Two-thirds of people want more transport funding to go into walking, cycling and public transport.
The decline in cycling probably shouldn’t surprise us.
In the past 40 years, the percentage of children who walk or ride to school has dropped from 75% to 25%. Furthermore, cycling receives only about 2% of transport budgets.
As well as the three transport priorities, we can of course take many more actions that would help increase walking and cycling.
These measures include: boosting housing density, beautifying our neighbourhoods, programs to build people’s confidence and skills to walk and cycle, such as beginners bike tours, and more frequent public transport.
The ACT has done a fantastic job in this field. If you’re a commuter you’ll rarely find yourself on a road, and if you do it will most likely have a permanent bike lane (no parked cars in sight)
Sure, if you’re more of an adventurous cyclist like me and do more advanced rural cycling, you might end up on some roads (eg. when riding to Queanbeyan) but even that route has a bike lane.
Shame that Adelaide, the “cycling capital” because of the Tour Down Under, has terrible bike infrastructure and timed bike lanes so people are allowed to park in them off-peak.
