of date, fetch the latest at https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1nbB

• As Geojson
• As gpx
• As kml

The post Mapping Sydney Billboards: Every QMS advertising panel in Sydney first appeared on Jake Coppinger.