Assembly Committed to Active Transport

Morgan said :

From my perspective, I’d like to see people like Caroline Le Couteur on the bus. I have seen her driving home up northbourne ave in her smart car many times. If public transport is a viable solution for the people, then why not her??

+1 – and she drives around with her media adviser much of the time to events in a standard, high petrol-use car.

Stanhope now lives in Bruce, which is well serviced by buses and close enough for someone as frisky as him to cycle or jog in. If Kristine Keneally can do it, then our guys should at least have a go.

I think it was Hargreaves who said he couldn’t catch a bus because of evening functions. Maybe the lack of evening bus services is why the rest of us can’t use buses either.

If the Greens were serious, they would be looking at more than bus times and cyclepaths. They would look at the functionality of our city and decentralise services to give people even the option of not driving. They would oppose that ridiculous Stanhopian deathstar (JB: I hope that name sticks).

Morgan, last night I saw Caroline Le Couteur on a bus.

But, I don’t remember seeing any of the other MLAs on a bus. Has anyone else seen any of them on a bus?

What about John Stanhope, the Minister responsible for buses, or Simon Corbell, the Minister responsible for changing the climate?

Perhaps they all turn up on buses from time to time.

For me active transport is not about reducing polution or congestion. It’s about community, responsibility, and what should be common sense.

The average Canberran gets in their car, drives out of their garage, detours via school, if necessary (often 5 minutes late… so 50-60km/h in the school zones within a metre of other people’s children is suddenly acceptable), then races to work, yelling from the safe confines of their cage, at anybody who dares be in their way.

Walking the kids to school is not allowed… as the roads are too dangerous to walk… they’re full of idiots who are driving too fast and recklessly. The kids cant ride to school for the same reason.

Riding a push bike to work results in sweat… yuck. Showering at work is too difficult.

Walking to work is understandably, not a viable option for some.

So instead… we have everyone driving themselves to their daily grind… parking, plus fuel, plus car wear and tear… $10-$20 per day. $2,500-$5,000 per year per car, not including car depreciation, insurance or rehab and lost income in case of a severe “accident”.

Our roads are then clogged with too many people driving to work. There are an average of 3.92 empty seats in every car during peak times in this country. Our solution? Build more roads to accomodate those empty seats, when then encourages more empty seats to find their way onto our wider roads.

Riding a motorbike to work, thus eliminating those empty seats, probably hasn’t crossed most peoples minds. Motorbikes are for idiots who like to utilise the space that is not being taken up by empty seats, by lane filtering at traffic lights.

We are the fattest country in the world… Our solution? Drive to the gym. Yell at those cycling home from work on the way.

Our kids are fat… it’s too dangerous for them to go out, play and be sociable on the street… that deadly space 10 metres from our front doors is for people to drive 1.5 tonne machines at speeds that are likely to kill people… not for anyone else to enjoy. Our solution? Drive the kids to the oval once a week for half an hour… at 55-60km/h… tutting at the parents who let their kids play out the front of their houses… don’t they know about the fast cars on their street? Their kids should be inside playing the play station.

We have very little sense of local community anymore. The solution for a select few? Drive to church once a week… pray for those lost on the roads.

We have a high suicide rate… 42nd highest in the world. Our solution? Tell the TV crews about how the neighbour was quiet, kept to themself, didn’t think this would ever happen in your neighbourhood. Think it’s a shame that nobody was there for them… we all used to see that person through their living room window, sitting alone every morning as we raced out of the driveway. If only they’d bought a car and driven to see a councillor or gone to do some socialising somewhere.

Something is wrong with our transport infrastructure, our way of thinking, how our suburbs and way of life revolve around the car without us realising it. It cannot be sustained. The balance is way, way out. We cannot fix the problems with our transport infrastructure with the same method of thinking that created them. Something drastic needs to change.

If politicians were expected to use the bus, it wouldn’t take long before they funded the service properly and there was a bus on most routes every 10 minutes or so.

Hell is more likely to freeze over first though.

niftydog said :

I was thinking that yesterday, Morgan. Two minutes walk from the interchange to the Assembly and I bet you very few of them would ever get on a bus unless the public goaded them into it.

Do they also get free, guaranteed parking?

Caroline herself lives in a location that is about as good as it gets for catching buses into the city. Anyone ever seen her on a bus?

Yes they get free Govt parking permits like all federal pollie staff do, like the blue and red expensive cars parked at the back of the city police station and walk to the offices on the otherside of London Cir.

I earn money. Not a massive amount, but above the average, so I pay more tax than the average. The upside of this, is that I can afford to buy a car, and don’t need to risk my life (both actual and social) riding a bike (dodging cars/looking like a lycra clad faggot), or catch poor people transport, ie) buses. I pay more tax, so why do the poor people get the perks? I hate this active transport bullshit, if you want to cycle that is fine, but can you not do it where my car belongs? Thanks.

Last time I checked Northbourne Ave already had a bike lane. How about putting one on Limestone Ave? There’s plenty of space up the middle – I doubt we’ll ever get the trams that were supposed to go there ;D

emd said :

This is all about physically active transport – walking and bike riding, primarily. Not buses. So it makes perfect sense for the Greens rep on this to be one who is regularly seen riding around town on her bike. Good on her for it.

Walking to the bus stop, riding the bus and then walking from the bus to your place of work takes a whole lot more physical activity than walking to your garage, sitting in your car, and walking from the carpark to your office.

This is all about physically active transport – walking and bike riding, primarily. Not buses. So it makes perfect sense for the Greens rep on this to be one who is regularly seen riding around town on her bike. Good on her for it.