Friday, September 3, 2010

Green Up Moggill

Greens campaign for the Moggill state election in 2009

Bicycles

Many more bicycles are sold than cars in Australia, a trend that has persisted over the last nine years. You wouldn’t think it from how little infrastructure is provided for bikes. Given the combined problems of climate change, peak oil and the obesity epidemic, getting more people out of their cars and onto bikes has to be a priority. Why it isn’t for the other parties is not for me to say; it definitely is for the Greens.

I plan on campaigning for a number of improvements in bike infrastructure, including continuing with current plans to improve the bikeway infrastructure. However, bikeways are not enough. It should be safe to ride a bike in suburban and city streets as well.

Here are some details. Watch this space as I pick up more ideas from the community.

  • safe bike paths in suburban and city streets
    • bikeways are only part of the solution; local streets as well as the long-haul routes need to be safe
    • paint on a road is no protection from a vehicle weight 40 times your weight
  • cycle and pedestrian awareness built into road design
    • for example if the footpath and cycle path are raised relative to the road surface, drivers crossing these paths have to be aware that they are no longer in a car-only space
  • environmentally sensitive mountain biking
    • end the conflict between mountain bikers and conservationists in our green spaces
  • include bikes in detour planning
    • when road construction or capital works impede traffic flow alternatives for cars are always added
    • bike paths sometimes simply disappear
Featured, bicycles, climate change, environment, health, travel
  1. robinsl Said,

    Hi, Philip,

    Saw your letter in the latest Australian Cyclist and thought I’d drop in. I’m not in your electorate, but very interested in your themes and issues. Particularly cycling! I believe that the facilities for cyclists in Brisbane are abysmal. I cycle to work every day and can confidently state that at no point in my journey do I feel that I am catered for as a cyclist, valued by the system for reducing strain on infrastructure, decreasing polution and increasing my own levels of fitness, thus reducing the strain on the medical system. Rather, I feel that on roads, I am considered a nuisance that’s just in the way of drivers that can’t wait to fill the gap behind the car in front so they can sit in the standstill traffic at the next lights, or on “shared pathways” (that used to be “bikepaths”, albeit plagued by pedestrians), where I’m considered a nuisance because I am riding on what most pedestrians appear to consider a footpath, mostly too narrow for a proper bikeway anyway, and where I’m only barely tolerated.

    I very much feel that here in Queensland, specificly Brisbane, cyclists are just not wanted by anyone. This is very much an educational issue, exacerbated by lack of policing of existing laws. In this I feel that the authorities themselves are part of the problem. All the education material is on cycling sites where the only people reading it will be cyclists, not the car drivers that it’s supposedly directed towards. If we want cycling to become a principle mode of transport in Brisbane and Queensland, cycling needs to be elevated to a position where it can’t be ignored and the cyclists can’t be targetted, either verbally or physically. We often see the funding devoted to an issue made in proportion to the perceived priority of that issue. In this regard, it has to be stated that cycling and cyclists are a perceived low priority in this state. In the face of the Government stating they want more people on bikes and less cars on roads, they are going about it with somewhat less than the zest with which I would expect to see them attack it.

    When I can cycle safely throughout the whole of my trip from Alderley to my workplace in RBWH Herston, and know that I can choose a route to work where I have the priority throughout the whole of that route, then I will know that the message has gotten through. And nothing less than cyclists having priority throughout the whole of their route will get people out of cars and onto bikes, because they all know how cyclists are treated at the moment.

    Thanks for your time. If you would like to discuss any of this I’ll be very willing to answer your email.

    Cheers,
    Lloyd Robins.

    Thanks for your detailed reply. I would like to talk further after the election.

    I visited Denmark in 2007, and the way they handle bike paths was a revelation. They are designed as a separate network in the city I visited (Odense), covering more of the city than the roads for cars. Everyone rides bikes there, even the elderly.

    Despite some of the best food I’ve ever encountered, there are very few overweight people there. Coincidence?

    Another outcome of a bike and pedestrian-oriented urban plan is that there are many more street-level shops, and shopping malls are less common, making for a more diverse and interesting shopping experience.

    They also do this right in Bogota, Columba. If a developing country can design appropriate spaces for pedestrians, cyclists and cars, why can’t we?

    Posted on March 15th, 2009 at 8:53 pm

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