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Walking and cycling routes: Cooks River

Case study name: Cooks River Pathway

Introduction

The Cooks River Pathway is one of the oldest and most significant shared pedestrian and cycling paths in Sydney, extending from Mason Park at Homebush Bay Drive in Homebush Bay to the Cooks River entrance into Botany Bay. The Pathway is centrally located in the Sydney metropolitan region, with a large population base close by, and follows the foreshore of the Cooks River, covering the full length of the catchment.

The mostly-level Pathway leads to popular local destinations and focal points, including town centres, railway stations, many attractive parks and reserves and a range of recreation and sporting amenities and facilities. As such it provides a variety of opportunities for a wide range of people to experience the natural environment close to their homes, by bicycle or on foot. Usage of the pathway and associated open spaces is especially high during early mornings, evenings, in summer and on Sundays.

Description and context

The Cooks River Pathway is a largely off-road facility that extends 34.6 kilometres from Mason Park at Homebush Bay Drive in Homebush Bay to the Cooks River entrance into Botany Bay at Rockdale/Kyeemagh. For most of its length, the Cooks River Pathway follows the foreshore of the Cooks River. The Pathway is also commonly referred to as the ‘Bay to Bay Walk’ or the ‘Cooks River Cycleway.’

While it is a key part of the regional cycling network, the Cooks River Pathway, like almost all off-road cycleways in NSW, is used not only by cyclists, but also by pedestrians, joggers, dog-walkers, people pushing prams, and people on skateboards, scooters and roller blades. As such it is an important piece of infrastructure for enabling and encouraging active living.

The Pathway passes through six Local Government Areas, namely Burwood, Canterbury, City of Sydney, Marrickville, Rockdale and Strathfield. It is identified as part of the cycling networks of the bicycle plans of all of the councils along its route, and links to a number of other off-road regional cycleways. The Pathway has been funded by Federal, State and Local Governments and has been constructed with the assistance of all of the councils along its route, under the coordination of the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA).

Design process

Prior to European Settlement, the indigenous Eora peoples would have used the Cooks River and its foreshores for food gathering, fishing and travel. The Cooks River was traversed by European settlers in 1789 and given its present name by 1796.

A pathway along the length of the Cooks River was originally developed in the mid-1970s, and was known as the ‘Pelican Walk’. The project joined existing parkland pathways and constructed new sections. In the early 1990s, planning work by the RTA conceived the pathway as the Ryde to Botany Bay Cycleway, as it started at the Parramatta River at Ryde, using the Concord Road Bridge, then continued along the Rhodes Peninsula to Strathfield via Powells Creek Corridor. This was later to become known as the ‘Bay to Bay Cycleway’.

With the completion of the link under the railway line at Tempe in 1993-4, and connections through Barton Park in Arncliffe, the Cooks River Pathway became, for the first time, a continuous pathway from Ryde to Botany Bay. This work was complemented by pathway construction around the shores of Botany Bay, and further south to Kurnell and Cronulla. Later work has included construction around the M5 South West Motorway development, and links along the eastern side of Alexandra Canal.

Since the late 1990s, efforts have been concentrated on improving and upgrading the Pathway structure and design. In 2005/06, a Pathway Development Strategy was prepared under the NSW Government’s Cooks River Foreshore Improvement Program. The Strategy was developed by bicycle planning consultants, with the participation of all six local councils along the route. It aims to ‘improve access, safety, useability and enjoyment of the path and its foreshores’ and introduce a range of signage. The Strategy included a prioritised and costed works program for each of the councils, designed to improve the Pathway and bring all sections up to an agreed standard. Councils are currently using the Strategy to upgrade the Pathway in sections.

Evaluation

The Cooks River Pathway encourages and enables active living in a number of ways. It is a good example of how a number of the design considerations set out in the ‘Walking and cycling routes’ section of Designing Places for Active Living can be put into practice. These include:

  • Plan and construct connected walking and cycling routes leading to local destinations and focal points such as shops, schools, parks and public transport stops.

