Last leg for Smith Street works

We’re on the last leg of the Smith Street pop-up cycleway works with the eastern end of Smith Street to transition to a one-way road in early April.

Now that we’ve completed cycleway works on the western end of Smith Street, we’re getting ready to roll out the next stage of works after the Easter long weekend.

From Wednesday 7 April, the area east of the roundabout along Smith Street will transition to a one-way street. This will allow us to create a separated cycleway on the southern side of Smith Street.

At the same time, we’ll start works to convert a section of Harbour Street, between Smith and Cliff streets, to an on-road cycleway. Seven parking spaces along the northwest side of Harbour Street will be removed to facilitate this change.

Weather permitting, the works along both Smith and Harbour streets will be completed by the end of April.

Wollongong City Lord Mayor Councillor Gordon Bradbery AM said that this project was part of Council’s ongoing commitment to deliver improved cycling infrastructure as outlined in Council’s Cycling Strategy 2030.

“So far we’ve made good progress on the works along Smith Street. This next phase of works will connect the completed sections of the road and cycleway to the rest of Smith Street and on to the new on-road cycleway along Harbour Street to Cliff Road,” Cr Bradbery said.

“As we transition the rest of Smith Street to a one-way road, we’ll continue to support drivers with traffic control and signage to help mitigate confusion.”

Residents and businesses have been directly informed that access during the works will be available for Smith Street in a one-way easterly direction.

The works will continue with the same configuration as the completed western end of Smith Street and include new line marking and traffic separators to create the new cycleway and southside parking arrangements. Footpath and kerb ramps will also be installed at each road intersection to allow for cyclists to mount the footpath and cross intersections with pedestrians.

Once the works along Smith Street are completed, all parking will be restored on both sides of the road, adjacent to the newly installed cycleway and divided by line marking and traffic separators.

Residents in this area can still place bins out for collection as normal as waste trucks will have access to the kerbside for collection of bins both during and after construction.

“We understand that some of these changes will take time to get used to, especially for drivers who infrequently travel through the Wollongong CBD,” Cr Bradbery said.

“These works are an important step towards improving cycling access throughout Wollongong by providing more active transport opportunities for people of all cycling abilities. Our goal is to make it easier and more appealing for people to use a bike to travel across our city.”

Council has been working closely with Wollongong Public School. Families of students at the school, returning after the school holidays, will still be able to access the kiss and drop area on the southern side of Smith Street, near Church Street.

Families dropping students at St Mary’s Star of the Sea will still be able to turn right from Smith Street or Cliff Road onto Harbour Street as normal.

“Most of the work will have little impact on family drop-off and pick-up for students as we’ll be doing a large portion of work during the school holidays. However, once school goes back, we’ll have traffic control in place for the first week to help drivers come to grips with the new layout,” Cr Bradbery said.

“In the meantime, we know that school holidays mean that there will be lots of people travelling to and from our beaches and outdoor spaces. We ask all drivers to continue to follow the road rules, slow down around high pedestrian areas and plan your trip ahead of time.”

Once the final stage of works along Smith and Harbour streets are completed, we’ll begin works on Kembla Street to build an on-road cycleway between Smith and Crown streets for riders to travel in both directions. A full list of changes to Smith Street and our other pop-up cycling routes are available on our website.

These projects are proudly funded by the NSW Government in association with Wollongong City Council.