Info below forwarded on behalf of Sydney cyclists
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Hi all,
The intended removal of eastbound bikelanes on William St has really given me the *****, and I suspect most others feel the same. I spoke to people from other BUGs. So Sunday June 25, Bike South West BUG is doing a ride from the electorate of Premier Morris Iemma (he is the Member for Lakemba, his office is in the suburb of Riverwood). The ride meets out the front of his Riverwood office at 9:30am, leaves at 10am sharp, goes to William St, stops at Kings Cross at 12:30pm for a chin wag and such, leaves for the return ride no later than 2:00pm. Pizza back at Riverwood.
Its not a Critical Mass ride, so its run a little different, its going to be run as a BUG ride, so there are sign-on sheets, corking an intersection would be very unusual. Most CMass riders have been on a BUG ride at sometime, you know how most BUG rides run.
It would be great to get as many cyclists as we can outside Iemmas local office in his own electorate and theres really not much time to organise it. We did debate doing it later to be more organised but thought it was better to do as much as we can as soon as we can. This really is about more than just William St. Politicians are gearing up for the election. The Cross City Tunnel has been a high profile ill conceived stuff up. The political cure seems to be shaft cyclists.
If we don't cause a stink over this and make it an issue, other cycle paths, lanes and facilities around Sydney and the whole state are up for getting degraded whenever it is politically expedient.
Riverwood isn't that far to cycle from the city, if you want to ride there are shorter routes than the one we are using. If you want to get the train, times from Central to Riverwood on Sunday are:
Central-Riverwood
8.53am - 9.18am
9.08am - 9.38am
9.23am - 9.48am (this last one is cutting it a bit fine, if you miss it, the next one gets you to Riverwood at 10:08am, we will be gone, meet us at Kings Cross)
This ride is the sunday before the Critical Mass ride at the end of month, so if anyone has some good flyers for CM please make them available to be handed out at sundays ride to promote the CM ride.
This is a good opportunity for cyclists who have never been on, and frankly probably never will take part in a Critical Mass to talk with CMers and realise they aren't the devil on a bicycle, and that in fact, commonly held prejudices could be little off the mark:
*it is NOT true CMers don't use lights at night because their eyes glow and their heads revolve.
*the whirring of bike wheels at a Critical Mass is NOT masked by the sound of marbles jingling in pockets to throw under police horse hoove (marbles are for playing marbles silly).
*the ride does not throw the CBD into chaos on a friday night once a month. Its in chaos every friggin friday night.
*if anything should be considered radical, its not Critical Mass,radical is ripping out bike lanes in a hissy fit when excessive motor vehicle use is strangling Sydney.
Full ride details below.
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June 25 Sunday - Backpedalling on William St
Distance: 55km (27km one way to Kings Cross)
Grade: some traffic, includes cyclepaths, includes cycleways, moderate pace
Contact: Paul Johnson mobile 0438536458 or pauljohnsonATpacific.net.au
Starts at: assemble 9:30am opposite Premier Morris Iemmas office in his local electorate, 48 Thurlow St, Riverwood (visible from Riverwood railway station entrance). Ride leaves 10:00am sharp! Don't be late!
Description: NSW Premier Morris Iemma is also Member for Lakemba, and on 05/06/06 (World Environment Day!) has announced intentions to remove the just completed eastbound bike lanes on William St to make way for another general lane. Let him know you don't want cycle lanes removed as a result of the Cross City Tunnel fiasco.
Cycle from his local electorate office at Riverwood via the M5East path, Bexley North, Tempe, Mascot, Rosebery, Moore Park to arrive 12:30pm at Kings Cross near the big Coke sign and the intersection of Victoria St and Kings Cross Rd, in front of the "stick and ball" sculptures to see William St and have a talk about the issues. You can look straight down William St from there. It would be great to get as many people as we can outside Iemmas office in Riverwood for the start of the ride, but if you can't make it, meet us at Kings Cross 12:30pm.
I anticipate we are probably going to spend at least an hour talking about the issues, looking at William St, some people might like to do a couple of loops of William St or grab a coffee from the nearby cafes while this is going on, time permitting we can cycle over to Hyde Park so people know exactly where Critical Mass leaves from the following friday. We should start the return ride no later than 2:00pm.
