A cycling vision for the future of Adelaide
What sort of city do we want Adelaide to be and how do we get there?
Adelaide needs a bicycle culture; Adelaide needs infrastructure that will encourage a bicycle culture. Unfortunately some infrastructure planers will only base infrastructure on past trends and current usage patterns. There is little or no crystal ball gazing, or designing to create a future, not just in terms of infrastructure, but more importantly, the culture that infrastructure would create.
Let us have a little thought exercise of a few moments and think about what Adelaide could look like with large-scale bicycle parking at every transport interchange and a ubiquitous free bike scheme working throughout the CBD.
The worker or visitor to the city would ride to their local train or bus interchange, swipe their smart access card (which is also their ticket onto the system) to use a large, secure bicycle parking cage where they use their own lock to safely store their bicycle. They would then travel to the city on a modern electric train, where they would either walk or tram to their eventual destination, or (again with a swipe of their card), hire one of the 1000 odd free bikes that are located all over Adelaide. If they need to take their bicycle on the train then, not only would this be allowed, there would also be a dedicated space, to safely store and secure their bike so that it would not inconvenience other travelers.
Such a system would be comparatively cheap to build and run, especially if integrated into the current redevelopment of public transport infrastructure and the future development of a more convenient ticketing system. It would be integrated with the public transport system as a whole and designed for maximum utility and functional convenience.
Such a system would generate an immediate increase in bicycle use bringing all the inherent benefits that cycling offers to the community. Our city would be quieter without the continued background noise of 1000’s of engines passing through it everyday. There would be less air pollution, people would be happier and quite soon the entire community would become far healthier.
Adelaide could truly start to spread its wings as a unique city with an attractive and accessible transport system-encouraging resiliency and sustainability through forward thinking and innovative planning that does not simply accept that the way things are is the way they ought to be. It would embrace a culture of change and community development focused on the use of the bicycle for everyday transport.
In such a culture, carrying a helmet, or having a fashionable shoulder bag to stow it in, will be the sign of a sustainable commuter, one who is ready to jump on a bike at a moment’s notice and not even think twice about it.
Originally published inthe BISA newsletter 'Pedal Update' November 2009
Adelaide needs a bicycle culture; Adelaide needs infrastructure that will encourage a bicycle culture. Unfortunately some infrastructure planers will only base infrastructure on past trends and current usage patterns. There is little or no crystal ball gazing, or designing to create a future, not just in terms of infrastructure, but more importantly, the culture that infrastructure would create.
Let us have a little thought exercise of a few moments and think about what Adelaide could look like with large-scale bicycle parking at every transport interchange and a ubiquitous free bike scheme working throughout the CBD.
The worker or visitor to the city would ride to their local train or bus interchange, swipe their smart access card (which is also their ticket onto the system) to use a large, secure bicycle parking cage where they use their own lock to safely store their bicycle. They would then travel to the city on a modern electric train, where they would either walk or tram to their eventual destination, or (again with a swipe of their card), hire one of the 1000 odd free bikes that are located all over Adelaide. If they need to take their bicycle on the train then, not only would this be allowed, there would also be a dedicated space, to safely store and secure their bike so that it would not inconvenience other travelers.
Such a system would be comparatively cheap to build and run, especially if integrated into the current redevelopment of public transport infrastructure and the future development of a more convenient ticketing system. It would be integrated with the public transport system as a whole and designed for maximum utility and functional convenience.
Such a system would generate an immediate increase in bicycle use bringing all the inherent benefits that cycling offers to the community. Our city would be quieter without the continued background noise of 1000’s of engines passing through it everyday. There would be less air pollution, people would be happier and quite soon the entire community would become far healthier.
Adelaide could truly start to spread its wings as a unique city with an attractive and accessible transport system-encouraging resiliency and sustainability through forward thinking and innovative planning that does not simply accept that the way things are is the way they ought to be. It would embrace a culture of change and community development focused on the use of the bicycle for everyday transport.
In such a culture, carrying a helmet, or having a fashionable shoulder bag to stow it in, will be the sign of a sustainable commuter, one who is ready to jump on a bike at a moment’s notice and not even think twice about it.
Originally published inthe BISA newsletter 'Pedal Update' November 2009
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Comment by Mike H on November 16, 2009 at 12:44 -
I tend to agree with Travis. Providing the facilities is one thing, but getting people to use them is another. There is an entrenched car culture in Australia, and not just a car culture but a BIG CAR culture. Combine this with the increased traffic which has made people scared of going out on bicycles and scared of letting their kids cycle to school and you have a very powerful barrier to cycling for many people. Better bike lanes will help, but its going to take a generation of lobbying to change that culture. There are a lot of vested interests, like the motor industry and the RAA who resist any changes which would make the roads safer e.g. reduced speed limits, greater restrictions on driver behaviour. My experience overseas is that it takes a huge amount of strong lobbying over a long period to achieve change. If we had a star network of bicycle only lanes from all points of the compass into the city, this might get more people commuting. Whilst I am happy to battle the traffic, most non-cyclists aren't willing to take the risk. At the same time, we need to keep pushing for safer, slower vehicles on the road. Whilst we still allow big, heavy, fast cars, capable of doing 120km/h to 200+ km/h to be used on the public roads, we will continue to have death and injuries to passengers, cyclists and pedestrians, making people more and more fearful. The more fearful they become, the less likely they are to be prepared to cycle, and the more they want to have a bigger, heavier, 'safer' car. Its a vicious circle, and I'm afraid I'm pessismistic about Australia changing much in the next 50 years. The only thing that might drive it is a big rise in petrol prices, but from what I've seen, all that will do is replace fast petrol driven cars with fast, equally dangerous, electric cars.
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Comment by Jeremy Miller on November 16, 2009 at 13:17 -
I must say that I agree with both the comments from Travis and Mike. As a long term bicycle advocate I get frustrated as to the entrenched nature of the car culture in Adelaide, and I am certainly not naive as to what is required to change it! But until we actually start articulating a vision of what we want to replace it with, and make that vision attractive, attainable and exciting, we will continue to bang our collective heads on the wall - just because things are the way they are does not mean that is the way it has to be. Being able to vision the future we want is very powerful, it allows positive programs and plans to be put in place to navigate towards it. Imaging the future that we don't want to happen, then trying to work out how we avoid getting there, is a much harder exercise and tends to get us all bogged down in the negatives of avoidance. Essentially the vision above is a "if you build it they will come" vision - but one that I strongly feel will necessarily need to be a foundation of a bicycle culture for Adelaide. It would be cheap to implement, cheap to run and easy to administer. Keep the comments coming, I am interested to know what people think! Cheers Jeremy..
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Comment by Patrick Sunter on November 17, 2009 at 23:59 -
Hi Jeremy and others - as a fellow BISA advocate I obviously agree with Jeremy's position quite a bit ... one recent idea I've had is it'd be cool if we could publish our own maps and images of what a _real_ bike network in Adelaide would look like as part of this visioning process. Eg I'm impressed by these ones the PTUA have done regarding rail in Victoria (http://www.ptua.org.au) - if the current network isn't up to scratch, let's at least imagine where it should be headed. I was also looking at the new 3D model of the Adelaide city today, and had the pipe dream of doing up a version with lots more cycle lanes on it ;) The "world class streets" report in New York currently is talking this sort of approach http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2008/pr08_049.shtml
Finally, I'll re-post one of the pics I took in Amsterdam earlier this year as I find these a pretty inspiring vision to come back to periodically ;-)
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