Many shops and town centres are within easy reach of the Cooks River Pathway, for example at Canterbury and Hurlstone Park. The Pathway provides direct access to the Homebush West Children’s Centre, near Airey Park, and the Homebush West Community Centre, on Bates Street. It also passes close to the Homebush, Canterbury and Tempe railway stations, encouraging pedestrians and cyclists to commence or complete their trips by train at these points.

In addition, the Pathway passes through at least 20 council parks, including major parks such as Freshwater Park, Rosedale Park, Croydon Park and Gough Whitlam Park. Most of these are joined to form a continuous green corridor along the Cooks River Valley. Within these parks is a range of passive and active recreational facilities that are accessed by many people via the path. The majority of the parks are equipped with toilets and taps, and many contain children’s playgrounds, barbecue areas, seating and shelters – facilities that attract people of all ages and cater for a variety of active living experiences. For example, Gough Whitlam Park, adjacent to the path in Earlwood, has a children’s playground, picnic shelters, barbecues, toilets and dressing rooms with showers, and is a particularly popular destination for people who using the Pathway.

Facilities for more active recreation and sports that can be directly accessed from the Pathway include the Debbie And Abbie Borgia Recreation Centre on Illawarra Road in Marrickville, Tempe Recreation Reserve and Robyn Webster Indoor Sports Centre, Canterbury Aquatic Centre, Icerink and Racecourse in Canterbury, and the Kogarah Golf Course in Arncliffe. There are many bowling clubs, football fields, tennis courts, and netball courts along the route of the Pathway. Examples include soccer fields at Ewen Park in Marrickville, netball courts and an AFL oval at Picken Oval in Croydon, tennis courts at Cahill Park in Tempe and Tennent Parade, Hurlstone Park and bowling greens at Tempe, Marrickville and Strathfield.

  • Create stimulating and attractive routes to encourage repeated use with careful consideration of details such directness, lighting, shade, landscaping with appropriate species choice, pavement and edge treatments.

The Cooks River Pathway is a stimulating and attractive route by virtue of its river foreshore and parkland setting. The corridor also contains a number of cultural and environmental heritage features, which add to the interest for path users – these include remnant vegetation, the former Sugar Mill at Canterbury, and the Thomas Holt Burial Vaults in Warren Park. The Pathway is well lined with trees, and the number of trees is increasing over time as the various local councils increase the planted areas within their parks.

Repeated use of the path is encouraged because it offers multiple benefits for the people who use it. While many cyclists, walkers, joggers and other path users are at least partly motivated by health and fitness, the attractive nature of much of the Cooks River pathway means that it also provides opportunities for people to appreciate nature and experience social interaction, relaxation and peace and quiet.

Various community groups use the pathway for organised recreational activities, including many of the local Bicycle User Groups (or BUGS). It is also used for ‘interpretive walking tours’, and bicycle tours as part of the Riverlife project.

  • For on-road cycle routes, allocate sufficient operating space for cyclists and use signage and road marking to reduce ambiguity about where it is.

While the Cooks River Pathway is not an on-road route, issues of signage are still relevant. Existing signage provided along the path includes large signs with maps of relevant sections of the route, and wayfaring signage at various path and road intersections. The recently completed Cooks River Signage Strategy aims to improve, increase and co-ordinate signage along the entire length of the Pathway. The strategy considers three types of signage: behavioural and wayfaring signage, and ‘branding’ of the route. Behavioural signage encourages orderly and safe path use behaviour by both pedestrians and cyclists, which includes keeping to the left-hand side of the path, cyclists ringing a bell upon approach, pulling off the path when stationary and keeping dogs under control. Wayfaring signage assists path users to locate facilities and points of interest, making it easier to use the Pathway as a means of getting from A to B. Branding seeks to improve the overall image of the Cooks River Pathway as a regional facility. As part of this strategy, most of the councils along the path’s route have also produced bike plan maps and brochures for their Local Government Area, which contain information about the use of the Pathway and associated facilities.

  • Ensure that shared paths are carefully designed with sufficient width, gentle gradients and turns and marked centrelines.

