Todays media on the ‘bike ban review’
22 January, 2008 – 10:36 pmPart One: Channel Nine (22/01/08)
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Part Two: Channel Ten (22/01/08)
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- Audio of interview on RRR-FM’s ‘Along For The Ride’. (mp3, running time approx 18 minutes, file size 3M)
7 Responses to “Todays media on the ‘bike ban review’”
Wow, you are a total star, Chris! Thankyou so much!!
Channel 10 kind of jumped the gun, didn’t they 🙂
Seems like BV should stop letting the work experience kids update their website and answer their emails – seriously…
By pfctdayelise on Jan 22, 2008
Big thanks should go to MiTH for getting the audio/visuals.
Back to topic. There’s a term for this sort of stuff. Clusterf**k. This entire situation didn’t have to progress to this level. I’ve been around long enough to witness numerous clusterf**ks in a couple of scenarios. Although it ceased to amaze me long ago that so-called intelligent, vaguely sentient people can get such relatively trivial matters so wrong, on such a large scale.
Sad really.
By ChrisS on Jan 22, 2008
RRR reads aloud two statements they received from the DOI, and has a long interview with Jason den Hollander (Facilities development manager) from BV.
Summary
from 4:40
AFTR: Does BV support or object to the banning on bicycles on peak-hour trains?
JdH: Uh, we object.
AFTR: And from the beginning? There does seem to have been some modification of BV’s stance over the last couple of weeks. You did support the ban, certainly on metropolitan trains, in the first few weeks?
JdH: I think unfortunately that was a bad bit of writing on our website. The word “support” was the one that obviously got everyone worked up. It certainly got me personally worked up, I must admit. I think what we were trying to say was that we were accepting the umpire’s decision, but we were going to the tribunal, over it. We didn’t necessarily like it but we were going to work with what we had at the time, and push harder.
AFTR: That was quite easily misread I must say, by many many BV supporters, including myself. It certainly did read that BV supported the bans on metropolitan trains.
JdH: No, it’s a fair enough comment and I guess I’d just like to apologise to everybody who did misread that. Yeah, it wasn’t a very comfortable few weeks, I must admit.
AFTR: It must have been very busy and tricky for you, and I hope our caller from last week is listening in to that one. So in terms of the modification in BV’s position, what is it today then?
JdH:It’s basically that, we’re — I was going to update the website today, actually, but I thought I’d wait until tomorrow because the sands are shifting quite quickly at the moment as you mentioned with the Minister, and the review — the Minister Kosky’s office called us yesterday, we had a phone hook-up with her and discussed it, and where to go to from here, I think there will be quite a bit of running around in the background, obviously from her department, the DOI, and so on, and speaking with stake-holders, and where to go to from here. It’s not … I’d love to say we’re going to get 100% repeal, and that’s obviously what everyone’s gunning for, I guess it’s a case of what they come back with, where we go to from here.
AFTR: OK. I don’t want to harp on this at all, but I would just like to clarify, there did really seem to be a luke-warm response in the beginning, can you explain what the rationale behind that was?
JdH: It was probably luke-warm public, we were certainly paddling quite busily under the surface, we were speaking to as many people as we could get hold of, at different levels of government, as we found with the Minister a lot of people were away on holidays so it was actually quite hard to get ahold of people unfortunately. So I think that has been part of the reason, left hand not knowing what the right hand’s doing, there’s been quite a bit of confusion behind what has been the reasons and the rationale for the ban being introduced. We’ve had some confusing conversations with different parts of government on the same day.
AFTR: Could you let us know, just clarify for listeners, what was BV’s understanding was, of the rationale for introducing the ban, and also the rationale for this sudden change?
JdH: It’s a tricky one because it would be easy to presume or assume things. I don’t think we’re quite sure what the core, or original seed reason was for the idea to bring the bans in on peak hour. Now we’ve heard congestion; traveller’s safety which is a funny one —
AFTR: That one perplexed me in the statement.
JdH: — I’ve never seen bikes on fire on a train before but who knows, perhaps I catch the wrong line. So the congestion one was a strange one, because DOI’s own figures show that it’s less than 100 people on peak, so quite simply the numbers didn’t really stack up. It’s important to think that there’s two halves to this, there’s Connex metro and V/Line, and the V/Line scenario is a very different one to metro Connex. We’ve heard anecdotally — and it’s really hard to base these things on anecdotes, you try and speak to as many people as you can — a lot of riders have told us to a certain extent they’ve given up on peak-hour trains, on getting on, due to the space issue, and they do feel a bit guilty …
(~10:00)
blah blah blah…
By pfctdayelise on Jan 23, 2008
Well, it’s now 11:40 on the 23rd of January, the only thing on the BV website is *STILL* the releases from January 10 stating that bikes are not allowed.
Plenty of advertising for Bike Vic fund raising rides though.
By Adrian on Jan 23, 2008
The only way to get the problem of cyclists rights of access to the rail system dealt with rationally is to make it part it part of the most important overall change that Kosky will be responsible for this year. .
The most important change is going to be the overall revision of the Transport Act which will determine future developments in all the transport agencies and could put some real commitments to cycling in Connex’s contract. This provides provides an opportunity to get a sensible and equitable cycling policy with proper funding.
