Cycling
Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 10:24AM THE only people that you will find outdoors at the moment are prostitutes, smokers and cyclists. And it seems in many circles that is how their social desirability is currently rated, in descending order.
I've had a gutful of "cyclists are a menace" comments. A car cuts them off? The driver is an idiot. A cyclist cuts them off? ALL cyclists are menaces and they should ALL be off the road and NONE OF THEM should be allowed to breed. Here's the truth: cars kill, injure, annoy, abuse, cut off and hassle far more cyclists than vice versa. And if you don't believe me, get on a bike.
There are thugs, lunatics, idiots and morons in all areas of life and cycling is no exception. So why is the odd maverick Lycra lout not simply viewed as an exception rather than an accurate representation of the entire cycling community?
You think the Hell Ride goes along Beach Road every Sunday? You should talk to some of the mums and dads, commuters and students who pedal during peak hour and they'll tell you stories of road rage that will make you think every day is a hell ride for them.
I want to say thank you. To all the cyclists getting out there in the wind, and the cold, and the rain and pedalling to work, to school, to get about their daily business. They are cutting down on road congestion, helping the environment, freeing up parking spots and reducing their stress levels through both exercise and the financial bonus of a cheaper form of transport.
Many households could (and do) solve the "no time to exercise, can't afford a second car and no parking at work" equation with a bicycle. Others solve it by buying a second car that they can't afford; which contributes to the national debt and in turn inflation and then up goes the interest rates as well as our carbon emissions.
Lay off the cyclists. They should be paid for commuting. We should be standing at the traffic lights handing them drinks and giving them towels when they arrive at work. The Government should be doing everything in its power to encourage and facilitate safe cycling in our glorious city.
Good news. Cycling is not just the new golf. Bicycles are the new cars. Australians have been buying more bicycles than cars for the past seven years. More good news. The British Medical Association found that the risk of inactivity is 20 times greater than the health risk posed by a potential accident on a bike.
According to Bicycle Victoria, cycling numbers along Swanston Street (Melbourne's cycling spine) have grown 680 per cent in 15 years. Cycle awareness will increase the more people cycle. People are more conscious of cyclists if their partner, their parent, their sibling, their mate, their children or themselves are out on the road pedalling.
A wonderful culture of cycling is flourishing. A few weeks ago I saw a line of peak hour traffic create a wider birth than was necessary for the stream of cyclists as the road narrowed. And whoever is behind the Free Bike Repairs at the north gate of Carlton Gardens every Sunday should be hoisted onto a sedan chair and given some kind of civic reception.
On May 28, 2006, the first Cyclovia in Melbourne was held. Cyclovia means "life to the streets" and it's been happening for more than 30 years around the world. A section of Sydney Road was closed off to cars from 8am to 2pm and people cycled, rollerbladed and strolled. All you could hear was the clicking of gears and the whoosh of bike tyres. It was marvellous.
Between 1974 and 2003, travel to school by car rose from 22.6 per cent to 70 per cent. Children being driven to school accounts for 18 per cent of peak hour traffic in Melbourne. We are constantly being told that children are getting fatter and driving cars is now the environmental equivalent to piping cigarette smoke into humidicribs.
Yet there are still plenty of people who could easily walk or ride their children to school at least a couple of times a week who don't simply because they can't be bothered. The most effective way parents can encourage children to ride bikes is by riding bikes themselves.
Children should be encouraged to think of their bike not just as fun and exercise but transport.
The Japanese believe that by carrying their babies on their back it teaches the child when to bow. I suggest that parents riding with their children in baby seats and on tagalongs gives them an instinctive understanding of the flow of traffic. Keep in mind that I have no facts to back that up, it's just what I reckon. I suppose that's why this page is called Opinion.
Reader Comments (16)
Loved the article it made me very happy, never been praised for commuting to work in a bicycle before.
Thank you!
Great exposition - the "nice" @CatherineDeveny at her finest
The use of bikes should indeed be encouraged for health reasons , to reduce travel congestion and to highlight that the new suburbs are designed for cars not people
Ride on, Ms Deveney. Couldn't agree more
All the above apply: no time to exercise and no parking at work. Plus the main factor: it is fun! Out in -4 yesterday and, dressed appropriately, it was fine. My children like the fact Mum rides to work. My kids also walk to school. I'm trying to set a good example of being active and helping the environment.
Thanks for promoing cycling. If only more people did it.
