canberra.bike
Scooters have become the symbol of a modern metropolis. Scooters are not new, we all had one as children, just the way they are being used is. Without room in the city for cars, and reliance on public transport, a scooter provides an easy way to hop around the city and cover short distances. Canberra is a bit different, and scooters are welcoming people, who have never cycled before, to active travel .
The ACT Conservation Council webinar on active travel. Enjoy.
The webinar was annouced recently on canberra.bike here.
This bridge over the Molonglo River will be the last section of the John Gorton Drive to be completed by 2024. Information about this bridge is found here. The close by Butters Bridge was finished in 2016 but is not yet in use.
Weston Creek Community Council wrote to Chris Steel, Minister for Roads and Active Travel, requesting that John Gorton Drive bridge be brought forward as part of the ACT Government’s Fast Track program. This now seems unlikely.
Tara Cheyne MLA, the Member for Ginninderra for ACT Labor, has sent canberra.bike two emails in the last month regarding the Kuringa Drive missing link, Belconnen. Quotes from her email and more information about Kuringa Drive are found below.
This is an update to Canberra.bike article on missing links. The original article has been revised.
Farrer or Eddison Park Nature Play playgrounds were introduced in the last post and riding there is discussed here. Farrer is surrounded by other suburbs and a great place for a playground. Woden town centre is tricky with kids and an island to itself.
Canberra.bike recommends Komoot for cycle navigation in Canberra.
Nature Play was a puzzle to me. Canberra.bike reviews the Nature Play playgrounds in Farrer and Woden. What I like best about Farrer is not part of the Nature Play concept. If we want children to explore the world, we have to accept that it involves a certain level of calculated risk. Urban “cotten wool” children will miss out on learning opportunities that others close to nature have.
As you know, 2020 is an election year and there is less than 100 days before the election. Get the candidates to commit to cycling infrastructure where you live.
Tara Cheyne is the local MLA for Belconnen has opened a survey for those living in Belconnen. Feel welcome to respond to it or contact your local candidates. I am sure you have similar issues in your electorate to those mentioned below.
Canberra continues to grow and we are squeezing more and more people into an ever-smaller place. Within a few years, 500,000 people will live in our city. We will be walking, cycling or riding a lot more than we do now. Walking to the bus stop makes public transport active travel, too.
Register here for a free webinar about Active Travel in Canberra.
The Canberra bike stores are fewer, bigger and more competitive. They will usually price match. Bike stores just want the sale. Kids grow fast, and once an enthusiastic cyclist, then always a cyclist. They know you will be back. Pricing for kids bikes starts from $200 and goes up to about $500.
The ACT Government’s 2019 Moving Canberra strategy was welcomed but essentially a rerun of the 2015 Active Travel Framework. The 2015 document was much more specific but failed for the lack of priorities, goals, and legislation. To say this another way, the ideas were good but the follow up poor. The 2019 Moving Canberra is vaguer and less specific than the 2015 strategy. The 2019 Moving Canberra creates a sense of urgency to do more of everything but lacks any recognition that strategy failure is not caused by the lack of ambition but rather the difficulty of implementation.
Canberra.bike has hardly mentioned ACT Government 2019 Moving Canberra strategy because it added little to the active travel debate. The ACT Conservation Council responded to it in a well-written submission. I will quote highlights from the submission here that are relevant in 2020. Between 2015 and 2020 the problems of cycle infrastructure investment remain largely the same in the ACT.
