Taking a Stand

Jim Hope of Coogee has taken a pro-active stance and written a letter to the Herald regarding the proposed loss of cycle lanes in Wiliam Street, Interests of road lobby come before good health.

Eight years on, the result of this $680 million private sector investment is obvious: traffic chaos on William Street and in central Sydney.

Now, pedaller is no position to comment on "traffic chaos" on William Street, being only a periodic and non-peak hour user of William Street, however, pedaller is in a position to comment on CBD "traffic chaos".
The Cross City Tunnel, while the toll was free or a relatively low $1.78, was obviously well patronised and certainly seemed to be the reason for the lack of traffic through the CBD. The flow of traffic during peak hours was good, unless it rained probably because more people choose to drive when it rains and there are more accidents causing delays on major roads. Once the toll was raised, "traffic chaos" in the CBD quickly followed.

Yet the road lobby, which campaigned vociferously for the tunnel, is now demanding and has achieved changes to the surface traffic arrangements, including removal of the bike lanes on William Street (the only bike lanes in the city centre) to fit an extra lane for traffic, and the abolition of new and planned bus lanes.

Sorry Jim, but that's not really true. Firstly because the bike lanes haven't been removed yet, and second because there are other bike lanes in Sydney's CBD.
Hickson Road has also been provided with bike lanes, and those dots on the road look very much as if we can expect a continuation of the bike lanes up Sussex Street in the very near future. Apart from that, every "Bus Lane" in NSW is a bike lane which gives us a number of other bike lanes in "central Sydney", George Street, York Street, Pitt Street, Castlereagh Street, etc, etc. Although there is no signage, Sydney Council seems to be under the impression that the Alfred Street proposed shared bike lanes are already in existence, so let's use them, I know I do. The Park Street bike lanes are to stay so we aren't losing those either, we are only losing the connecting link to the eastern suburbs, ie, the William Street/Kings Cross Road bike lanes. Ofcourse, this is no consolation to cyclists, or more importantly, would-be cyclists.

In the recent NSW budget from the Treasurer, Michael Costa, funding for the state's roads was up $415 million to $3.3 billion a year but, of that, a measly $5 million was allocated to cycling.

Cycling is actually set to receive $5.6million, but hey, what's an extra $600,000 between friends? The really sad news is that figure includes $3million for Council-led cycleways, a bike path near the Lane Cove Tunnel and "promotions".
Not only have we lost funding for bicycle projects, but the Roads and Traffic Authority's position of general manager, bicycles and pedestrians, the most senior bicycle official, has already been scrapped.(Sydney Morning Herald).

There also used to be a joint NSW Government-RTA initiative, Bike Plan 2010, which aimed to build 420 kilometres of safe, off-road cycleways in Sydney by 2010. Funding for that was abolished in the 2005 state budget, a decision made by the (then) roads minister, Michael Costa.

I could be wrong, but this is not my current understanding of the situation. Bike Plan 2010 involved a $250million expenditure over 10 years, ie, $25million per year on average. There is no doubt that this has received drastic cuts, but I thought that the $2.6million allocation for non-Council led cycleways was to put towards furthering the Bike Plan.

I applaud Jim for his pro-active stance, but I am a little worried that if we start making statements to the press that are untrue, or even just a little short of the truth, we will be labelled as crackpots and therefore not worth listening too.