Image courtesy of Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery
Today there’s yet another all singing all dancing article in todays Age stating how $60m allocated towards cycling in Sir Rod’s report is all wonderful and grand and we all should be happy tra la la la for the Joys of Segregated Cycling Facilities.
Bicycle Victoria’s strategy aims to quadruple the number of cyclists commuting to work in the city. In March last year, bicycle traffic accounted for 7.9% of all vehicles entering the CBD (up from 3.9% in 2006). Some of Bicycle Victoria’s ideas are simple and inexpensive, such as painting the bicycle lane green, or placing a rubber strip or a vibrating line between the bicycle lane and the road. Others are more sophisticated and expensive, such as the route now in place in Swanston Street where concrete barriers and a row of parked cars stand between cyclists and the traffic. This has become known as the Copenhagen lane.
But there is no discussion about attitudinal change or awareness. The reality is that element maybe beyond the scope of Rods homework, but just how does someone starting out (either vehicle operator or cyclist) acquire the confidence or skills base to negotiate with other road traffic if they are instructed only by infrastructure to ignore each other?
Will every suburban street have nifty green lane markings or white lines or a physical barrier or a separate bicycle path network (a la Jetsons) that will allow cyclists to magically travel to where ever they like in Melbourne?
Will separate facilities also have a positive side effect of getting Neil Mitchell to STFU?
Although with a aging population and shrinking tax base I don’t think government will be seriously interested in that option for any longterm policies. All I want is some decent hot mix, not too crappy camber and other road users who are cognisant to the needs of fellow road users.
One more request: I want the WORLDS BEST PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM. For less than $18b Melbourne/Victoria could have that and more, also be future proofed against further oil shortages. Not really that much to ask.
I’ve done enough media monitoring on sustainable transport and cycling issues to perceive two major topics keep arising again and again. Go to google news now and you’ll probably easily find at least a dozen articles published within the last 24 hours.
For the general public & governments it is complex transport issues. For bicycle riders it’s dealing with hostile attitudes from both road users and ingrained ignorance from either road, government, media or legal authorities.
Perception is reality, and once all those potential newbies realise there’s a bit more to utility cycling than a frightened dash (to them) from home to the protection of a nice shared path for a certain length of their journey, then exiting from that infrastructure, another frightened dash to their destination & then repeating the process, then all this proposed stuff promised in the East West No Need Study is just further scribbling in the margins.
