I couldn't have said it better myself

Many blogs you visit have links to the blogs of other like-minded people. It is interesting to visit those when you have a spare minute. Often they become another favourite blog. That's certainly what has happened to me over time.

The problem with it though is that you come across people who write so much better than you do and articulate your thoughts more eruditely than you could hope to.

Rather than paraphrasing what they say, it is better I think simply to quote them directly.

There are two recent blog posts that are I think required reading for anyone interested in making their city less hostile to people getting around on foot and by bike.

The first is written by David Hembrow (his top ten status shows that many, many people are familiar with his blog). It summarises the history of cycling in the Netherlands and the UK and what made them diverge so far to the point that the UK's modal share for cyclists is as low as the woeful share in Australia. The paragraphs about children using bikes and the provision of parking at supermarkets and railway stations are particularly eye-opening.

The second is on the Vole O'Speed blog. To me, it hits the nail on the head. In short, very few people use bikes for every day transport in places like Australia because it is dangerous. It is true that statistically, and using travel per hour as a measure, it is really not much more dangerous than driving. However, as the author says:

the cyclists on our roads now are an unrepresentative, self-selected group. Measuring their casualty rate per mile does not measure the true danger of cycling, it measures the risks to a group who are peculiarly able to mitigate the risks of cycling in fast motorised traffic  though their speed, athleticism, confidence and assertiveness.

That groups consists in the main of men riding sport bikes.

The best quote is this:

It is, simply, objectively dangerous to have metal boxes weighing up to several tons moving at speeds from 20 to 70 mph in the same space as unenclosed human beings.

The logic of that statement is unassailable. If we want to reduce the number of trips made by car (and there are, as we know, many reasons why that is a worthwhile goal), it is first necessary to reduce the danger to which anyone on a bike is exposed. It is not done by helmet laws, educating motorists, pleading with cyclists to obey the road rules to earn respoect, nor any of the many other things that have been tried and failed.

It is done by separating the person from the source of the danger.

An excuse to talk about trains again

A couple of recent articles on the ABC News website and on Adelaide Now refer to a study about building a high-speed railway line linking Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.

It's a great idea (any new railway line is) but I confess I am confused by the figures.

It is estimated to cost between $61 and $108 billion. That is a very large wad of cash. After that, it gets interesting. Adelaide Now says:

A one-way trip from Melbourne to Sydney could be as cheap as $99, while the fare from Brisbane to Sydney could be as low as $75.

Brisbane to Sydney is about 900 km. Give or take 10 or 20 kms, that's about the distance from Hamburg to Zurich. You can catch a German ICE that distance and it will take you 8 hours exactly. You can catch one at 10.01am from Hamburg HBF and it will drop you off in Zurich at exactly 6pm. According to the DB website, it will cost you 152,40 EUR (that's $204.25 is today's money). So not quite as low as $75.

If the train runs, the question is where it will serve in between. You can imagine it stopping at Newcastle, Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour and the Gold Coast. By way of comparison, the German equivalent serves large cities like Hannover, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Freiburg and Basel in between. That I think would tend to make the service a bit more viable. True it is that Sydney has a larger population than most European cities but not all of them are travelling to Brisbane on any given day.

If they do, these days they take the plane. Over that distance, the train would have to be very fast to compete. It has the benefit of picking people up and dropping them off in the centre of the city but that only really benefits people who either live there or have their hotel/conference/meeting there. It takes people time to get to the airport to catch a plane but it would equally take time to get to the centre of a city to catch the train. If you like in Blacktown, you can safely add an hour to your journey to reach central station before getting on the train for Brisbane.

Not only that, the planes travelling between Australia's capital cities are not exactly overflowing. Until recently, whenever I have travelled interstat by plane, it is on a Boeing 767 or similar that has three seats each side of a central aisle. More recently, I have been on slightly larger planes with a 2-3-2 configuration. If a railway line were built, I can see airlines making its life very difficult. We have seen price wars in the past. In fact, even without a price war I reckon in real terms it's cheaper to fly places than it has every been.

If the Commonwealth can find between $61 and $108 billion, rather than spend it on a single railway line connecting only some capital cities, I cannot helping thinking that the money would be better spent on some desparately overdue projects inside our cities. Sydney is finally getting its Epping rail link that has been talked about for decades. Its metro was canned before it was begun (a stupid and short-sighted decision). Compare that with Copenhagen - a city with a fraction of the population. Not only does it already have a metro (on which the Sydney one would have been based) in addition to its S-Tog, a circular extension is already being built.

