The Canberra Times reports that separated ‘Copenhagen’ style cycle lanes are being considered for Civic, along with a ‘shared space’ zone on Bunda St where all users have equal rights. Pedal Power seem to think it’s a good thing and a bit of digging on their website soon revealed where the idea came from- looks like part of some kind of orbital cycling route around the whole of Civic.
Personally I reckon it’s a great idea- you could ride round this cycleway thing in quarter of the time it would take in a car in rush hour, methinks. And get to just about anywhere in Civic you needed to go on it. And give the people screaming about cyclists in their way exactly what they want- the cyclists off to one side somewhere. Now me, I don’t mind riding in Civic now, but I’ll bet that the shopper set, trendy uni students, office workers and the like would all go for this and get on their bikes to ride it.
So hopefully it’s something that Canberrans will get behind and support. I fear not all will- nothing brings out the hatemongers and rednecks faster than the prospect of taxes that cyclists pay being spent on cycling, instead of yet another freeway or carpark. But there is probably a lot more people who reckon if it works in Copenhagen, or Melbourne like the CT story says, then it’ll probably work in Canberra as well.