It’s something the politicians rarely talk about – not even the Greens – perhaps out of fear of looking *too* green? The Brisbane City Council’s website has moved this whole potential gold mine from “Traffic & transport” to “Sport & leisure”.

There’s no secret that bicycling is a serious mode of transport in many parts of the world and can be very safe with the overall benefits far outweighing the risks (that can’t be said of most other modes of transport). But for some reason in Australia and other English-speaking countries, governments and authorities like to treat it just as a “sport” and create other excuses when instead it could be realised as a genuine alternative transport. By the way, most trips in our urbanised areas (where most Australians, and the rest of the world now reside) are actually very short in distance yet still done by car in Australia. [http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2011/02/all-those-myths-and-excuses-in-one-post.html]

Councils and government can’t be very serious about active travel – which links up perfectly with public transport, provided the bus and train stations are accessible without a car! – if we have infrastructure and laws that prioritise private cars and even parked cars over pedestrians and people on bicycles. For example, what’s with the intersections that require a button press and long wait for a green pedestrian light remaining for only 5 seconds before switching to “don’t start walking”, thus encouraging many drivers to not give way and rush the pedestrians? [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/realestate/streetscapes-the-pedestrian-loses-the-way.html]

Public transport (including light rail) while great, will alone never be able to be a realistic alternative to many if it has no chance of competing with the “freedom” of driving (in near-gridlock). Add cycling to the mix with proper, direct, world class (i.e., Dutch) infrastructure and that will truly be a powerful combination and incentive to reduce low occupancy car usage. So long as the politicians pretend that we already have “world cities”, we’ll only get to world average-class.

Quite simply, if we build proper infrastructure for people (be it on foot, bike or wheelchair/stroller when we all get old and/or sore) things will be better for everyone – drivers included. This can only happen if we get the same convenient selection of direct roads and paths that are currently in the car’s domain. Public transport will immediately become more useful too.

None of this will be cheap, but neither are tunnels and new highways for predominantly private motor vehicles. So what’s it all really worth? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WBiTnBwSWc]

all of this will increase use, feedback and problem resolution

… and because I’m so furious about it’s current woeful state (take a trip to Melbourne and see a city that’s doing it better than most) I’m going to crunch the numbers from the current BCC budget to prove how we can afford to make a system that works!

more recharge points for go cards.

more frequent services for Brisbane’s northside (takes me 2 hours to get to work in CBD from Brighton, and sometimes longer to get home)

how bout a bus stop on either side of the bridge to redcliffe, so that all the bus services that run Redcliffe to Sandgate can service Brighton as well..after all..they are going that way anyway????

Night bus all the way to Redcliffe.