Cycling and Newtown - Part I

Newtown has a well earned reputation as the heart of Sydney cycling. Cyclists abound on and around King St, and the 'cyclists highway' of Wilson Street was the site of Sydney's first (I think) contra-flow cycle lane. According the NSW government's statistics web page; Newtown ranks second in NSW (really first, as O'Connor is in the A.C.T - strange that the website claims it as part of NSW) for the number of commuting cyclists.

The City of Sydney Council and Marrickville Council (joint custodians of Newtown) both have excellent cycling strategies online (Sydney and Marrickville). One key difference though is that Marrickville council have recently cut their cycling budget - despite the best intentions of the Greens - whereas Sydney Council are spending millions on implementing theirs.

The above dichotomy reveals are more general problem with cycle paths in Sydney. Given the state government's complete lack of interest in cycling, it's left in the hands of local councils. As a result, cycle paths (where they exists) typically stop at council boundaries (or anywhere else where the money happns to run out). The classic example of this in Newtown is the way the Stanmore - Newtown cycleway peters out at the corner of King Street and Mary Street, with an unfriendly one way street between it and the aforementioned Wilson Street cycle highway.

Amazingly there is a detailed plan to fix this intersection and unify these paths (on page 101 of Marrickville's cycle strategy) although no details on timing or funding (nor even whether the RTA would agree to losing one lane of one of the few East - West routes in inner-Sydney).


Sydney Council has recently announced plans for a Cycle Hub at Taylor Square. The planned hub will include showers and a bike repair centre. There are doubts about whether this is the right location for the hub; on the positive side it's on the intersection of three major cycle routes; on the other hand it's not clear it's close enough to offices to be really useful for commuters.


Newtown's Hub would seem like an obvious site for a similar facility (we can't let Surry Hills get one up on us) - perhaps associated with the community centre in my old office (a.k.a the Town Hall) - situated as it is at the intersection of several bike routes. It could act as a de facto bike parking facility for Newtown Station, given that Railcorp will not commit to decent bike facilities. What do you think ?

In Part 2 I'll discuss in more detail some of the local routes in and around Newtown and planned upgrades; in the meantime here are some (hopefully) useful links - let me know if I've missed any !

• Bike Sydney
  BIKESydney was formed in 2000 to help look after the Sydney City Council Area (Australia) and is affiliated with Bicycle NSW.
• Massbug
  Local bicycle group covering Marrickville and former South Sydney Council areas. The group meets on the first Wednesday of the month at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre at 7:30pm.
  
• Bicycle NSW
  Peak cycling body providing advice, insurance, ride events bike shop discounts and Australian Cyclist magazine to members
  
• RTA Cycleways
  The RTA has produced Cycleway maps for Newcastle, Central Coast, Illawarra and Sydney regions.
• Sydney Community College
  Offers short affordable cycling courses to improve your skills and confidence in riding a bike.

Mystery Photo VIII - Lost Balloon

The Narrow Lane didn't take too long to identify - again ! Before I resort to really obscure photos; here's one more 'street level' mystery photo to test your knowledge of Newtown. Can you help the Sydney Festival folk relocate their lost yellow balloon ? It's come to rest somewhere in Newtown ...

Mystery Photo VII - Narrow Lane

Time for the first Mystery Photo of 2010. Somewhere in Newtown is this faded sign - where exactly ?

Newtown Hub Update

This weeks Inner West Courier has an article on Newtown's Hub, although unfortunately there is no news as such. The owner, Chris Vlattas, is quoted blaming Marrickville Council for the lack of progress in turning The Hub into an entertainment venue, a charge which the council quite reasonably denies given the most recent DA was for shops and offices (see my take from last year).

Maybe the publicity will force those interested to discuss sensible options for the venue; certainly Newstown readers have come up with some creative ideas. Use of such an iconic building for shops and apartments would really be a shame. Some sort of concert / cinema venue would be the most logical use - but I'd love to see some more original ideas !

Here's hoping - one thing for sure is that The Hub has stood empty for way too long.

Posted via email from Mayor's posterous

Newtown Hotel Renovation Proposal

Image - Humphrey Edwards Interior Designers and Architects

It's been a while since I've been as excited about a development proposal as this one. The main reason (apart from the re-opening of a venue that's been closed for way too long) is that this proposed renovation includes the reconstruction of the original verandas. There are several diagram of how it might look, including a front view here (pdf).

I'd like to complement the consultants on the detailed preparation done for this D.A; I've never seen such a well researched application. Anyone interested in local history should take a look at the Heritage Appendices (Appendix 3.x), and there's a lot of information on how the renovated hotel will look in other documents.

Gleeson Grocers - (c) City of Sydney Archives

Those of you familiar with old photos of Newtown will know that these verandas were once commonplace along King Street. These days however they're virtually non-existent - instead mostly replaced by awnings and occasionally (C.B.A. building for example) nothing at all.

