New year, new walking and cycling projects!
As the year draws to a close, we at Unley BUG are reflecting on the year that has been and the year that is to come. 2025 felt like the proverbial calm before the storm: not many new pieces of infrastructure were built, but many were announced and we can expect to see numerous walking and cycling improvements coming to our streets starting from the beginning of the new year!
Perhaps the biggest and most long-awaited project is the reconstruction of the Mike Turtur Bikeway on King William Rd between the tramline and Greenhill Rd, which will be starting in January 2026. In return for a few months of disruption, this section of the street will see a widened shared path, generous buffered bike lanes and TWO median-refuge pedestrian crossings installed where there are currently none!
Further down the Mike Turtur Bikeway, work has already started by council on the Railway Tce South streetscape improvements near Goodwood Primary School. While normally quiet, this street gets very busy at school times and so the improvements aim to slow down car traffic, reduce crossing distances for people on foot and increase greenery – all of which will make the street safer for the many children and families who walk and cycle to the primary schools in the area! The project is scheduled to complete construction in February.
Many in the community would also have noted the partial opening of the widened archways under the tramlines on either side of Goodwood Station. Don’t believe the hype – they don’t replace the cancelled overpass as they neither provide equitable access to the train station nor a safe, convenient crossing of the train tracks. It’s a real shame that the government listened to a few loud voices instead of doing what would have made the area significantly safer and more accessible for everyone! But we digress.
The western archway is currently open and the eastern archway is due to open in late January, presumably to coincide with the reopening of the Mike Turtur Bikeway in general as the new overpasses closer to Glenelg come on line. The detours in the area are constantly changing: see below for the most recent map, showing the detours that will be in place from January 5, 2026 until the completion of the project in late Jan.
The first half of 2026 will also see the construction of two projects that Unley Council was recently successful in securing funding for: improvements to the Rugby-Porter Bikeway through Haslop Reserve, and part of the Wood-Weller Bikeway Stage 5 near Heywood Park. You can read more about these projects here.
Unley BUG 2026 State Election Wishlist
With a state election looming in the new year, Unley BUG has put together a wishlist of walking and cycling improvements we’d like to see in our area and across the state more generally.
These lists have been created out of the many conversations we’ve been having with you all over the years: the community, council, attendees at our social rides… We know that these projects are important and will make a real difference to making walking and cycling in our city better for everyone.
We’ve sent these lists to the local election candidates in Unley and Badcoe and extended an open invitation for those candidates to attend any of our public events like our social rides. Several candidates have already attended and we have had discussions with several others. We’ll be sharing the responses we receive from candidates as the election draws closer.
We encourage anyone who is interested to use these as starting points for your discussions with candidates or each other, in Unley or further afield.
Young St Bikeway passes council
Council has UNANIMOUSLY VOTED to proceed with detailed design (and eventually construction) for the Young St Neighbourhood Bicycle Route improvements from Unley Rd all the way to Glen Osmond Rd!
In making the decision, every single councillor acknowledged the importance of this route and recognised council’s role as leaders to listen to the concerns of local residents, yes, but ultimately to make the project happen for the benefit of the wider community. Unley BUG commends our Unley councillors for their leadership and the council design staff for listening to community feedback and look forward to a safer, more accessible Young St being made a reality.
Expect to see further improvements coming to the Young St bikeway soon too: the section between Unley Rd and King William Rd has two roundabouts that are well beyond their use-by date and ripe for replacement with best-practice designs that will make the street safer for people walking and cycling. Watch this space!
Safety improvements for Wattle St
In early December, Unley Council voted unanimously to progress with detailed design for short term cycling safety upgrades on Wattle St in the section between Unley Rd and Glen Osmond Rd.
Wattle St is an important east-west connection in the heart of our city and one that has been, until now, neither safe (tragically – a cyclist was killed) nor convenient to use for people wishing to cycle in our city. What has been approved to progress isn’t a fully separated bikeway, no. That will and must come in the future. But in deciding to proceed with a ‘not perfect but quick’ solution of painted bike lanes and narrowed car lanes, council recognises that safety can’t wait, and that small improvements delivered rapidly and incrementally can have real impact.
Unley BUG are supportive of this decision and wish to see this project be brought to reality as soon as possible. If it can be combined with a reduction in the speed limit on Wattle to 40km/hr (as has already been approved by council – it just needs DIT approval) then the safety benefits will be multiplied. We also look forward to this being a stepping stone to a proper, separated bikeway in the future when the entire street is up for replacement.
We are grateful to our decision makers for having the leadership to take walking and cycling safety seriously, and for council staff for having the care and diligence to design streets that work better for everyone.
Planning for Growth: Unley as THE place to live for a car-lite lifestyle
In case you’ve missed it, the City of Unley is currently consulting with the community on a plan for how we might best welcome the future residents to our city.
Unley BUG supports the potential for well-managed growth to make our city more affordable and more accessible to a wider range of people. We believe that, done well, Unley’s plan for growth can cement Unley as THE place to choose to live for a lifestyle that is local, walkable, cyclable and car-lite, for people of all stages of life.
You can read our full submission to council here.
Hutt St Redesign: an opportunity missed
We know that many residents of Unley love to ride their bike to the City of Adelaide and would do so more often if there was more cycling-friendly and pedestrian-first main streets directly connected by safe, convenient cycling networks to Unley. After all, the parts of Unley with the highest rates of cycling are those nearest the city!
It’s therefore such a shame to learn that the City of Adelaide has rejected the community’s preferred design for the revitalisation of Hutt St in favour of a design that essentially maintains the status quo. This means that the proposal for a continuous run of footpaths as wide as the widest parts of footpath today, more greenery, more outdoor dining, more public seating AS WELL AS continuous, raised, wide separated bike lanes has been thrown out the window.
What happened on Hutt St ultimately showed that community support, favourable economic analysis and even the dictates of federal funding continue to be overriden by the power of vested interests. A small group of loud, well-connected opposition were able to use their connections in state and federal politics (see here and here) as well as the media to force a repeal of the walkable, cyclable, people-first design that the community repeatedly said they wanted. And then have the nerve to deviously frame the now almost like-for-like asset replacement project as a ‘compromise’. It’s enough to make one hang one’s head in despair… EXCEPT!
The whole process has shown how lucky and forward-thinking the people and council of Unley are in quietly but steadily making our city a better place to be, one project at a time. In Unley, it’s so heartening to see how the combination of elected member leadership, council staff expertise and community support (that’s you all! and us!) drives real and transformative change over time in Unley. I mean, where else do you see children cycling on their own regularly? Families? Retired couples?
We even have what is probably the most successful recent example a main street revitalisation in Adelaide, one where street space was boldly reallocated away from car parking and invested in a fantastic, people-first pedestrian experience. Yes, we are talking about King William Rd, and despite what the hecklers in the Adelaide City Council gallery would say, it’s currently thriving.
2026 will see both a new version of Unley’s Walking and Cycling Plan along with a whole new council following elections in November. Unley BUG will continue to advocate for and celebrate an Unley that puts people first in its public spaces. Here’s to that – Happy New Year! 🥳
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