War on bicycles

[warthog1]

Howdo Andrew - sorry missed any info on this - to save me hunting down the details where should I look? ( or even better a link)
Putting up as much good healing moral as possible!

viewtopic.php?t=102550&start=850

[warthog1]

Thks Warty!
Yes, kinda been thinking what we have been doing in the past is just not working. It all seems to circle around getting away with it be it speeding, changing lanes, giving space to other... The police could be doing other simple things that need doing

Just how do you get more people to want to be better all round road users? My feeling from this place is that most people do the best they can when they get behind the wheel but we just end up managing our ever decreasing expectations.

Prolly not the spot to chat about it, but raised the cost of living and high helmet fines with the local state MP- he gets it and as the community of the whole is quite pro biking, he agrees it could be a window in time to considers to change things toward a national parity on fines.
He is also an old obstetrician so he tends toward the status quo of his community's safety and the laws as he has a large and wide group of local kiddies who he has brought into the world. He does want them to be safe and healthy and does consider that the more they bike, the slower the community drives around them and importantly, gives space to both young and them other people who they see on bike.

Short story is he understood that the cost of living is a good excuse to try to reduce the big fines down. He also agrees that hefty fines do little to help build road fellowship and when kiddies bike more they also become more space aware and possibly better drivers than when bundled in the back of a parents car to drive three blocks to a pals place to just hang out.....

Dunno I will keep pondering, but would like to get something around community biking and road fellowship out to the teals and independents so they can have a very simple basket of pro bicycle policies that says blah blah blah...positive things around biking in Aust - hopefully some chit chat will then link in with the other indis for some sort of simple common policy of supporting the good things that are happening in local bike communities before the next rounds of states and finger crossed federal elections.

Bike Bugs have been culled due public liability issues but the work many of them did is now showing results.

Grrr, I really miss the potential that the Australian Cyclists Party had...

Yes we are proceeding very slowly with improvement.
As others have said elsewhere, I have given up on any major positive change to make the Australian driving public safe and courteous.
Separated infrastructure is the only plausible path to greater cyclist numbers it seems. Getting the infrastructure is a big problem though

[g-boaf]

Nobody rides bikes, so nobody is going to build infrastructure.

Nobody is going to ride bikes without infrastructure. So there we have it. Not going to happen.

We need politicians with guts to stand up to noisy, idiotic radio and newspaper loudmouths and somehow to cut their influence out to politicians so we can actually get things done like better laws to protect bicycle riders on the roads and infrastructure being built without delay.

But then we have cyclists staunchly supporting anti-cycling political parties and even acting as though they are paid to do PR for those parties, they certainly tow the official party line. And then they whinge when motorists to the wrong thing. Well, what do you expect?

[warthog1]

Nobody rides bikes, so nobody is going to build infrastructure.

Nobody is going to ride bikes without infrastructure. So there we have it. Not going to happen.

We need politicians with guts to stand up to noisy, idiotic radio and newspaper loudmouths and somehow to cut their influence out to politicians so we can actually get things done like better laws to protect bicycle riders on the roads and infrastructure being built without delay.

But then we have cyclists staunchly supporting anti-cycling political parties and even acting as though they are paid to do PR for those parties, they certainly tow the official party line. And then they whinge when motorists to the wrong thing. Well, what do you expect?

Accurate summary unfortunately.

[brumby33]

There are however a small number of town planning type You Tubers doing Yoube videos and specifically about town planning and how to improve the viability of active Transport within our Cities and whilst it's only a small number these young 20 something are pointing out and have done a lot of study on the infrastructure in our Cities and suburbs and quite a bit especially on Christ Topher's channel on bicycle ways to get from Point A to Point B.
A lot of new developments are trying to implement Cycleways and while it's not on a grand scale, it's a huge improvement on what it was prior to Covid.
If there were any positive things that have come from the pandemic, it'd be the placing of the pop up cycleways to keep people from packing into public transport. People had more choices and they used them. I clearly hated Transport Minister Andrew Constance at the time when he cowardly privatised the Government Bus network in Sydney but I praised him for being up and supportive of implementing the Pop-up cycle ways. I can only talk about Sydney in this regard but The Transport Minister Jodie Haylen today is supporting cycling in Sydney in a quite positive manner as well as the new Metro train networks. Melbourne has a pretty good network of City Cycle ways that go a good distance but i did read recently if a new Mayor got into Melbourne Town Hall, he wanted to rip out the city bicycle lanes, i don't know if that person won the job or not.

But it's good to see young people with the idea of better ways to live in the City environments and not relying on the car all the time, it does however include more high density living but if you have a look and many Cities in old Europe, it's always been high density and community based.



and Shariff talks more about Urbanism and public Transport in our Cities but both of them very much support the idea of the carless commute.



I think the war on bicycles is gradually becoming less and less but more and more in our Suburban spread where you've got to have a car or 3.

I have noticed though, in my community in suburban Albury NSW, that young people are staying home with Mum and Dad longer due to the housing crisis therefore there's often up to 5 cars parked outside 1 house...crazy, if they work or go to school in town, it's a short 6km or 20 minute ride at a reasonably slow pace on a Cycleway from here to get to any school or workplace in the town, in fact I'll go as far as saying it's a perfect place for riding (apart from homicidal Magpies ) and we here get more dry days in Summer than anywhere near the Coast.

I don't think there's a major war on bicycles and there wouldn't be much at all if there was as much attention for safe bicycle infrastructure as there are for other modes of transport but i do see major improvements. The concentration of war seems to be towards those in the lycra racing brigade that tend to irk many but the normal person on a bike doesn't seem to get the hate which is good.

Have a great Cycling weekend.

Cheers

brumby33