“Architecturally Sensitive”: Sydney Harbour Bridge Cycleway Opens

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is welcoming a rare addition to its architecture today, with its long-awaited new cycleway opening up to riders.

The $39 million project has been in the works for years, ending the decades of cyclists who’ve been forced to drag their bikes up the bridge’s northern 55 stairs, especially those riders who are older or have heavier e-bikes.

Three meters wide for traffic in both directions, the ramp creates a continuous north-south route across the Harbour Bridge with links into the CBD via Kent Street, out to Sydney’s east via the Oxford Street Cycleway and to the west via the ANZAC Bridge.

It’s been thoughtfully designed to fit into its surroundings, with granite sourced from Moruya, the same location the granite for the Harbour Bridge pylons came from, and 1500 bronze balustrades made from the same alloy type of the Sydney Opera House.

Cyclists are accompanied on their journey by a pathway of intertwining eels under their wheels, constructed out of 130,000 granite pavers by Aboriginal artists Jason Wing and Maddie Gibbs, the eels honouring the connection of the Gadigal and Cammeraygal people have to the land.

Bike traffic expected to surge

The cycleway had been long-protested by Milsons Point locals, who were concerned that the ramp was too “linear” for the area, and would compromise the heritage of the Bridge and the area around it.

Transport Minister John Graham said that the ramp was a long overdue improvement for Sydney’s cyclists, and was an architecturally sensitive addition to lead engineer John Bradfield’s iconic Coathanger.

“John Bradfield’s original vision for the Harbour Bridge incorporated space for bicycles on the deck of the Bridge, but they were squeezed out by the growth of vehicle traffic by 1962,” he said. “Bike traffic across the Harbour Bridge has surged in recent years and this ramp will unlock even more by delivering equality of access.”