The born again bike rider Matt Abraham ABC 891 has wrote another account in the messenger news of the haphazard nature of cycling in Adelaide. The Mike Turtur bikeway is front and centre.
 
"LIKE so many things, the Mike Turtur Bikeway starts off with the very best of intentions.
Starting at the Greenhill Rd tram stop, it whisks you away from the dangerous traffic and all the fumes and cares of the world, as you pedal gaily along your own dedicated bicycle path running alongside the tram tracks.
This is going to be so good, you think, as your speedo registers 30km/h and bugs slam into your new red helmet. Before you can say Lance Armstrong we will be at The Bay, sniffing the ozone wafting across the gulf.
A tram rumbles by and you smile at the passengers. Good afternoon. Lovely day.
Just as you start to relax, the bikeway vanishes into a row of parked cars at the Goodwood Rd tram crossing. What the ... ?
Dismounting, you cross Goodwood Rd, hop back on the bike and start pedalling down another street lined with parked cars.
Is this still the Mike Turtur Bikeway? At the end of the street you encounter a path that ducks through a medieval archway beneath the overpass that elevates the tram over the top of the railway line.
You ride through this and then are instructed to dismount and walk your bike down the underpass running beneath the railway station. It is an offence to ride down the underpass.
At this stage you might come to the reasonable conclusion that the bikeway planners got bored and started work on another little project, like the Olympic Dam expansion.
Persevere. Emerging blinking in the sunshine on the other side of the tracks, you find yourself going around in slow circles in a carpark, with other puzzled riders.
Is this the Mike Turtur Bikeway? Probably.
Keep going through the carpark, down a street and you will find yourself back on a stretch of dedicated bicycle path, again running along the tram tracks. This brings you to the new South Rd tram bridge, an entertaining cycling challenge.
Brilliantly, the bike path runs up the bridge and at the summit you can look down on the South Rd traffic fuming metres beneath you and into the backyards of all the surrounding houses.
You then get to coast at blinding speed down the other side and then ... the Mike Turtur Bikeway empties into a side street. Again.
In the words of one blogger, the bikeway is a dog’s breakfast. It is particularly confusing for beginners, born-again cyclists and Middle Aged Men in Lycra, or MAMILs, who are seeking out safe cycling routes quarantined from Adelaide’s crazy traffic.
For all that, the Mike Turtur Bikeway is an admirable attempt to retrofit a long stretch of congested suburbia with a dedicated cycle path. It is no easy feat. And once you have nutted out its foibles, it is possible to navigate from the eastern suburbs to Glenelg in relative safety.
But the twists and turns of the bikeway illustrate the haphazard nature of Adelaide’s cycling infrastructure.
The Adelaide CBD has 33km of bike routes, but most of them share the same asphalt space with traffic and parked cars. It is a dangerous medley.
Putting aside the paradise of the Torrens linear park, Adelaide is short-changed for dedicated, sealed, off-road bikeways.
Adelaide Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood dinkeyed into office on the back seat of the cycling lobby, and to his credit is pushing a policy to make the city bike friendly. But the council needs to back him enthusiastically.
And while government ministers drape themselves in Lycra for the annual Lance-fest, they need to do less talking and more doing to make cycling safe right across the metropolitan area. It is not just about money, but clever thinking.
Melbourne has recently turned Swanston St, one of its busiest city thoroughfares, into a car-free zone, giving bike riders, pedestrians and trams a free reign. If the Vics can do it, why can’t we?"
Article http://messenger-news.whereilive.com.au/blogs/story/on-yer-bikeand-off/