By JESSE GRAHAM
PRIMARY school students in the Yarra Valley will be able to learn bike skills before hitting the road, with a new track in Healesville opened last week.
On Friday 4 March, a new curcuit, Roll Play, was opened in Healesville’s Queens Park by the Yarra Ranges Council and community members, some of whom brought their bikes out to have a ride.
The path criss-crosses the grassy area near the Queens Park Kindergarten and the Healesville Tennis Club, featuring intersecting paths, safety signs and a roundabout for children to use.
Ryrie ward councillor Fiona McAllister met with the Mail ahead of the opening, and said that VicRoads Motorcycle Advisory Group member Heather Ellis helped make the track a reality.
Ms Ellis, who took her children, Ashton, Morgan and Ethan, for a ride on the new track, said there previously had been no “practical initiatives” for teaching road rules and safety to children.
“So I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we had traffic training tracks, like I rode on when I was a child?’,” she said.
After launching a petition, which gained more than 300 signatures, the council took up and funded the proposal.
By the time of the launch, the path boasted humps, winding areas and intersecting paths, with signs reading “give way”, a barbecue and open spaces for families to sit.
At the event, councillor Jim Child gave the track a try personally, along with plenty of kids.
Cr McAllister said the track would help primary school-aged children learn about sharing paths and roads with others before tackling the real thing.
“The schools were really pleased about it, and are already planning that they will bring their kids down to do Bike Ed,” she said.
“It’s got the educational piece, but it’s also really fun and builds on everything we’re trying to do in Queens Park at council.”
She said that planting would take place around the path in the coming months, and that the council would consider applying for VicRoads funding for road safety signs, such as stop and give way signs.
Cr McAllister said that, if the track was a success, she would like to see similar versions built across the Yarra Ranges.