Several of the path improvement projects that have been completed or are planned as part of the Pathway Development Strategy have aimed to replace existing narrow or otherwise sub-standard sections of the Pathway to a standard consistent with the RTA’s NSW Bicycle Guidelines. For example, the forthcoming upgrade of the 400 metre pathway section through Mackey Park involves replacing a broken 1.7 metre wide path with a new concrete path 3 metres wide. Other planned pathway improvement projects aim to address issues around steep gradients, sharp corners and inadequate sight lines. On the whole however, the topography is neither hilly nor too challenging for path users.

  • Locate secure bicycle storage conveniently close to building entries and/or at ground level in multi-storey buildings.

The six local Councils along the Cooks River Pathway have installed bicycle parking racks at key stopping points along the Pathway, including the Tempe railway station, the Canterbury Aquatic Centre, the Debbie and Abbey Borgia Community Recreation Centre, and at most parks and children’s playgrounds.

The Pathway is part of a larger regional cycleway network in Sydney, referred to as the Ryde to Botany Bay Cycleway. The Pathway is also an important regional ‘spine’ to which a number of local cycling routes are connected. These local routes are important ‘feeder’ routes to and from the Pathway, allowing path users to access the Pathway from their homes or other locations.

The Pathway is identified as part of the cycling networks of the bicycle plans of all of the councils along its route, and links to a number of other off-road regional cycleways, including for example, the Alexandra Canal Cycleway. The Cooks River Pathway is identified as a ‘Priority 1 Existing Regional Trail’ in the Sydney Metropolitan Strategy Regional Recreation Trails Framework, and as an existing regional cycleway in the Road and Traffic Authority’s Bikeplan 2010.

Project participants

The Pathway has been funded over time by Federal, State and Local Governments and has been constructed with the assistance of all of the councils along its route, under the coordination of the RTA.

  • Participants involved in the development of the current Cooks River Pathway Development Strategy are:
  • Local Councils: Burwood, Canterbury, City of Sydney, Marrickville, Rockdale and Strathfield
  • State Government agencies: Department of Planning (Cooks River Foreshore Improvement Program and Metropolitan Greenspace Program) and the Roads and Traffic Authority (constructing regional routes and giving cycleway grants to councils)
  • Masterplanner: Bicycle planning consultants: Sustainable Transport Consultants Pty Ltd, Jamieson Foley Traffic And Transport Pty Ltd, The Environment Works Pty Ltd and IN Partnership (Consulting Pty Ltd)
  • Project manager: Cooks River Foreshore Improvement Program (Department of Planning)

Project summary

Details of the Cooks River Pathway Development Strategy:

  • Location: Cooks River Pathway – Homebush to Rockdale/Kyeemagh (see above)
  • Completion date: Cooks River Pathway Development Strategy completed in December 2006
  • Design team: mainly bicycle planning consultants: Sustainable Transport Consultants Pty Ltd, Jamieson Foley Traffic And Transport Pty Ltd
  • Planning authority: Department of Planning and councils (see above)
  • Funding body: Department of Planning
  • Contract value: $45,000

Getting there

Further information

Endnotes

  1. Information sourced from the Heritage and conservation register, RTA website; http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=heritage.showAndid=4309574
  2. Riverlife is a joint initiative of Marrickville, Canterbury and Strathfield Councils, and is funded by the NSW Government under the Our Environment - It's a Living Thing program. Riverlife has involved a number of environmental and community initiatives, of which the walking tours are one example. The walks are led by trained volunteer guides, who interpret the history and stories of the Cooks River for tour participants. The tours are described as "an opportunity for local citizens to share knowledge and passions about the Cooks River in an interactive and engaging way". See Marrickville Council website: http://www.marrickville.nsw.gov.au/environment/riverlife.htm
  3. The Cooks River Pathway would also link to the proposed Cooks River to Iron Cove 'GreenWay', which, if built, would link the Cooks River Cycleway to the Hawthorne Canal Cycleway, and provide a continuous 'green corridor' between the Cooks River and Iron Cove. For more information on plans for the GreenWay, see: http://www.greenway.org.au/
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