I live in Hunters Hill (NSW) and commute to and from the City several days per week in peak hours. The good thing about the trip is that I can stay off the main road (Victoria Road) for much of the journey. The bad part is that most of the trip is spent on a shared roadway/cycleway and a shared foortpath/cycleway, which runs alongside Victoria Road. The latter is very uneven; narrow in parts, and converges at non-traffic-light-controlled intersections. This combination results in many near misses between pedestrians; cyclists, and cars as each tries to get out of the way of the others. The uneven surface also causes many flat tyres; broken spokes, etc as well as a very uncomfortable trip.

Once in the City (via the old Pyrmont Bridge at Darling Harbour) the shared footpath/cycleway ends at the bottom of King Street and it's very much a case of "rider beware" from that point on as the fast-moving traffic coming off the Western Distributor jockeys for priority on the same street.

Ditto on the return joiurney along Park Street where the new cycleway runs down the middle of the Westbound traffic lane (!!!) before ending abrubtly at George Street. To get from here back to Darling Harbour requires a lot of caution since the Park Street lanes converge into two lanes on the other side of George Street (Druitt Street). Once in this area it's back to negotiating with the traffic (including a steady stream of buses) to get from the extrenme keft-hand side of Druitt Street into the RH lane before entering Clarence Street to get to Market Street, and then to the bottom end of King Street again (usually along the footpath to stay clear of the traffic).

Some lobbying needs to be done to build some CBD cycleway links to connect the various cycleways that lead into and out of the CBD. Likewise, the route between Hunters Hill (and beyond) and the CBD carries a lot of bicycle traffic and its time some lobbying was carried out to get a decent cycleway constructed along this route.

Regards.