Commonwealth money would extend our railway line north east to the new suburbs around Gawler and further south than Seaford where it is needed. It could also extend it further east to Mount Barker and beyond where, judging by today's newspaper, it is so desparately needed. We also still do not have a tram or railway line to the airport. That would be a far better use of all of that money.

Urban images

I picked up a coffee from Cibo's the other day. They like to emphasise their Italian heritage. I could see it in the picture of two ridiculously good-looking people riding on a vespa without helmets that was up on the wall.

There was also an interesting picture above the counter. I tried to take a picture of it but because it was so glossy, all you could see was the reflection of what was behind the picture so I have to describe it.

It was a cartoon picture of a Cibo cafe. It was not like a usual Cibo cafe which is either on the ground floor of a modern office building or in a concrete shopping centre surrounded by car park (to be fair, there are some exceptions like the one on Prospect Road). Instead it was on the ground floor of a funky looking two storey old building. Outside the Cibo in the picture is a little table with an umbrella. At the table sit two groovy looking and smiling people. At the counter is a man in his Cibo shorts and t-shirt and his cycling cap - no helmet of course - standing next to his bike while ordering from the smiling Barista (Bean Bar does the same thing. The store on Gouger Street has a picture of a happy pair of teenagers riding their tandem bike across some sand-dunes). It's all very happy and fashionable although quite distant from real life.

I find it's a bit like children's books. A good example is the Magic Hat by Mem Fox. Here's a page:

Have a look at the street. There are no cars, children are walking around with their families, the playground is close by and facing the houses. People rarely have to wait for traffic and if they do, it's usually a single brightly coloured convertible driven by a friendly bunny rabbit. It's very different from real life. In real life, this street would have plenty of on-street car parking and driveways every few metres. It is doubtful whether the playground would be there at all. The business on the corner would have a big sign saying "Free Parking" with an arrow pointing to the rear of the property.

In my experience, this is the case with many children's books. Towns and villages are happy and safe places, lots of people are on the street and cars are few and far between. Sesame Street is like it too.

One exception that I have come across is a book called the Tiger Who Came to Tea. In summary, a hungry tiger knocks at the door of a house where a girl and her mother are. It is hungry and so they give it some food. It stays hungry and ends up eating all of their food. Dad comes home to an empty pantry and so they go out for tea. The moral of the story is to ensure you have tiger food in your pantry. Anyway, as the family is walking to the cafe, they walk aong a road that looks a bit like England in the 1970s, which it probably is (regrettably, I can no longer find the book so cannot scan a picture of it). Nevertheless, parking is limited to what is on the street, the pavements are wide and there are interesting shop fronts to see. Also, judging by the book, the High Street is close enough for a family to walk to safely even though they are hungry because a tiger ate all their food.

Alas, real life is not always like that. It can be if you live in the right suburb but we don't seem to build suburbs good enough for children's books any more. It would be a great test. Instead of council rules and urban planning manuals, I think we should just have a read of a book like the Magic Hat before we build a suburb. Build that and you will be well on your way to a very friendly place.

Except for the giant scary man who appears at the end.

Update: 16 May 2015

I found the picture from the tiger book:

 

Car stickers

When a car driver speeds past you leaving a space of only 6 inches, one of the benefits is that you get a good close view of their car stickers. Car stickers are good because they are a way of telling the outside world about the kind of person you are while you're stuck behind all that glass and steel.

For instance, your car sticker might tell the world that you're carbon neutral because some shrubs get planted each time you buy a new car. Some stickers tell politicians who might be stuck behind you at the traffic lights that you can do two things at the same time - fish and vote.

I saw a couple on a Commodore recently. One said simply, "Drive it as if you stole it". Sensible advice indeed.

The second sticker advocated, in a few words, open speed limits everywhere. It's all about freedom you see. A person in a car should enjoy the freedom to drive where they like, when they like and how they like. Any intrusion on that is a breach of a fundamental human right. After all, motorists pay billions of dollars every year in registration and petrol tax.

My all time favourite is one I saw a couple of months ago. It said:

Bring me coffee and nobody gets hurt.

Absolutely hilarious. It's as good as those signs you can put on your desk that say, "you don't have to be mad to work here but it helps". I nearly fell off my bike from laughing so much. In fact, it makes me giggle just writing it.

Perth

I took a trip to Perth the other week. The number of meetings I had meant there was little time to see daylight. Most people when visiting a new city will try and find time to see some attractions. Not me - I go looking for bike paths and trains. Perth has a couple of both.

