[Pil-pc-oceania] Bike Moves

[Daniel Rossi]

On 29/03/2008, at 1:21 AM, Kerry Dawborn wrote:

> re bike sharing - have you seen the velolibre bikeshare system in  
> Lyon and Paris - quite high tech and looks like creating a bit of  
> employment... works in conjunction with the ticket system for other  
> public transport modes - brillian!
>

I haven't really had the privilege of cycling in paris of holland yet,  
but I did in Berlin and they have a dedicated path for cycling and the  
footpath is right next to it and Toronto was just bikes everywhere it  
was amazing. Europe is quite progressive really and we should be  
following their footsteps, planners really need to go study there for  
a while, I can possibly see some stubborn arrogance about it ?

My brother builds roads and I guess I should suggest that to him,  
however I believe there is a pre-requisite now for allocating cycling  
into 'new' road design, but the problem is already built up colonial  
cities like sydney and not bothering to do anything about it !   
Canberra anyway seems properly setup for 'safe' cycling, as it was  
most probably planned with cycling in mind.

Not only should there be allocation for safer cycling but there needs  
to be a social attitude towards it. And I have very low esteem of that  
happening in Sydney right now. As I mentioned before even the SUV  
drivers I found in Toronto were accepting of all the bikes around  
thats because Canadians are pretty non-aggressive and laid back to  
begin with :)

The other problem worth noting is for general use and for  
inexperienced riders, cycle lanes on roads are very dangerous and are  
considered 'get em out of the way' lanes.

First because there is no law or policing to stop cars swerving into  
or driving in cycle lanes from observations of police a few meters  
away catching people speed in 50 zones.

The other is there is no laws to stop people parking in cycle lanes  
which means their cars stick out into the driving lanes to begin  
with , and then cyclists obviously have to indicate out into the  
driving lane and the back around again.

The share program might only work around areas that have decent  
pathways I think. There are pathways around the city however I cannot  
see how they connect up, ie I want to get from North Ryde to the City  
I just follow a pathway which connects to another existing pathway  
etc, something like that. Their upgrades on Epping Rd are still quite  
dangerous and I don't see how it's easily cyclable, it was just a move  
to force people into the toll tunnel.