The problem of Chapel Street

In his October 2020 “Fast Lane” Henry Turnbull foreshadowed a post-COVID-19 increase in bicycle use for commuting leading to a battle for road space.

Nowhere are the battlelines clearer than in the 2km strip of Chapel Street between Dandenong Road in Windsor and Alexandra Parade in South Yarra.

This stretch of pavement is one of Victoria’s most dangerous with approximately 200 injury collisions including two fatalities in the five years to 2019.

Yet Chapel Street was recently declared a Strategic Cycling Corridor by the Department of Transport, and it was declared part of the Principal Bicycle Network a decade ago.

This so-called ‘Problem of Chapel Street’ has been kicked down the road by successive councils at Stonnington, but COVID-19 and the success of outdoor dining has meant that some traders are now prepared to repurpose at least some of the parallel car parks that represent the greatest threat to cyclists via car “doorings”.

As can be seen in Figure 10 from Plan Melbourne this Cycling Danger was recognised back in 2013.

While cyclists tend to spend less per shopping trip than drivers, they also tend to make more trips, contributing more total money into the local economy over time.

For example, masters student Alison Lee looked at the retail spend of cyclists on Lygon St and found that while the average cyclist’s retail spending is only $16.20/hr compared to a car driver’s $27.00/hr, six bicycles can park in the space required for one car.

Therefore, while one car space equates to $27 per hour retail spending, six bicycle spaces (of the same total space) equate to $97.20 per hour.

Latent demand in Chapel Street is of particular significance given that as many as half of the residents in the new Forrest Hill precinct towards the Yarra River do not own a motor car, and have no convenient means of accessing shops and facilities to their south.

Many people avoid cycling along Chapel Street for fear of injury,2 and congestion at peak periods can sometimes mean the 78 tram is little quicker than walking.

The Chapel Street precinct is not short of parking. GTA Consultants found that there is ‘surplus capacity’ in nearby offstreet car parking facilities, including during peak periods—and this was before the 500 car spaces were recently constructed at Prahran Square.3

While the economic impact of removing kerbside parking in Chapel Street has long been a traders’ concern, research from other shopping strips suggest that such worries can be overstated.

A 2015 literature review published in Bloomberg1 concluded that wherever bike-lane plans emerge, the “studies on possible economic impacts” requested by retailers all reach a similar conclusion: replacing on-street parking with a bike lane has little to no impact on local business, and in some cases might even increase business.

The City of Stonnington can therefore offer reliable, cheap and convenient off-street parking while creating more space for pedestrians, more outdoor dining spaces and safer infrastructure for cyclists and people with disabilities.

1 The Complete Business Case for Converting Street Parking Into Bike Lanes, “An annotated, chart-filled review of 12 studies from around the world”, 13 March 2015

2 City of Stonnington, Cycling Strategy 2020-2025 (Report, 2019) at 14

3 City of Stonnington, Cycling Strategy 2020-2025 (Report, 2019) at 23

Matthew Townsend is a member of the Victorian Bar and runs “SaferCyclingforStonnington”@sstonningtononTwitter.