The Sydney Cycling Corridor: Is this a simple, cheap way to help address cycling safety?

OK, so there's been plenty of finger pointing, hand wringing and angst over the 48 hours since the Mascot bike crash but a distinct lack of solutions to address the key issue of cyclist safety. We've had god know how many drivers complaining that cyclists don't pay rego (I've no idea how that would have helped), and plenty of cyclists ranting about poor driving.

So here's the idea. And I do think it quite novel. I can't lay claim to it (I'm not certain of the origin - it came up in an office discussion) but it needs some air to get going.

So the idea is the Sydney Cycling Corridor. Every Saturday and Sunday 10s of hundreds of Sydney Cyclists make the run south from Metro Sydney to Waterfall. Here's the basic route. The precise run varies club to club and group to group, but the journey is largely the same regardless if you set off from Kings Cross, Randwick, Newtown or Ashfield.  It's a solid 80 to 90 km hitout with about 500m of vertical ascent (a decent hitout by most standards). And the ride doubles as a launch point and one can easily bolt on the Royal National Park if you are craving more hills or kilometres.

The ride is popular because the roads are wide and well surfaced, the journey largely uninterrupted and traffic is also light on weekend mornings. Although the speed limits top 80 for cars, being multi lane roads and traffic being light getting around the cyclists is normally no issue. Until Sunday that is.

So why then don't we make the left lane both ways a cyclists only lane from 4am to 10am (the Sydney Cycling corridor) on Saturdays and Sundays? Given the roads are quiet it'll make zero difference to driving times (the cyclists are there already), and drivers are already used to time dependant road conditions (look at bus lanes, clearways, T2 and T3 lanes, school zones, etc). And it requires zero new infrastructure (so will be cheap) - just a few signs and some paint.

That's got to help - it separates the drivers and cyclists, which is universally agreed to make cycling a safer affair. The Sydney Cycling Corridor - not my own idea, but a rather good one I reckon.