Simon Corbell has announced a $9 million spend on cycling and walking infrastructure:
– The City cycle loop;
– Kings Avenue on-road cycle lane and off-road cycle path improvements;
– accessibility improvements to walking infrastructure in the main town centres (Woden, Tuggeranong, Belconnen and Gungahlin) benefitting visually and mobility impaired people; and
– interim off-road footpath improvements at Kingston Foreshore;
– further examination of converting sections of Bunda Street in the City and Hibberson Street in Gungahlin to “shared spaces? of pedestrians, cyclists and drivers;
– construction of a missing link between the shared paths along Tuggeranong Parkway and Melrose Drive near Chifley and,
– the provision of cycling facilities along both sides of Yamba Drive between Yarra Glen and The Canberra Hospital.
More information is available from the TAMS Walking and Cycling Trunk Infrastructure Report
[Photo courtesy Simon Corbell's office]
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So the ACT government is quite happy to spend $9mil on cycling infrastructure, along with their own race track, but we are stuck with decades old hillclimb and skidpan facilities and no drag strip? Awesome.
At first glance this all looks great! I’ll have to drag the missus out for a ride to explore the locations they’re planning to modify.
Please, no more ‘shared spaces’, they just don’t work. The shared space on Childers Street is nothing more than a normal road with an interesting surface for most people it seems – occasionally, I’ve seen a brave pedestrian decide to exercise their rights, and just walk across the road despite the cars driving well above the speed limit…given that I drive along there most days, it’s only a matter of time until I actually see someone get hit.
I just don’t get why the government seems so obsessed with changing a formula that everyone recognises – ie, pedestrians cross the road when it’s safe to do so, unless they’re at a crossing, in which case cars stop for them. But instead of just providing some more crossings, we have to experiment with these shared zones.
Don’t get me started on the shared zone between the National Library and Questacon either…it literally extends for the length of the pedestrian crossing across the road. So what’s the point?!
thatsnotme said :
I have to agree, I’m yet to see anyone, including the police maintain the 10km/hr speed limit on Childers Street. It’s just an accident waiting to happen.
“Simon Corbell has announced a $9 million spend on motorcycling infrastructure…”
There, I fixed it.
How often does Simon Corbell cycle to work? How many of his staff cycle to work?
This money is over three years, in that time we will spend another $300+ million on road infrastructure. So that will be 1% of road infrastructure upgrades.Yeh! I’m glad (not) that they are starting to even out the spending on walking and cycling infrastructure compared to motorist infrastructure!
Simon-Do You/Your Family Have Any Shares/Interest In Any Cycling Businesses??
This is a drop in the ocean, as BicycleCanberra points out, but it achieves most of PedalPower’s wish list for improved cycling infrastructure. I think it’s awesome – when finished it will save lives and improve Canberra’s rep as a great cycling city.
I have noticed that, just in time for daylight savings, the lighting along the bike path from Civic to Dickson has started working (well, except for the bit around the wetlands). Still, should be useful next year during winter and encourage people to ride along the path instead of the roads – their philosophy seems to be that if they dont have a light, its better to ride on the lit road, despite the cars being unable to see the rider.
The shared zone at Childers St doesnt work because there arent enough people to ‘take over’ the areas. If you go to places in Europe – for example, lots of the piazzas in Italy – cars can drive through but there are more people than cars, so the cars have to make way for the people. Childers St is the opposite. Bunda St will be the same, unless they make it one lane one way, thus making it too difficult for cars to bother using.
BicycleCanberra said :
By my maths, vehicle owners in the ACT contribute somewhere around $100 million in registration fees (excluding CTP) and another $270 million in fuel excise, per annum.
And almost all adult cyclists own a registered vehicle.
As a cyclist, motorist and taxpayer I am very happy with the way that the ACT Government and NCA spend so much on Cycling infrastructure. With sufficient bike paths it keeps me off the road and away from traffic, safer for me and less stress for motorists (When I’m driving some Cyclists scare me with the scant disregard for self preservation)
I work on Childers street and that place is not well suited for a shared zone. With all the car traffic leaving City West Parking and the Ernst & Young carpark of an afternoon it is simply too busy for pedestrians.
Bunda street should not be a shared zone, but a one way south east with angle parking on both sides would calm traffic and make it easier for car traffic.
