Because so many Australian drivers are actively hostile to cyclists.
You misspelled “murderous Psychopaths”
I know several people who believe that might-is-right on our roads and consider cyclists to be a “burden on society since they don’t pay fuel tax.”
The tragic irony is that some of them ride motorbikes and don’t see the hypocrisy of their opinions.
For me it’s because almost nothing is within an hour’s ride. My drive to work isn’t far, but it’d be a 90 minute round trip on a bike.
- Better cycling infrastructure. Yeah, no shit. We need more paths, more direct paths, and more connected paths. You should be able to go anywhere you want using a route that it at least as direct as the most direct driving route, by bike, without ever sharing a road with cars above 30 km/h, and with a minimal number of road crossings where the cars get priority.
- Use AI to identify where cycling infrastructure needs to go. 🙄 Or you could just ask cyclists. We’ve got no shortage of ideas of places that are severely lacking already. Maybe the AI could be useful once most of the basic network is done, but not today.
- Improve transport modelling to include cycling. Yes! Add in induced demand effects on infrastructure for cycling, public transport, and cars. Use models that understand traffic evaporation when reducing road widths or adding modal filters. Our transport engineers are currently woefully behind the times.
- Politicians need to actually care about cycling. Yeah, no shit.
- Make active transport funding a priority. Yup. Our councillors love to harp on about how they spent X amount on cycling infrastructure, but they never put that in context of how much is spent on roads. But also, let’s make sure that money goes where it’s most useful. Spending billions building one green bridge is great, but is still much less useful than building many kilometres of good separated bikeway for the same price. (The real answer is to do both!)
- Recognise the health benefits of cycling. Yes, but this isn’t really an actionable item. It’s just more reason to do the above items, particularly pointing to 4.
Use AI to identify where cycling infrastructure needs to go. 🙄 Or you could just ask cyclists.
I guess you didn’t finish reading that section:
A big advantage of AI is it can be scaled up. Once trained, AI models can be replicated across many neighbourhoods to identify urban design features that support cycling. It’s even more useful when combined with citizen science and rider experiences, as we plan to do.
No, I just think it’s silly to talk about applying AI to something that just manifestly does not need AI. It’s a dumb buzzword at best, an excuse to spend less money actually building infrastructure because more money is going to AI consultants at worst.
Like I said, if it were about filling in the little cracks once we have a really good overall network, I could maybe get behind it. But right now there’s just zero need for it, because the stuff that’s missing is so obvious and there’s so much of it. At least in Brisbane, the Council could decide to triple its spend on bike infrastructure and still take a decade before the big problems we’ve been calling for action on for years are all exhausted.
an excuse to spend less money actually building infrastructure because more money is going to AI consultants at worst.
How will using AI in a privately funded research project take money away from government funded infrastructure projects?
I remember reading on the Conversation years ago one problem is we’ve been trained to see everyone on the road as equal. That’s not the case, someone in a car is surrounded by steel in a one tonne machine that can go 100km/h, but they’re the one missing out when stuck behind a cyclist or a cycle lane is implemented. Spaces need to be planned with a focus on the movement of people first, then cars.
We also need more complete cycling infrastructure. You look at the cycle lanes on maps and the paths look like a minecraft village. They’re disconnected and don’t link up anywhere. Also, a metre of green paint at the edge of a three lane road where the speed limit is 80km/h is not cycling infrastructure.
I used to ride the 33kms into the city for work, but that’s because I like cycling and got all the gear for it. The ride was either on paths or quiet roads but more could be done to link up sections and make the ride faster.
There was another article about the ‘cycling donut’ effect in Melbourne where people close to the CBD could walk or take trams, further out people rode because it was that sweet spot of a distance, and beyond that people drove or took public transport because everything was too far away.
Australia is a perfect candidate for cycling infrastructure because our cities are mostly flat, it never gets as cold as it does in Europe or NA, and the heat is generally more of a dry heat which can be avoided with some shade and a breeze. Our cities should be designed around 3-speed town bikes instead of cars.
33km on the bike as a commute is amazing! I only travel 12km and that is 25 minutes each-way.
Having the energy and commitment to ride 33km at the end of a long work day is very impressive. That has to be over an hour each way.
I’m just imagining a dedicated 2-way cycle path, lined with tall trees the whole way so it’s in the shade most of the day. What a beauty that would be!
I’m already jealous of you Aussies for the affordability of solar and your abundant sunshine making it highly efficient. Up here in Canada where I live solar is mostly a luxury and bike lanes and paths exist but are rather unpleasant to use when they’re covered with snow and ice from December to May.