Hopefully this D.A (if approved) will be the start of a trend; I imagine one of the motivators for this is the provision of smoking area - an unfortunate consequence of the indoors smoking ban in pubs (which the mayor loves) is that the best areas of many bars (the outdoors ones) now resemble ashtrays - but these verandas provide a neat solution for those bars that don't have outdoor areas; as well as extending table space for dining areas.

More positively this could increase the utility of the first floor of the buildings along King Street; hopefully some first floors could become small bars or even restaurants if verandas become more prevalent. I'd love to see official council policy encourage recreation of verandas along King Street - someone should speak to the Mayor !

I'm not aware of all the details of the dispute between the building owners and Newtown Hotel operators; although there is some good background here and here. The most recent news suggests that a compromise was brewing - here's hoping that's the case. I'd be interested if anyone has some inside info - drop me a note.

The trading hours requested are only to midnight - personally I think this is a shame; with the restriction on using the King Street entrance only after 11pm I can't see why the bar can't stay open until a few hours later. The proposed design also seems to include private dining rooms - and even a function area (see the 2nd floor plans), as well an internal courtyard and outdoor dining area.

All in all, a promising looking D.A - let's hope it gets up, and sparks a trend for the re-veranda-isation (there's a neologism for you) of King Street.

Newtown What's On - Weekly Events and Links

My attempt to run a weekly Newtown what's on took too much time for too little feedback; so I've decided to produce a semi-regular update of all the weekly events in Newtown and a collection of links to use to see what's on for a given week.

As always, if you run a venue and want to be included, drop me a note. If you're got some time on your hands and are happy to help prepare a weekly guide, then I'd love to hear from you on my gmail address.

Regular Events

Funky Deli Cafe, 256King St Newtown
Live music 7 days

Madame Fling Flong
- Tuesday night movie $20 with drink/mezze. Bookings advised.

Sandringham Hotel
- Live music every night and Sunday afternoons

Town Hall Hotel
- Local DJs Friday nights 11pm - 4am
- YourSpace Wednesday nights

Eveleigh Markets
- Farmer's Market every Saturday 8:00 - 13:00
- Eveleigh Artisans Markets first Sunday of the month

Addison Rd Centre, 142 Addison Road Marrickville
- Marrickville Organic Markets every Sunday 8:30 - 15:00

Marly Markets
First Saturday every month
Marlborough Hotel, Corner King St and Missenden Road, Newtown

Venues

Vanguard, 42 King St, Newtown
Factory Theatre, 105 Victoria Road, Marrickville
Sound Lounge at Seymour Centre, Corner City Rd and Cleveland St
Enmore Theatre, 119-132 Enmore Road, Newtown
Town Hall Hotel, next to the Station
Sandringham Hotel, 387 King St Newtown

Theatre

Newtown Theatre, Corner King and Bray St, Newtown
New Theatre, 542 King St, Newtown
Seymour Centre, City Road, Newtown

Galleries

Wilson Street Gallery, 30-34 Wilson St Newtown

Happy Anniversary to Newstown

This October marks 6 months since the Mayor of Newtown launched in the blogger world; simultaneously creating a presence on Twitter to spread Newtown news to the world. Since then, the Mayor has also appeared on Facebook, and more recently Posterous, a holding place for posts too short for Newstown but too long for Twitter.


As this is also the 50th post on Mayor of Newtown, I thought I'd indulge myself in some 'nostalgia' and review some of the most popular posts in the last 6 months. Like the Mayor himself, readers are very interested in urban development, with 4 of the 5 most visited posts relating to Newtown's physical environment. The most popular post of all was the discussion of the long-awaited plans to renovate Newtown Station (with more than 400 views). Development plans for the Hive and discussion of the long vacant Hub site also made the Top 5; as did one of the Mayor's own Top 5 series; Newtown's Top 5 Eyesores, a look at the not so great architectural treasures of Newtown.

Eyesore or Potential Gem ?

The only post not related to urban development in the Top 5 relates to another interest of the Mayor's; the controversial ranking of Newtown's Top 5 Pubs. Top5 Cafe's and Cheap Eats are in the pipeline, so stay tuned and please drop any suggestions to the Mayor.

The Mystery Photo series has been popular in terms of visitors if not contributors - one problem being that the locations are identified too quickly by sharp eyed visitors. The most popular of all (and longest lasting) was Milestones - go and see if you can identify it if you haven't already.

Milestone

On the negative side, Newtown What's On didn't really strike a chord and was abandoned after a couple of months. Maintaining it simply required too much effort and didn't get the number of hits (averaging 50-odd a week) to justify the time. That could change though, especially if there's a volunteer out there to help compile and promote the list (email the Mayor if you're interested).

Going forward, there's a backlog of reviews and Top 5s to complete; redevelopment plans to watch, new shops to visit (Magnation anyone ?) and things to write about I haven't even thought about yet.

So many thanks to all who've visited and contributed to Newstown over the last 6 months. Like all bloggers the Mayor loves visitors and loves getting comments even more - so even if it's your first visit here, please take the time to say hello, ask a question or request a feature.