You know what s**** me? Horse riders. They don’t pay rego but can ride along in places which would see me charged if I did it on my unregistered trail bike!
thatsnotme said :
dtc said :
Morgan said :
Agree with all those – plus:
1. It’s counterintuitive to have marked pedestrian crossings if pedestrians are entitled to cross anywhere…
2. 10km/h is so ludicrous it invites rational people to ignore it. Has anybody in an automatic car ever tried going 10km/h? Cars idle faster than that. Also, because the pedestrian crossings are marked, and the foot traffic is relatively low, there is no additional danger that would warrant different treatment to Hibberson St Gungahlin (40km/h), Bunda St (50 I assume?), or Woolley St, Dickson (again, 50 I assume?).
p1 said :
Almost All Adult Horse Riders Own A Registered Vehicle-They Don’t Ride Their Horse From Their Front Yard To The Paddock Where Their Horse Is Kept Do They!!
krats said :
I might have to get a premium subscription just to block that excessive capitalisation, how do you do that ?
krats said :
Are you actually pressing the [shift] key for each of those capitals, or are you using a program that puts everything you type in title case?
thatsnotme said :
Maybe I missed this and I’m sure RA will correct my ways, but what exactly does “Shared zone” mean? Who has right of way?
If it is pedestrians well it’s not a shared zone is it, haha. It should be called a pedestrian zone so it is more clear who has to give way to who.
johnboy said :
Personally, I don’t have an issue with cyclists not paying registration for a number of reasons.
However, the simple rebut to the claim cyclists own a car too so they’re already paying rego, is that if I want to own more than one car I have to pay more than one annual registration fee.
If one is going to take that defence it seems a bit ‘all road users are equal but some are more equal than others’ to me.
I reckon a better defence for cyclists in that specific instance would be to simply tell the other person to HTFU! There’s countless services our taxes pay for that individuals won’t always agree with, be an adult and deal with it.
Holden Caulfield said :
On the same token though, those that say “I pay rego, you dont, get off my roads” have the opinion? No?
A question for the tribal mind.
If a cyclist cleans up a pedestrian at a crossing, can the pedestrian claim on some third party insurance to cover their medical bills, damages, etc?
Keijidosha said :
I pay an order of magnitude more in taxes each year in taxes than I spend on petrol, registration and car insurance. So if volume of spending is what entitles us to infrastructure, perhaps poor people shouldn’t be allowed to use rich people’s roads? By your math, should owners of small cars not be allowed to use big cars’ roads? What about motorbikes?
From the $400M collected from vehicle owners, subtract the cost of running the motor registry. Now compare that to the $600M budget for roads. Where’s the money coming from to maintain our roads? That’s right, it’s coming from the rich bastards driving company cars, not the poor bastards who own their own vehicles.
cranky said :
This partly why I think having some sort of visible ID for cyclists should at least be debated. I admit that such incidents where cyclists are at fault is likely to be low, but it could happen, either as you’ve described, or through damage to other road users’ vehciles in regular traffic, accidental or otherwise.
KB1971 said :
Yes, indeed, which comes back to my point about those doing the whinging being adult about the situation and acknowledging they’re crying over spilt milk.
Chances are pretty damn high that almost all cyclists are going to be paying taxes somewhere along the line. So, let’s live and let live.
And drivers should remember that every cyclist has made more room on the road for their car.
krats said :
I do,
I own a horse and don’t have a car, it’s great.
Don’t pay parking, don’t pay any tax, great for picking up chicks and if you try and cap my horse he’ll kick you in the face.
cranky said :
No.
Car CTP exists because you take it out when you register every year (and cough up a bit for the nominal defendant to cover unregistered drivers). There is no such scheme for bicycles.
However, cyclist can take out specific insurance or possible have a home policy that extends cover to this situation. Being a member of Pedal Power provides insurance coverage.
Lack of insurance doesnt stop you suing the bike rider, of course. It just means you have to recover the money from the person rather than the insurance company – if the cyclist is one of those annoying middle aged men in lycra pretending to be cool, they may own a house or an Audi.
Holden Caulfield said :
I agree with much of what you say regarding cycling, but that last statement goes a bit far. Are you implying that the government always spends our money better than we would? Or perhaps that no matter what the government spends our money on we should just suck it up? I would argue that the answer in either case is – like hell!
I noticed that NRMA is the only group with representatives for motorists…and they didn’t make any formal comments on these changes. Pedal Power has made formal comments about all of these changes.
If you are a motorist, and you want your opinion to be heard, you are going to have to do something about it.
P.S. I don’t have a car and I think all of these changes are GREAT!
cranky said :
Yes.