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Revisiting the trail works

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Before and after shots of the recent trail works along the Yarra and Gardiners Creek trails.

Back in July I noted that several trail resurfacing jobs were in progress on the shared pathways that are part of my regular route. It’s long overdue, but here’s the final evaluation.

Yarra Trail

The Yarra Trail was ploughed up in May

The Yarra Trail was resurfaced by July

Beside the Yarra Boulevard, from St Kev’s boathouse to near MacRobertson’s Bridge, the entire pathway was ripped-up in May and relaid by July. I’m no road engineer but it’s pretty obvious that this was a professional job.

It’s good to see that the Yarra council trusts that path users are grown-up enough to share. No longer are there separate pathways for pedestrians and cyclists, there’s just one wide and smooth path with a line down the middle. The rest—quite rightly—is for we, the path users, to sort out among ourselves.

H.A. Smith Reserve

Just behind the Hawthorn velodrome in H.A. Smith Reserve, Boroondara Council recently tore-up a section of the Gardiners Creek Trail. The relaid path comes complete with concrete edges (very Boroondara, that!) that provide excellent edge lines in aid of the nocturnal walker and cyclist, and will hopefully extend the life of the sealed surface.

My only complaint (and it’s a minor one) is that the curve nearest the velodrome has been slightly realigned but nothing has been done to improve the camber.

The renewed section of track ends rather abruptly, which leaves us in hope that the contractors will be back at some future point to continue the work—hopefully all the way to Glenferrie Rd! (And even back to Toorak Rd, dare we hope?)

Dorothy Laver Reserve

And back in June Stonnington Boroondara had a couple of truckloads of bitumen dumped onto the trail at Dorothy Laver Reserve (AKA Glen Iris Park). This had all the hallmarks of a rush-job to use up some excess funds in the budget before the end of the financial year. I shouldn’t complain too much because one look at the photos tells you that this section of trail really did need some work—but you can also see that not much was done to eliminate lumps from the finished product!

6 May 2007

It’s been recently pointed out to me that Dorothy Laver Reserve is actually within the City of Boroondara, so the blame and credit for work done here belongs with them and not Stonnington. I should also point out that this dodgy truckload of asphalt turned out to be a temporary measure until a more substantial improvement was made less than a year later.

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