While wandering around the CBD, I came across this cycle path:

It's quite similar to the short-lived Sturt Street bike path in that it's too narrow and ends abruptly. Unlike the Sturt Street one though, it has gently sloping sides so you could potentially overtake if you wanted to. Walking further I came across a similar path:

This one went around a square and even gave the appearance of taking priority over side streets:

and off-street car parks:

It went under this beautiful fig tree:

before coming to an abrupt halt like the other one:

Close to Perth station was this two-way path that I later found out was known as the Perth Veloway. It follows the route of the railway line. This part is off road and has proper treatments where pedestrians cross:

A bit of effort can be seen in the paving:

Later on, the Veloway just becomes painted lines on the footpath but it is not a busy footpath and so serves its purpose. Bikes have to share road crossing points with pedestrians though. Still, it's not bad.

By my observations, there seemed to be a similar number of people riding bikes as you see in Adelaide. As with the Eastern States, I saw a fair bit of helmet choice going on that you don't see here. Maybe we're the only ones.

The low numbers though were I think a reflection of the quality of the infrastructure - which is what you find the world over. There are a couple of bits of decent stuff but until it's properly joined up, your numbers are always going to be limited.

Great city though. Fabulous skyline.

One extra cyclist

I got an email the other day from a friend and neighbour. Although parking in Adelaide is cheap and plentiful compared to many other cities, she has decided that $250 a month is getting ridiculous and she is instead going to ride a bike to work each day.

It seems the fact that I ride a bike to work makes me something of an expert. My friend knows nothing about the garbage I write in this blog - which is probably a good thing.

Anyway, she asked what in my cycling experience is the safest route to take. She also said she was contemplating taking out life insurance. I found that remark quite interesting and telling. Despite so many educational campaigns about sharing the road and how a metre matters; despite 20 years of mandatory helmet laws and how we are told they save lives, her attitude is clearly that riding a bike is so dangerous that it justifies life insurance if you do not have it already.

That is not the first time I have heard such a view expressed. It is a serious problem and shows that riding a bike has completely the wrong image in this country. We are clearly doing something wrong. I cannot believe that her attitude is a one-off. In fact, from talking to other people, I know it is not. Something different from education campaigns and helmet laws is required.

It will be interesting to see how long my friend keeps at it. I explained the safest route I know - which is the one I take. It involves little bits of riding on the pavement at the end of dead-end roads and to get across very busy junctions. By recommending that, I appreciate I have set back the cause of cycling again. After all, we know from comments to the newspaper that thousands of people are nearly killed every year because of crazed cyclists speeding past them at lethal speeds on the pavement. Also, as we know, cyclists need to earn respect from motorists by obeying the rules. Once that happens, as if by magic, suddenly motorists will stop pulling out in front of you when you have right of way and will give you plenty of space as they overtake you (after slowing down of course). Because of me, it probably won't happen tomorrow.

Sorry about that.

When I responded, I recommended that my friend not bother with lycra but just ride in her normal clothes. After all, I said, plenty of people already do, you can ride in heels and while pregnant. She responded saying that she had bought a comfy bike with mudguards, a chain guard, etc and that she would be wearing suits and heels.

My brainwashing has paid off.

Not just Anzac Highway

I had yet another whinge the other week about the lack of places for pedestrians to cross on arterial roads in the metro area. It's not just Anzac Highway.

I took a bus along North East Road the other day and got off not far from the ABC building at Collinswood. Your chances are generally 50:50 but I drew a short straw and was dumped on the wrong side of the road. Here's a picture of the lonely bus stop. It's the small green shelter in between the graffiti and the urine stains:

This is the view towards the city. It is difficult to see but you can just make out the green lights of the crossing at Galway Avenue in the distance:

And here's the view in the other direction. You can't pick them out from all the car lights but the next traffic lights are at Hampstead Road. The problem is they are only for cars and there is no pedestrian crossing there. If you want a crossing with pedestrian facilities, you have to walk even further to Ascot Avenue - which is in the next suburb:

Each side of the road has three lanes of traffic with a speed limit of 60 km/h. You have to trust that people stick to it. In the middle you can see a median strip that's about the width of a narrow door. Generally you'll make it across half the road before you have to stand there and wait for the other side to clear. While you're there, drivers will happily speed past you without slowing down or giving you a bit of extra space.

They can't be blamed of course. If you see the world from behind a car windscreen, that will necessarily inform your view of the world. You certainly will have no idea what it feels like to cross North East Road as a pedestrian and get stuck in the middle there. If you see someone doing it, you assume - not unreasonably - that they are a weirdo.

And I was wearing my best suit too.

Anyway, whinge over. It's just another illustration of very little thought being given to pedestrians. Remember also, there is a primary school on that stretch of road. If you ever hear a motorist complaining that they are poorly treated, shake your head silently and walk away.