The Sunday Times (our flagship Sunday Paper in Perth) has written a “Special report – The truth about our slow trawl freeways and why it’s going to get worse with even more traffic congestion” (Sunday Times 18.7.10 50000 more cars) and explained that we will have 50000 more cars on the road in WA in five years. A test during peak hours showed an average speed of 22 km/h for a trip from Coburn to Hay Street. Sounds like the average speed of a cyclist….. Mainroads is going to solve the problem with fibre optics.
I love the papers….to start with, why is it a given that there will be 50,000 more cars on the road? Is it because the alternatives are just not talked about, especially not by the “experts” that were interviewed for the article?
I am going to send Simon O’Brien a “one car less” sticker and a BTA key ring as thanks for being the only person interviewed who mentioned walking and cycling as possible solutions.
Now for some fun figures:
Perhaps about 500 000 to 600 000 cars on these freeways on an average weekday day
Perhaps about 9000 cyclists counted on the various cycle counters on an average weekday
Problem: Need to soak up the projected 50000 additional car trips?
Solution: Increase cycling participation from the current approx 1.6 to about 9% (like lousy weather cities such as Zurich)
Too easy!!!
Promoting everyday cycling three days a week (or more...)
I’d love to be able to use the train system, but with a bicycle. And I know that they have very handy lock boxes at all the stations, but I live in the southern suburbs a 20 minute walk from the train station, and if my workplace moved from the CBD to somewhere slightly into the northern suburbs I would probably work a reasonable distance from a station.
The sensible thing would be to ride to the station, take my bike on the train and then ride from the train station to my workplace. But I can’t do that. Why? Because every bloody train goes through Perth, and in order to ride from the train station to my workplace I’d have to ride from the southern suburbs to Leederville Station, because I’d be travelling during peak hour and bikes aren’t allowed on the train during morning peak hour heading into Perth.
Thats just absurd. Instead of having a nice little less-than 5km ride to and from stations, I either have to wait for two or three forms of public transport – bus/bike/car then train and then bus. So what does everyone do? Drives.
Transperth has 83 trains at the moment. Buy more. Buy more and make one of the carriages a bike friendly carriage. Yes, I could buy a folding bicycle, but I already own a perfectly good bicycle, and don’t need a new one. Also, how many people work low paying jobs who’d never be able to afford a folding bicycle, and have a supermarket or department store bike as their main transport?
Also, start building a train line to connect Fremantle Station via the old America’s Cup train stations to Thornlie Station using the Railway Reserve. While you’re at it, connect it to Kenwick station and then up to Midland. And don’t route it via Perth.
My fiance is looking at his daily 30km each way bicycle commute increasing to 45-50km each way. We’d rather not have to move just for his work, we’d rather stay where we are. But his bike commute may see him cycling to Leederville just to still be able to ride and not get to work completely exhausted. The alternative is he could drive.
Hi, Kelly, thanks for your eloquent and passionate comments.
I completely agree. If we want people to commute to work and leave their car at home, we have to make it easy. I suspect the Minister for Transport agrees as well, and is happy to hear from people with a positive view. I have forwarded your comments to him.
Regards,
Heinrich Benz