Maybe the high price of petrol is encouraging more people onto bikes? Since those who cycle to work reduce congestion, pollution and parking fees the growth of cycling has got to be good for everyone concerned.
Where was my towel and drink on the ride home tonight. I rode 39km home from Cheltenham in a very nasty headwind and it was a hell ride.
Great article, I've missed reading your opinions, and I'm glad I've found this.
Thanks for the cycling support.
Isn't the hell ride every Saturday, not every Sunday??
Yep it is on Saturday, but that's a small detail, the rest of the article is great
Rode to work for Years in Melbourne, but left 10 years ago, so pleased to hear of the cycling revolution there, great article, Can we teach the cyclists and car drivers on the Gold Coast the same Manners. I know this is strange but I think it is great that there are so many cyclists that the Police have to have a crack down
Women in skintight black lycra..... Whats not to like?
Just back from picking up my prep from school, with my younger son in the bike trailer. Out here in Glen Waverley, I'm the only parent that rides with their kid to our school. My prep was the only kid in the school that rode to school on the first day of school (out of 330). Since then there has been up to 10 scooters and bikes on any one day. Needless to say, I have been quite depressed about the situation! There aren't even bike racks.
Today a big bloody great 4WD ute stopped, just so the driver could glare at me. It took me a while to work it out, but I guessed my crime was that the prep was out of arm's reach in front of me (5-7 m, on the footpath). never mind that I have called out "brakes" 3 times on this hill and the prep has responded 3 times by slowing and stopping, he was going slow enough and has been warned enough about driveways that I could see he was ok. He has been riding confidently since 3 year old kinder and knows heaps about riding safely. He has ridden from Richmond station to Port Melbourne and back to Flinders St among many rides he has done, apart from his kinder and school commute. No-one else I know rides to school because they are scared of cars. Who is this mongrel in the 4WD ute to further intimidate me to not ride? I want to batter his shiny white ute with a stick.
I read this article a few days ago and it was great to read. I thought of it first when I was gasping for somewhere to offload this bike rage. It's a bike wilderness out here. Going back to Nothern Europe for 6 months next year...looking forward to some bike civilisation.
It’s true, cyclists don't, on the whole, deserve hate. But they don't deserve adulation either. In fact, they deserve nothing either way.
I don't celebrate cyclists. By the same token, I don't celebrate Buddhists, vegetarians, hang-gliders, or burger flippers. People are not their means of commute, any more than they are defined by what they do for a wage. Contrary to your suggestions, I'm no more likely to kiss their butt than I am to kick it. The mere act of cycling to work certainly doesn't buy anyone any credit.
Since when did cyclist = green?
I know many cyclists waving a green banner who are completely unaware that, although they cycle to work, through their other behaviours they are complete environmental disasters. But then perhaps Sydney Cyclists are truly unlike Melbourne cyclists?
Normally, how someone commutes to work (or the cafe, or the shops) is of absolutely no relevance to me. Or at least I didn't used to care. Unfortunately, after much consultation with the wise men of Gotham, the evil pixie we call mayor set aside seventy odd million dollars for a 'network' of cycleways around Sydney. Including straight out the front of my home.
My first response, when being woken by a jackhammer outside my bedroom window, was to assume that the Council was only building a cycleway because they hated me. But surely, I thought, there must be some valid reason why we need this cycleway? Surely there's benefit for our fair city?
So I went through the list:
1. Cycling makes people fitter, resulting in lower healthcare costs.
2. Cycling infrastructure should be cheaper to build and maintain than roads.
3. Cycling reduces the use of cars, which in turn reduces congestion, air pollution, parking difficulties, and other vehicle lifecycle environmental footprints.
4. People should be able to cycle if they want to.
Fashion aside, that's really all I could come up with. But it seemed like enough.
Armed with this, I hit the research. Mostly the research that the City of Sydney commissioned from AECOM. There were other international studies, such as those from Copenhagen, that suggested designs like the Sydney Cycleway plans were more dangerous to cyclists. But I didn't give a rat's proverbial about the safety of cyclists, this is about saving the world, right?
My first shock came when I saw how many cars would be replaced by bikes. According to the City's research, only 10% of new cyclists will be ex-drivers. That's not a 10% reduction in cars, it merely means that for every 10 people that take up cycling, only one will cycle instead of drive. I imagine the number drops further for rainy days.
