The Age: Brumby to spend $112m to fight traffic
Melbourne’s clearways will be more heavily policed, buses will have greater priority and new bike tracks will be built under a new state government plan to reduce congestion.Unveiling the $112 million Keeping Melbourne Moving strategy, Victorian Premier John Brumby said the new measures represented a balanced approach to tackling congestion on the roads

….. and then …

More than $28 million will be used to further develop the city’s bicycle and pedestrian network in an attempt to get up to 12,000 commuters to switch to walking and cycling.

Bike paths! Bike paths! Here in Melbourne we have bike paths going at crazy crazy prices you can’t beat anywhere! I’m getting confused, are these bike paths part of the stuff promised by the Transport & Livability Statement two years ago, outcomes of the recent IMAP findings, ongoing projects allocated from VicRoads annual budget, Sir Ron’s cycle link recommendations or the all new dog and pony show Transport Department restructure?

Funding allocation at a glance:

Transport & Livability Statement (May 2006) $72m over 10 years
Sir Rons Homework (March 2007) $60m
Keeping Melbourne Moving strategy (April 2007) $28m

Grand total: $160m

The recent Inner Melbourne Action Plan (IMAP) and ongoing VicRoads annual bicycle budget possibly slot into the first two, but I’m going to cease guessing which pot ‘o money is actually going towards cycling infrastructure and instead write to my local State MP to get some clarification on the matter.

Although just between you and me, there should be some loose change left over from the estimated $160m to purchase a couple of Hannibal Lecter style mouth gags for certain commercial radio mouthpieces. A cheaper alternative: just give me the design specs and I’ll get the gags custom-made down at Eagle Leather.

Life could be dream. shhhha-boom, shhha-boom.