295 million bucks worth of bike lanes?

Two hundred and ninety five million dollars is a lot of money. It’s also what 15 Sydney councils are asking for from the Federal Government to link 245 kilometres worth of bike lanes through the Sydney CBD and surrounding suburbs (SMH Article). It’s all got to do with the “door zone” and how deadly it is to entry level commuting cyclists. Well, yes and no.

I’m one of those guys that’ll brave the traffic in order to stay away from doors. When I do commute to work, about two thirds of the roads I’m on are single lane and have parked cars in the gutter; so I’m endlessly ducking into the main flow of traffic to round the odd parked cars. It involves lots of blind spot checking, but is still safer than riding at speed on the footpath. Footpaths in the inner west are normally have broken, patchy surface, and are littered with pedestrians. Not to mention cars reversing out of blind driveways and the endless side streets to stop and give way to. Yep, I’ll take the road 9 times out of 10.

I felt quite guilty climbing into my car this morning, especially considering the radio was tuned to ABC 702 Sydney and Adam Spencer’s Breakfast Show had a talk back segment on the proposed bike paths. Being an avid cyclist, Adam was all for the bike paths, as were several people that phoned in with their support.

One caller voiced the opinion that ‘real cyclists wouldn’t use the bike paths because they’d get too congested with slow moving people’. Well yes Mr Anonymous-talk-back-caller-man, you’re right, cyclists on road bikes averaging 40kph won’t use the bike lanes. But that isn’t who the scheme is aimed at. It’s aimed at regular people who’ll ride 7 kilometres in jeans then get changed into business attire. Not those that treat 7 kilometres of their commute as a mild warm up.

While I can acknowledge that I’m in the same category as our anonymous-talk-back-caller-man, I still think that building the dedicated bike lanes is a brilliant thing. It’s not the only part of the solution, but fostering those who are pondering the idea of riding to work is extremely important. If they choose to buy themselves a road bike and commute at 40kph in a year or two, they’ll progress to riding in traffic on the road of their own accord.

For me, the 295 million dollars is about making people in the inner city feel safe about riding to work a few days a week when they’re only travelling about 10kms to do so. Bring on the dedicated bike lanes!

Tags: Australia, bicycle, bike lanes, bikes, commute, local, safe, sydney

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