Bus-bike trial cancelled

Mr Corbell (while you’re here), how come you were being asked questions in the Assembly about buses? It’s been bugging me because I would have thought buses were an ubn services responsibility and therefore belong to Mr Hargreaves.

Don’t beleive everything Steve Pratt says. The Bike Racks trial has not been cancelled. The money has been allocated and is being spent with 45 out of 55 bike racks already installed. Mr Pratt is referring to the withdrawal of a “double payment ” for this project. Both ACTION and DUS were mistakenly allocated the funding for this project by ACT Treasury. This oversight was corrected and the money provided to DUS returned to Treasury. The payment to DUS was cancelled, not the project itself.

The Bike racks trial will go operational later this month, once all racks have been installed. All buses on the 300 ( intertown ) routes will have the racks.

i think the liberals cut n pasted riotact into their press release yesterday.

there are trials designed to succeed and some designed to fail.

but expecting people to wait by the side of the road in the hope that the bus which comes by next has a rack on it (and that the rack isn’t already full) never seemed entirely realistic.

I’d say this was a case of throwing a bone to pedal power.

Yes Vic, they are.

Are these racks the yellow devices I see on the front of some of the newer buses?

the advantage of lightrail is that there are standards. unlike bizarre guided busways like in adelaide or the one action really want (a guided bus that follows a magnetic line, which doesnt need a driver, but they have to have one anyway because of oh&s rules, so its pointless having the guidance system in the frst place, but hey lets budget for it anyway).

all the hard work in research of vehicle tyoe has already been done. they even manufacture lightrail vehicles locally.

In any case, this still doesnt mean recumbent bicycles should be legal.

Hey, I just had an idea! Attach a large dozer blade to the front of each bus and they can make their own busway and/or move cars, bikes, animals, cripples, etc out of their way during peakhour. Sir Joh would love this idea!

Bloody typical! This is the second time the ACT Govt has tried to attach bike racks to the ACTION fleet, only to find out later that they can’t do it! The last time was in the early-mid 1990s, and if my memory serves me correctly, the problem back then was the issue of public liability if a bike fell off or if someone injured themselves while placing their bike on the rack.

Bonfire’s idea of grab handles sounds like a the way to go!

We could put in place a light rail system that uses an obsolete and unsupported type of train.

I suggest 5foot 13in imperical standard as a place to start looking, even though I made it up, I’m sure the government will find something along those lines to purchase.

excellent. I love this govt of ours. Is there anything else we could piss perfectly good money up against? Perhaps a fruit and vegetable store that specifically caters for those on hunger strrikes perhaps?

why not attach grab rails to the buses and then teh cyclists can get towed around ?

of course set the grab rails high enough so that recumbent cyclists cannot reach them.

And I will suggest it again…they are illegal. I won’t mention names, but the people I heard this from work for ACTION and would know.

There were a few other liability problems with the bike racks, mainly that the plan was for the cyclist to be responsible for putting the bike on the rack and making sure it stays on (anybody care to tell me how much extra time these bikes going on and off would take?). Personally I think some kind of inside-the-bus system would have made more sense, but the powers that be didn’t think of that. Johnboy, perhaps you should send them some of your suggestions.

White… Elephant…