A massive 26% will ride instead of walk. For those that didn't know, a brisk 2 kilometre, 20 minute walk is actually better exercise than the equivalent 10 minute casual cycle. Cycling is actually an incredibly efficient mode of transport; and while that makes it a great way to rush from A to B , kilometre for kilometre, it makes it a rather rubbish form of exercise.
So the cycleway actually reduces the amount of exercise people get. Instead of walking they'll simply ride. Of course there are plenty of serious commuting cyclists out there that travel between 5 and 50 km to and from work each day, but among inner city riders, they are the minority, and let's face it, those guys don't need a cycleway. Point being, the health angle was out. To make matters worse, they went on to decide modelling walking was too hard, so the rest of the study assumes that there's no such thing as pedestrians.
But surely the cycleway would mean cheaper infrastructure in the long run?
It turns out not. You see, normally you would build a cycle path lightly, like a footpath. Instead, the City of Sydney built the cycleway to the same standard as a road. The environmental footprint of the road widening (and related materials) new lights, and new curbs and gutters, has expanded the infrastructure dramatically. There is no way that it can be cheaper to maintain than the simple road and painted 'door lane' that already existed.
What about congestion, air pollution, freeing up parking, and overall less car ownership? If only one in ten new cyclists is trading their commute, how many are going to ditch their car altogether? As far as parking goes, hundreds of on street parking spaces were sacrificed in the name of the cycleway. Finally, we turned to the old bug bear of congestion. Based on the council's numbers, for every 10 new riders there is one less car, but 10 new bikes on the road. We are effectively trading 1 car for 10 bikes. That sounds like a recipe for congestion.
At least that would be the case if they were on the road. Most of the new cyclists are not hardened commuters.
In Sydney, cyclists fall largely into two categories: the lycra skinned commuter, covered in more branding than a prime time ad break; and the super hip helmetless path slug, who's retro cool rusted bike is as much an accessory as her dinner plate sized sunglasses.
If you want to dress like a superhero and ride with traffic, power to you. You have a right to the road, the same as a car, and I don't care either way. Good luck with your upcoming triathlon, but please stay on the road! Just because it's a one way street, you are not spontaneously granted the right to ride on the footpath. You should go around the block with the rest of the traffic. And while we're at it, traffic lights are for you too.
But if you're cycling in jeans or your summer dress, zigzagging back and forth on the footpath, talking on your phone as you meander to this month's popular cafe, get off your damned bike and walk. So Frenchy, so chic? Or just desperately seeking validity?
Has the cycleway encouraged more cyclists? You bet. It costs $70,000,000 to get more emos & hipsters on the footpath, and a big wet kiss on the arse of self impressed bicycle commuters that were mostly already cycling without the path. But it's a nice day out, so I guess that 1 in 10 new cyclists has probably left their car at home today.
Even the most vehement cycleway argument tends to boils down to liking having a cycleway, and that’s justification enough. But is that really a seventy million dollar argument?
The city’s study concludes that, given certain circumstances, the cycleways will actually be profitable for the city in the long run. Unfortunately it only works in a world where pedestrians don't exist, public transport is rolled back, and bikes all ride in an orderly manner only upon designated cycleways. It reminds me of the physicist and the farmer: it only works for spherical chickens in a vacuum.
Just for the record: I don’t have a bike, although I used to. I don’t have the space, the maintenance time, or the spare cash to buy something that would serve so little function, and bring me little joy. I use my (very small & efficient) car less than once a fortnight. I walk 45 minutes each way to and from work (rain, hail or shine), I run when I get the chance, I consciously minimise my environmental footprint when I consume, and I invest significantly in emerging green technologies. What does a cyclist do besides ride themselves to work?
So you'll forgive me if I don't kowtow, but being a cyclist does not make you green, it does not make you better, and if you're in Sydney it makes you the undeserving recipient of $70,000,000 worth of infrastructure that didn't go into education, medicine, or art.
I’m not angry at cyclists, I’m angry at people who think that cycling makes them special, or that cycling makes them green, and I’m angry that a naïve public encourages them and wastes money and time on them.
They’re just guys and girls on bikes, and most of them would be better off walking.
Stumbled across this site trying to find out who Catherine Deveny is. Absolutely lost my shit at the comment above me. If he/she thinks anyone is going to read that then they need to stop drinking his/her own bathwater!
It is excellent sharing and thanks for the article.
Cycling in the morning will put you in a better mood throughout the day. This is because exercise does many things to improve your mood. It causes your brain to release endorphins which will make you feel good.