The heat in qld. The humidity in summer cannot be understated.
People whinge about all kinds of things as excuses for why cycling doesn’t happen. In Canada it’s “it’s too cold”. In the UK it’s “too wet”. In Brisbane I alternately see “too hot” and “too hilly” brought up as excuses.
It’s all bullshit.
The evidence tells us pretty clearly. Infrastructure is the whole thing. With good infrastructure, people will cycle in any weather. It’s what happens everywhere in the world, every time they build actual good infrastructure.
And for what it’s worth, I find it much easier to cycle in Brisbane’s summer than its winter. Our winters are an awkward in-between temperature where you can’t rug up properly because if you do you get too hot while riding. But it’s too cold to go out in shorts. Speaking objectively, those Canadians are closer to having a good point. Warm weather doesn’t make your tyres slip; doesn’t require snow to be ploughed off of the path.
If I ride in summer to a meeting, I’m going to need a shower and a full change of clothes. That’s not practical. Sure, at can implement infrastructure (showers) everywhere, and places to store our sopping wet sweaty clothes maybe, but it’s just not going to fly.
Definitely introduce infrastructure, and get people on bikes.
But let’s not live in fantasy land that the humidity makes riding to work in summer a no for most people, who need to be clean, dry, and have non sweat soaked clothes at work.
That comes down to infrastructure though.
My workplace has a bike storage room, change rooms, showers, irons and lockers, so the problems you’re describing as impractical are quite practical for me.
But that’s just…straight-up not true? Just ride a little bit less intensely. It’s really not that bad. I’ve done it for years—including in a city far hotter and more humid than Brisbane.
Or yeah, have a shower. It’s pretty easy. Most office buildings, schools, universities, and hospitals have EoT facilities. And you can skip the morning shower at home.
Those are all legitimate reasons to not ride. Don’t be “that guy” who has to force his way of life on others to feel validated.
Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything, except the pro-car crowd who come up with every possible excuse to avoid building better infrastructure for non-car uses.
I ride all year round in Brissie. I find my comfort level depends on when I ride, distance, speed and my bike setup.
First, I ride to and from work in the morning and arvo when it’s cooler, not in the middle of the day.
I ride 6km each direction which is manageable. In winter I barely break a sweat. In summer I have a shower on each side. I can and sometimes do get away without showering by riding slowly. Or I just catch PT if I’m going somewhere else after work.
The other thing I noticed is that not wearing a bag helps a lot with reducing sweat on my back. I have a basket on the back of my bike and just throw my bag in. A lot of other people use pannier bags.
Reforming mandatory helmet laws, by either abolishing them altogether or making them applicable only on busy roads, would help. The laws deter mass uptake of cycling by framing getting on a bike as a dangerous extreme sport rather than a form of active mobility. The fact that they are applied to advertising as well, with tourism ads for Amsterdam having helmets photoshopped onto all the cyclists, further reinforces this framing and deters casual cyclists.
But cycling is dangerous - do we really want to put our ideology ahead of peoples’ safety? I’m not saying cars are safe, but they are required to have seat belts (which you are required to use) and I assume airbags are also mandatory. We shouldn’t downplay the risks associated with an activity to get the “ignorant masses” to do it - that is misleading. We need more people out of cars and on bikes or public transport but we shouldn’t get there by lying, good infrastructure will be a major factor.
Statistically, it’s been fairly well understood for a while now that the benefits of a larger number of people cycling outweigh the safety risk of some of those people not wearing a helmet.
Infrastructure and keeping people separate from cars is more important, but mandatory helmet laws are a net detriment to public health.
There’s entire swathes of people who just can’t really have their hair messed up or it would affect them professionally. In Europe people tend to not wear helmets and it’s not like it’s a daily massacre in the streets.
There are different types of cycling. I would always wear a helmet to work because I live 6km away and it’s a decent ride. There are hills and I often get to a reasonable speed.
Compare that to someone living in South Brisbane commuting to the CBD, or someone going for a leisurely bike stroll on the riverwalk - they may not go fast at all. We don’t wear helmets whilst walking or jogging, but why is it mandatory for a slow ride?
The big reason helmets can be offputting is because they can mess up your hair. If the city wants to encourage people who live relatively close to their jobs to ride in, more flexibility on helmets could be a good thing.
FWIW I do think helmet safety should always be encouraged. Riding down a hill? Going more than a leisurely stroll? Wear a helmet. Makes sense. But it’s really not that necessary for people who are riding slow.
