Massive Network Of ‘Greenways’ Proposed For Sydney

A leading think tank has called for a network of walking and cycling corridors, similar to the GreenWay and Bay Run in the Inner West, across Sydney.

The Committee for Sydney’s Breathable Density report argues for parks and waterways across Sydney to be linked together, to make the most of the city’s natural assets and enhance the living standards of its growing population.

Its many big-ticket items include, non-exhaustively, a corridor from the ocean at Bondi to the harbour, then tracing its foreshore; one from Port Botany to the Western Sydney Parklands via the Cooks River and Prospect Canal; between the Parramatta and Georges rivers; and from the harbour to Botany Bay via Centennial Park. Some of the projects are already being pursued by councils.

Some corridors already in public hands

Estelle Grech is the Committee for Sydney’s Planning Policy Director. “We’ve got the harbour, beautiful rivers and creeks, and some hugely popular active recreation routes — we just need to do a better job of connecting it all together,” she said.

“As we build the housing Sydney desperately needs, we need to build the recreation opportunities to match. The good news is that some of the lowest hanging fruit is already in public hands, it’s just locked behind fences.”

Grech envisioned “routes where walkers, runners, kids on scooters, bike riders and commuters can get out in nature while getting from A to B.”

“Done well, a network like this would give every Sydneysider — not just the leafy suburbs in the east — the kind of active recreation links that get you from the front gate and into a city full of parks, pools, rivers and wherever else you want to get to.”

She identified the 35-kilometre Prospect to Port Botany and 25-kilometre Parramatta to Georges routes as particularly important to better integrating the city.

Link from Bondi to harbour underway

Woollahra mayor Sarah Dixson (Liberal) told the City Hub that the municipality supports the report’s vision, “but the Bondi to harbour greenway on their map isn’t a proposal for us, it’s an existing project.”

“The Committee for Sydney is describing something Woollahra has already been getting on with.”

“Our O’Sullivan Road Recreational Path delivers 1.7 kilometres of separated cycleway and shared path from Rose Bay Wharf to Old South Head Road, linking to Waverley Council’s Curlewis Street cycleway and on to Bondi Beach. We identified it as a priority in our Active Transport Plan in 2023, we’ve funded it, and construction starts late this year. It links to the Double Bay to Rose Bay cycleway at the western end and completes a four-kilometre loop for walkers, runners and riders. That’s the Bondi to harbour link, delivered by us.” 

Dixson said that the question is not if such projects are achievable, but “whether the state will do its share on the corridors no single council can build, like Centennial Park to Botany Bay.” 

She also noted that “a greenway without canopy is just a strip of asphalt.” The council’s Urban Forest Strategy aims to plant 8,800 new trees in a decade and achieve a canopy covering 30 per cent of the local area by 2050. 

“Woollahra is facing the biggest increase in density this area has seen, and the same government pushing rezoning in Woollahra hasn’t put a cent toward the open space that makes the density it seeks liveable. If the Government is serious about housing affordability and about families staying in Sydney, fund access to the parks, beaches and harbour that make density work.”

Good for economy, says mayor

In a press release from the Committee for Sydney, Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne (Labor) said that the GreenWay from Iron Cove to the Cooks River “shows exactly what can happen when we invest in green infrastructure.”

“The GreenWay has been going gangbusters with thousands of people moving along it since it opened.”

“Since the GreenWay opened, nearby businesses have seen a massive uptick in trade. More GreenWays across Sydney will have a similar positive impact on our whole city.”