SECTIONS of Wharf Road and Hunter Street will be reconfigured to create bike paths as part of two Newcastle council projects which have attracted $625,000 in NSW government funding.
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The council has won grants from the government's Streets as Shared Spaces Program, which was set up earlier this year to support social distancing and stimulate local economies.
It received $100,000 to create a three-metre wide shared path on Wharf Road, as well as a pop-up library and temporary art installation near Queens Wharf.
The path will allow people using the existing harbourside shared path to more easily detour around the Queens Wharf buildings. Work will begin in the area during October.
More than $500,000 will go towards a temporary cycleway and activation project on Hunter Street, which is in the early stages of planning and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2021.
Hunter Street will be modified between National Park Street and Worth Place to create single-direction separated cycleways on either side of the road.
The project falls under the west end streetscape plan the council adopted last year, but the single-direction paths are a change from the bi-directional cycleway that was proposed in the plan to run along the southern edge of Hunter Street between Wickham Park and Union Street.
Traffic lanes and parking spaces were set to be sacrificed in places for that path.
The council is yet to confirm how the two single-direction lanes will be accommodated in the street.
Newcastle lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes said the two funded projects would be reevaluated after a year and help guide the design of permanent improvements.
"This will allow us to implement a solution that makes it easier for cyclists and pedestrians to navigate their way around the Queens Wharf precinct, while the Hunter Street cycleway will provide connections to several key north/south links, which will enhance Newcastle's inner-city cycleway network," she said.
A $100,000 grant from the NSW government was used to construct a temporary bi-directional cycleway at the Honeysuckle end of Wharf Road in August.
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