The dream of a continuous off-road cycleway around Alexandra Canal will be ruined by Sydney Water's plans to put a desalination pipeline across its path. Sydney Water will build a "mound" to allow vehicles to cross over the pipeline, which will be raised more than a metre above ground.

In Sydney Water's plans, seen in the diagram below, cyclists travelling along the waterside route will be forced off the cycleway and onto a road. While experienced cyclists will have no trouble negotiating the route, it will put it off limits to less experienced cyclists, as well as families with small children who don't feel safe mixing with traffic. The off-road cycling experience will be lost.

Desalination Diagram: Sydney Water's disastrous desalination pipeline

As you can see in the diagram, there are 2 major cycling routes: The Cooks River to Qantas Drive commuter route (marked in green), and the Waterside route which follows the shores of the canal (marked in red). The red Waterside route will be broken by the mound, forcing cyclists to mix with cars.

In addition, the gradient of Sydney Water's mound will be unnecessarily steep, making the route difficult for cyclists with physical disabilities. There are already cyclists who ride daily along the Cooks River to Qantas Drive route using hand cranked bicycles, and who will have difficulty doing it after Sydney Water has finished rearranging the area. Cyclists will be left worse off.

Despite the desalination project costing billions of dollars, Sydney Water does not believe it is worth spending the small amount of money to widen its "mound" to accommodate the off-road cycleway. Local cycling groups, Massbug and BikeSydney have been trying since 2007 to arrange a meeting with Sydney Water about the issue, to no avail. Sydney Water stated that cyclists input "would not add any further value".