Wow, didn’t that get some responses? Heaps of emails and calls about the new cycle way on Sir James Mitchell Park, with bouquets and brickbats. I also realised that I had upset the engineer who designed the path and am embarrassed that I did so. My apologies are offered right now.
I have also found that the path was intentionally designed as a “shared recreation path,” with lots of pleasant meanders, not as a transit way. This of course leaves us with the issue that hundreds of people are now using it as a transit way.
Right across Australia cities are building bike transit ways and finding them used beyond expectation. This is a tremendous outcome; every cyclist has consciously not used motor transport. We have less road congestion, less pollution, less parking needs, smaller carbon footprint. I am so happy about this.
Now, lets use the popularity of this facility to really push for completion of the Perth Bicycle Network, making a safe, efficient link to and around all points of the compass in Perth.
3 comments:
The new paths that have been built are a very valuable addition to the Bicycle network, but they are still being designed with cars as thye priority in mind. Why do we have to slow down cyclists that cross Douglas Avenue (which is not a major road) and not actually the cars?
Unless we change the rules for shared road use, ridng bicycles will always remain dangerous, particularly in Perth and WA. It starts with those simple things: that turning cars never look for cyclists or pedestrians; at the lights you have to press the button to be allowed to cross the road instead of providing automatic priority (therefore you've got cyclists jumping the red light, because they were just to late to push the button); bicycle lanes and even dedicated paths are just tentative and often plastered with parking cars (e.g. Davilak Street, on the way from Canning Bridge to Curtin, or Cycle route SE next to Clontarf College)
So we not only need engineering solutions, but also a lot of awareness raising and the right policies to create a cycle friendly Perth, where no one is afraid of cycling and parents send their kids to school on the bike instead of dropping them off in their monstrous 4wds that create a danger on their own.
I would like to see more emphasis on placing cycleways away from busy traffic areas. The cycleway along Kwinana freeway is a disaster.
New research is indicating increasing significance of nano-particles - mainly from engine exhaust pollutants - on respiratory health and are carcinogenic.
Any cyclist will tell you that when cycling your body is under stress, consequently breathing much greater volumes of air much deeper into the lungs than normal.
And what are we breathing? Poison air from thousands of vehicles literally a few metres away! Crazy!
Anyone thinking that cycling is increasing their health is obviously fooling themselves - actually they'd be safer in their car, which sort of defeats the whole idea of cycleways!
What is really sad is that so much investment has gone into this cycleway that any concern or criticism like this will fall on deaf ears because we have heavily committed to a cycleway in the wrong place.
Planning for future cycleways needs to seriously look at this problem. I wonder what the generation in 20 years time will say about our ignoring this problem when the serious health effects will be undeniable?
I have used that bike path a couple of times now, yesterday I went past, and got 2 flats! Not clever.
The problem with corners like that the rider cuts the corner, and thus if someone is passing will get chopped up.
Sand drifts onto the track and can cause the bike to loose grip going round the corner.
In addition I noted that where the bike path now joins Douglas Av it is adjacent to the car park, thus making it very difficult for the bike approaching from the east to see traffic on Douglas av approaching from the left.
I wonder if the person who designed this path had ever ridden a bike.
Whilst on bike paths don’t forget those that skate. There is a section of bitumen on the bike path that runs by south Perth esp, just as it turns into Mill Point cl that is so rough as to make it impossible to skate on.
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