Article: Bid to boost cycling in Victoria fails

[ozbob]

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Bid to boost cycling in Victoria fails

Bid to boost cycling in Victoria fails

    Melissa Jenkins
    From: AAP
    August 17, 2011 6:14PM

A PLAN to make cycling a leading form of transport in Victoria has failed, the state's auditor-general says.

Des Pearson said the previous Labor government's 2009 strategy was hastily developed without a proper understanding of cycling trends or what was required to make it mainstream.

"Serious limitations in ... development and implementation compromised its potential to achieve its goal," he said in a report tabled to state parliament.

Dr Pearson said there was too much emphasis on physical infrastructure and more time should have been spent reducing incentives to drive and promoting cycling.

Despite recent growth, bikes are used for just 1.6 per cent, or 184,000, of the 11.6 million trips made on a typical weekday in Victoria, according to 2007-08 figures.

Cycling accounts for between 10 and 27 per cent of all trips in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Dr Pearson said cycling had grown in those countries due to extensive infrastructure and promotion and measures to make driving more expensive and less convenient.

He noted cycling trips in inner Melbourne and the central business district have grown by about half over the past four years.

Dr Pearson said higher petrol prices and overcrowding on public transport had contributed to cycling levels.

Public Transport Minister Terry Mulder said the coalition government had invested in encouraging cycling in its first budget, including $14.5 million for a range of projects such as the continuing public bike hire scheme and an east-west bike link between the Maribyrnong river trail and the Yarra River trail.

Bicycle Victoria spokesman Garry Brennan said the report showed the government needed to do more to expand cycling.

"While we have made haphazard progress so far, if cycling is to become truly mainstream then much more concentrated effort has to be made by the government," he said.

Greens transport spokesman Greg Barber said the government should invest several hundred million dollars in cycling.

"For the price of a few freeway on-ramps, they could make inner Melbourne a cycling paradise and reduce the accidents but also reduce traffic congestion at the same time," Mr Barber told reporters.

"It's clear people want to do it but they're not always feeling safe enough on the roads to venture out there."

[Fares_Fair]

 :bi

[johnnigh]

Why are none of us surprised by this?
Yet again, we see the evidence that lip service and the conceptually and politically easiest fixes are rushed into, even if costly, the result being sweet f.a. for the achievement of desired outcomes. But because the pollies who went for the fix enjoyed the political benefit of the fix, while the failure is vaguely perceived except by the few who actually care, they continue to act with the certainty of failure.
This applies across jurisdictions. Q'land is probably worse than Victoria in this courting of failure. Not often are they caught out, the BCC's City Cycle scheme possibly one of the few.