Return ride via similar route. Trains are running on the East Hills Line if you want to get the train back, or meet us at Kings Cross, ride to Riverwood and get the train back to Kings Cross.
There is a good Pizza resturant with inside and outside seating (we have some fantastic wide footpaths here and we didn't even need a tunnel to get them!) at Riverwood, just around the corner from Iemmas office. Sunset is 4:55pm, I'd like to get the ride back to Riverwood by 4:30pm, Monte Carlos opens at 5:00pm, that gives time for people to lock their bikes outside Monte Carlos, scurry across the road to Riverwood Plaza to grab a bottle of wine or poison of choice from the bottle shop underneath and return for pizzas and a debrief on what went well, what didn't, where to take things from here.
Monte Carlo pizzas is in Belmore Rd, Riverwood, across the road from Riverwood Plaza, just south of Riverwood station (you can see the station from it). There is a taxi rank just across the road. So there is no excuse for cycling home over the limit if you really enjoy yourself at the debrief.
Closer to the day, check for current trackwork at:
http://www.cityrail.info/trackwork/trackwork.jsp
Proposed route from Riverwood to Kings Cross is on the web at:
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/Backpedalling-William-St
Or there is a tinyurl for it:
http://tinyurl.com/nax8l
If the ride is running slow its easy to shorten it up and take a couple of short cuts from about Mascot onwards, so I wouldn't guarantee the route will be exactly like this from Mascot onwards to Kings Cross.
If for some reason we are running short of time we can approach Kings Cross via Darlinghurst Rd. Route passes close by Bexley North, Tempe and Mascot railway stations, so even if you can only make it to the start of the ride and need to bail out you can get the train from there.
High tide for June 25 is 8:02am, 1.25m (path at Tempe under the railway should be ok when we pass through). The next high tide later that night at 8:07pm is a doozy, 1.87m, so if anyone hangs around for pizza then rides back towards the city via this route they should bear that in mind.
Scheduled City Rail trackwork for 24-25 June: Bankstown Line
Buses replace trains between Bankstown and Liverpool.
Inner West Line
Buses replace trains between Lidcombe and Liverpool via Regents Park.
South Line
Buses replace trains between Granville and Glenfield.
If you are looking at the Push On rides calendar, yes there is another ride that day with my name as contact leaving from Riverwood. I hate cancelling rides, Warren Artlett has kindly agreed to take on that ride in case anyone turns up for it, but we are really going to encourage people to go on the later 10am ride into William St.
Brief ride details have already been posted to and should appear on the Push On online calendar in a couple of days, and are also on the Bike South West BUG website:
http://www.bikesouthwest.org.au
Regards, Paul Johnson
Bike South West BUG rides coordinator
mobile 0438536458
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Contact details if you would like to send Morris Iemma a comment - you
know you do, you're itching to - please be polite ;-) If you can't be polite say something anyway:
The Hon. Morris IEMMA, BEc, LLB MP
* Member of the Legislative Assembly
* Member for Lakemba
* Premier, Minister for State Development, and Minister for Citizenship
* Member of Australian Labor Party
Contact Details
To ensure the speediest handling of messages, please select the correct
address:
Contact Mr Iemma in his capacity as Member for Lakemba
Address 48 Thurlow Street,
RIVERWOOD NSW 2210
Phone (02) 9584 1788
Fax (02) 9584 1945
Email
[email protected]
Contact Mr Iemma in his capacity as Premier, Minister for State Development, and Minister for Citizenship
Address Level 40 Governor Macquarie Tower,
1 Farrer Place,
SYDNEY NSW 2000
Phone (02) 9228 5239
Fax (02) 9228 3934
Email
[email protected]
About the Lakemba Electorate
Metropolitan, residential suburban. Located Sydney, southern. Principal suburbs: Belmore, Kingsgrove, Lakemba, Narwee, Punchbowl, Riverwood, Roselands and Wiley Park. Area: 19.49 sq km. Enrolment: 43,354.
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