The short article below states what the real problem is and what needs to bedone about it. Note that the minister for roads will have to do much more if the Transport Act is changed in such a way as to commit VicRoads todo what is really required
Bye alan
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The Transport Act now being reviewed needs to be changed so theft and vandal proof bicycle parking is provided at all stations as an integral part of a vehicle parking policy ( bike and cars ) that provides better access to the rail system.
By Alan A. Parker
By banning bikes on peak hour commuter trains before there are enough theft proof bicycle parking spaces at stations Connex is encouraging cyclists to go to work by car and failing to increase patronage in many suburbs where rail stations are beyond easy walking distance, too insecure to park a car and have no convenient feeder bus services. The real problem for Connex is not the 100 or so cyclists who put their bikes on trains each day but the the thousands of cyclists who are choosing to drive because their is no secure bicycle parking at unstaffed stations and very few secure bicycle lockers at staffed stations. They know that car commutes increase road congestion and carbon dioxide emissions but have no alternative open to them. Regularly missing trains because it is too embarrassing to wheel the bike onto very crowded train is not an alternative.
Why is this happening when the science of ergonomics tells us that riding a bicycle uses the ‘mechanical advantage’ of pedalling over walking to go 3.5 times as far for the same physical effort as walking. The simple fact is that around 70% of potential rail users are within easy cycling distance of a station but only only 12 % are within easy walking distance. If there was secure bicycle parking at all rail stations and the rail system was extended into outer urban areas the potential of the existing rail system in Melbourne could be extended by 50,000 bike/ rail commuters or more per day and justify the purchase on more trains Indeed, if a bicycles are used at both ends of a rail trip, as happens with 25% of the bike/rail commutes in the Netherlands, the rail system would not only provide convenient access to the CBD but to most destinations within easy cycling distance (3 km) of all rail lines.
The integration of bicycles and the public transport system has the potential to greatly reduce carbon dioxide emissions, air pollution and road congestion. Sadly neither Connex nor the Public Transport Division of the Department of Infrastructure has any coherent plan to expand public transport in this low cost way. Instead they prefer put in more car parking at an average cost of $15,000 for able bodied commuters half of whom could easily walk or cycle to a station. Why spend more on car parking when ten times as many cyclists could have secure parking for the same price and half of the people who park their cars at stations live so close to a station that they are depriving people who drive a long way to station of a place to park. We need a sensible vehicle ( bike and cars ) parking policy that equitably provides better access to the rail system.
How railway systems contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions
I have put out several emails over the last five years stating the bleeding obvious. If you have an efficient rail system which is growing and reducing car use then there will be more trains and they will fully loaded in the rush hours when travelling with the flow. Therefore with exception of folded bicycle the most important most requirement is secure bicycle parking at all stations whether they are staffed or not. The current crisis was caused by bureaucratic wankers who did not believe their own propoganda that by 2020 there would be an increase in public transport to 20% of all trips to work , over double than
what we have today.
Trains that are only 20% occupied are not energy efficient or greenhouse friendly because much of the electricity they use comes from dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet; brown coal. Fully loaded trains are more energy efficient than cars and what we need is a growing rail system that is expanded into the outer suburbs and bicycles are used extensively as feeders to the station which have theft and vandal proof bicycle storage facilities. This needed at all stations because overseas experience shows that around 20 % to 25 % of bike/rail travellers need to use a bike at both ends of their journey.
This was documented in a detailed study made in 1986 “Bicycle facilities at railway stations”Report to the Metropolitan Transit Authority” by Loder & Bayly and Alan Parker Design , the report includes sketch plans of secure bicycle storage (including bicycle lockers) required at 106 staffed rail stations , 14 figures and 11 tables. This report was never implemented and the only copy still held by any cycling group the PTUA or DOI is in my possession. The PTUAs current policy supports my view of the need for secure bicycle parking.
and the provision of bicycle lockers (see policy on their website)
However in the past under a different leadership (Mees’s faction) in the late 1990s the PTUA persauded the CEO of the rail authority that the provision of 500 bicycle lockers I had spent a long time getting him to support was not required. BV was not supportive either of the need for lockers either it crapped on about lock up sheds, sold leaning rails to the MET which where substandard according to the SAA standard and in the end succeeded getting only bike shed built which was dificult to use because it was not properly managed as the Lock up sheds in Perth are.
Note that there are two types of lock up sheds in Perth one that stores around 15 bikes on existing stations; the other is an integral part of new stations built on the new rail line from Freemantle to the the south. Information is needed on this because we need new stations in Melbourne and the lock ups at new stations in WA could provide an excellent model for what we need in outer suburbia.
If we could get Kosky to see these facilities on her next trip to Perth it might be very useful. More importantly if we could get a member of her staff to go over and see the lock ups and talk to Jim Krynen the cycle coordinator for Department of transport in WA who has long experience as a bicycle facilities planner in the Netherlands. (Phone (08) 9326 2383 ) it could e very productive.
They do not need to trial them, they work in Perth they will work here so we need a firm commitment to built them in current years and to use lockers at unstaffed stations. We also need a full time bicycle security coordinator in Connex and Jim Krynen the cycle coordinator in WA should be invited over here to define the necessary job description.
Last but not least how much money is there in the next financial years budget for both the minister for transport and the minister for roads (2008/2009) to build the secure bicycle storage facilities we urgently need at stations and safe access routes to stations.
Alan Parker
By Alan A. Parker on Jan 23, 2008