From Sydney......🙂
They're healthy, thrifty and don't give a hoot
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/theyre-healthy-thrifty-and-dont-give-a-hoot/2005/10/21/1129775959923.html
By Tim [censored] Urban Affairs Reporter
Lane change … cyclists in a "bike bus" make a trip from Newtown to the city. Commuter cyclist numbers are steadily increasing in Sydney. Photo: James Brickwood
Kimberley Francis is part of a small, but growing, minority group. She is discriminated against, she is beeped at, and the Government pays little heed to her needs. She is a cyclist.
The executive assistant is one of the few Sydneysiders who bike to work (fewer than 1 per cent, according to the 2001 census).
She rides from Newtown into the city most days, depending on the weather, joining a "bike bus" of others heading the same way to feel safer on roads that make little space for cyclists.
New figures indicate big increases in those biking into the city over the past decade, according to an independent study for the City of Sydney. It registered large jumps in traffic on four main cycle routes into the city, compared with 1996.
Then, fewer than 100 cyclists were counted during a typical two-hour weekday morning peak on the Harbour Bridge, but 340 make the trip now.
In Oxford Street the number is up from 80 to nearly 300, Ultimo Road's cycling volumes have nearly tripled, and those crossing the Pyrmont Bridge have risen from about 45 to more than 350 during the same two-hour period.
Meanwhile, the Roads and Traffic Authority says the average total daily number of bikes using the Anzac Parade cycleway has gone from 210 to nearly 400.
According to Customs data, the number of bicycles imported into Australia - few are made here - rose from 657,000 in 1997 to 1.25 million last year.
Organisers of tomorrow's Sydney Spring Cycle, a 50-kilometre fun ride from North Sydney to Olympic Park, expect a record number of participants, up to 10,000.
Ms Francis says she likes the freedom cycling gives her. "It's nicer than sitting on the bus. You're in your own space - it's clean. Unless you're behind a bus."
But the numbers are still small, and Sydney roads remain hostile to bicycles. The previous minister for roads, Michael Costa, halved the RTA's budget for cycleways this year, and his replacement, Joe Tripodi, is not about to change things.
His spokeswoman, Lisa Carty, repeated the Government's position that $6.6 million was allocated for cycling infrastructure across the state. That is down from about $15 million the previous year.
Alex Unwin, the chief executive of Bicycle NSW, said the 41-kilometre bike path next to the Westlink M7 was a good example of what could be done.
Sydney lags behind other capitals. Perth has recently lifted its figure to as high as 5 per cent, while Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide all have much higher - though still small - proportions of cycling commuters.
CYCLING FOR DUMMIES
- Buying and maintaining a bike is about 1 per cent of the equivalent for a car, and riding 10 kilometres each day saves an average of $1700 a year.
- Cyclists can ride two abreast, and take up a whole lane.
- Riding too near the kerb gives you no room to move, and cars tend to squeeze past you.
- Cyclists may use bus and transit lanes, but pavements only if signs say so, or if one of the group is under 12.
- There is no extra charge to take your bicycle on ferries, the light rail or on off-peak trains. However, in peak times, you have to buy a concession fare as well as your own.