Evaluation

The Fernleigh Track has become a well-used and well-loved piece of local infrastructure[i]. The track enables and encourages active living by providing an opportunity for walking and cycling, for both commuters and more recreational users. It provides a link from the surrounding suburban area to a pleasant natural and semi-natural corridor.

The Fernleigh Track is a good example of a project that fulfils the PCAL design objective for walking and cycling routes – namely providing ‘an accessible and integrated network of walking and cycling routes for safe and convenient travel to local destinations and between key land uses within urban places’. The Track demonstrates the application of a number of the design considerations set out in the ‘Walking and cycling routes’ section of Designing Places for Active Living. 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.

As Newcastle City Council puts it on their website, ‘The Fernleigh Track links places and people’. It is ‘perceived as a central spine that links a range of natural and built attractions and other transport routes’. As some suburbs along the track are not directly connected by the road network, the Track provides a useful network for cyclists and pedestrians.

The track links residential areas to a number of local destinations and facilities, including local schools, Adamstown railway station, Whitebridge local shops, the Westfield Kotara shopping complex, and a number of local sports fields. Once complete, Stage 3 will provide access to Redhead beach, surf club and local shops.

• Create safe places for people to walk and cycle, which are overlooked by buildings and have clear sightlines.

As an off-road walking and cycling route, the track is a safer and far preferable alternative to the busy Pacific Highway. As a result of its former use as a rail corridor, the track is unusually long, direct, relatively continuous and flat, with clear sightlines. It provides an easy, peaceful and safe transport route through a suburban area.

There are only four points on the current Track at which cyclists and walkers meet the traffic. These either feature refuge islands – as at Dibbs Street, Adamstowna – that assist cyclists to cross the road, or have had traffic lights installed by the RTA to improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians – for example, at Burwood Road, Kahibah. At the point where the track meets the busy Pacific Highway, it runs through a tunnel, providing a safe and convenient route under the road. Lights have been installed in the tunnel for safety. Stage 3 will be a completely off-road section, passing through tunnels under Dudley and Oakdale Roads in Whitebridge.

The track passes through a mix of bushland and residential areas, and several sections are overlooked by houses, providing a modest level of passive surveillance for track users. Stage 3 will commence in the local residential setting of Whitebridge, with the majority of the track passing through bushland before arriving in the Redhead coastal residential area.

• 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 location of this track along a bushland corridor naturally means it is a scenic and stimulating route. However, as the Implementation Plan stresses, the industrial heritage of this former rail corridor also helps make it a stimulating and interesting route. The development of the Track has sought to maintain some of the reminders of this heritage, and has involved considerable attention to detail. For example, much of the disused rail line has been preserved along the route. Seats and bicycle racks have been installed (with support from Rotary Charlestown), and parts of the existing rails have been reused in the design of some of these. Other features added during the development of the Track have helped improve the experience for users. For example, a rest stop has been built at Whitebridge, with seating and a water bubbler, and there is also a picnic area adjacent to the path.

The Track passes through various natural and semi-natural environments, and this encourages repeated use by providing an opportunity for people to escape the urban environment and connect with nature. Parks and reserves adjacent to the corridor include Glenrock State Recreation Area, Awabakal Nature Reserve and Jewells Wetland, which incorporate natural settings including open forest, open and closed heath, remnant rainforest and wetlands. When Stage 3 is completed, the track will also provide access to the spectacular Redhead Beach.

The Fernleigh Track was 2007 NSW Regional Winner of a Parks and Leisure Australia Management Award for Open Space Development.

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

The track is 3 metres wide, with edge safety rails where necessary, and a marked centreline and signage for users. It has been carefully designed to allow sufficient width for pedestrians and cyclists to share the facility safely. Because of its previous use as a railway corridor, the track is either flat or has very gentle gradients. This makes it accessible to people of all fitness levels, and to a range of users, from adults to children, cyclists to walkers or joggers and people pushing prams or walking dogs.

• Connect local walking and cycling networks to regional routes linking centres and facilities.

The Fernleigh track connects to the broader local walking and cycling network at several points, and is easily accessed from the surrounding suburban areas of Whitebridge, Dudley, Kahibah, Highfields, Kotara South, Adamstown and Adamstown Heights. Ideal entry points are at Station Street, Whitebridge and Dibbs Street, Adamstown, which includes a sealed car parking area.

At Kahibah Station, the cycleway is crossed by the Great North Walk, a 250 kilometre bushwalking trail linking Sydney city with the Hunter Valley and Newcastle.