Completed, the Park Street Streetscape Improvement Project would deliver on a critical part of our wider strategic approach, including the Domain Precinct Public Realm Masterplan, Greening Port Phillip, and Move, Connect, Live - Integrated Transport Strategy 2018-28 - our strategy to create a city that is connected and easy to move around in.

The Domain Masterplan also includes construction of the new Cobden Street Pocket Park, a review of parking restrictions across the precinct and work to provide additional parking space on Bank Street.

We know that parking is a key concern for many residents and businesses. The plans will see a reduction in parking along the street.

St Kilda Road to Kings Way

• Of the existing 23 spaces, 11 would be removed to provide enough space for the protected bike lanes, trees and garden beds
• To address this change - subject to your feedback - our plan is to:
  • maintain 12 of the existing parking spaces for short term drop-off and loading
  • convert 4 parking spaces on Wells Street and Palmerston Crescent, near the intersection of Park Street, to loading zones and short term drop-off bays.

Kings Way to Moray Street

• Of the 50 existing spaces, 12 need to be removed to provide sufficient road space to provide a temporary protected bike lane.
• To address this change - subject to your feedback - our plan is to:
  • repurpose the 4 existing taxi parking bays, adjacent to the Eastern Road Reserve for public use
  • relocate the car share bay to a nearby street
  • change the no limit parking spaces to short term parking to allow for greater turnover to support local resident and business parking.

Bank Street - additional parking

• Works have been undertaken on the adjacent Bank Street, between Kings Way and Wells Street, to provide an additional 30 parking spaces.

Parking review

• A local area parking review will be presented to Council in mid-2024. The parking review will seek to improve parking availability locally.

As part of these improvements, protected bike lanes are proposed between Moray Street and St Kilda Road as follows:

• permanent construction between Kings Way and St Kilda Road
• temporary provision between Moray Street and Kings Way.

The dedicated bike path has been designed with the following opportunities in mind:

• Safety is one of the primary reasons for prioritising the bike paths as part of the streetscape improvement project: this area has been nominated as road safety blackspot, with 20 crashes recorded in the past five years.
• Bike counts have been conducted showing a high number of bike riders moving through the street, unfortunately, many are using the footpath.
• The bike path will provide a key east-west connection for riders, linking Anzac Station and St Kilda Road to South Melbourne, and ultimately, to Fishermans Bend. Providing increased access to public transport and local businesses.

Kings Way to Moray Street

We’re working to deliver a network of connected bike lanes for people currently riding bikes, and to provide safe connections to support a wider part of the community to take up bike riding.

In the same way as there is a traffic network and public transport network, we also need a safe network of bike lanes to provide options for bike riders, no matter where they are coming from or heading to; the proposal for this section of Park Street would form another important link in this network.

The temporary bike path planned between Kings Way and Moray Street would allow for an unobstructed buffer between parked cars and the bike lane.

Informed by community feedback, we’re continuing to review the design of the proposed bike path in this part of the street and investigating opportunities to provide a reduction in bike lane width with a corresponding increase in the buffered protection zone between the bike lane and parked cars, allowing additional room for unloading and access to parked cars.

Careful marking of the parking bays will also help to ensure enough room is allowed for each bay to safely enable loading and unloading from the boot of parked cars.

Safety benefits

Separating bike lanes from moving traffic, to the inside of parked cars with a marked separation buffer, helps to reduce risk.

While most crashes, given the greater points of potential conflict, occur at intersections, ‘car-dooring’ (where a car door is opened, striking a passing bike rider) is a recurring problem across our municipality. It’s important to address this significant risk – a risk further heightened if a rider is then deflected into moving traffic, an event likely to cause significant injury, or worse.

Encouraging a wider range of people to safely ride their bike

Reducing crash numbers is one piece of the puzzle when looking at bike lanes. Providing physically separated bike lanes also provides a more community-inclusive approach to active transport.

It’s an approach that helps more vulnerable community members to feel safer and more confident when bike riding, in turn attracting a wider range of community members, of all ages and abilities, to take up this mode of transport – an increase that also contributes to reducing traffic and parking congestion.

The Masterplan incorporates many elements of the City of Port Phillip’s Move, Connect, Live strategy – our integrated transport strategy, 2018-28.

Specifically, the proposed bike links along Park Street would provide a more direct, safe connection into South Melbourne; its schools, homes, shops and market, and on towards Fishermans Bend.

Our hope is that enhanced rider access to Anzac Station, from both Park Street and Domain Road, and the improved bicycle infrastructure we'll be providing will encourage more bike riders to safely use this route.

Tree planting and greening on Park Street will play an important part in our ongoing commitment to create a more liveable City.

The proposed changes for Park Street, between Kings Way and St Kilda Road include:

• the retention and protection of large elm trees on the north side of Park Street near Kings Way.
• the removal and replacement of some trees
• installation of new trees, resulting in a total of 49 canopy trees
• 400 square metres of new low-level garden beds.

To achieve our goal of a greener, cooler more liveable City we developed the Greening Port Phillip Strategy.

At its heart, the strategy is driven by the concept of an urban forest. That concept includes:

• street trees, shrubs and ground cover - including garden beds - along streets, roads, median strips and roundabouts
• trees and gardens in other open spaces, such as shopping strips and industrial properties
• trees and gardens in public parks and reserves.

Information on the strategy is available here: Council’s Greening Port Phillip Strategy