The tender for the 2022 ACT and Queanbeyan Household Travel Survey has been released but do not expect any results soon. The tender (71271‐RFT‐001) expects that the data will not be available until April 2023 – a year away.
Success of programs for walking to school
ACT Health established programs to encourage walking and cycling to school in 2012. A decade later, most schools still do not participate in these programs. The participation rate for secondary schools is much lower than for primary schools. The ACT Government is slow to improve infrastructure around schools for active travel. Roads must be perceived as safe for these programs to succeed. What will it take to change this?
TCCS fails our schools
A demonstration of a car centric culture is the preference to duplicate arterials rather than fix the infrastructure around our schools. Good local road infrastructure is what makes our suburbs walkable and rideable. For children to walk or ride to school we need good and safe infrastructure within a kilometre of all schools. First, we need to make the roads safe for kids, and only then will parents think about other alternatives to driving children to school.
What is a street
The street and road are not the same thing. Simply put, the road is for cars, but everybody benefits from the street. Take way the road and we still have a street, it may even serve the local community better.
National Road Safety Week: 15-22 May 2022
Drive so others survive! National Road Safety Week is coming up next week, 15 to 22 May 2022. Traffic injury is the biggest killer of Australian children under 15. Amongst vulnerable road users, children are the most vulnerable. We need our children to be safe crossing roads if they are to walk to school. Many schools regard the existing safety to be inadequate. Let TCCS do more and talk less.
The direction of the wind
For cycling, ACT Labor is the driving force. The ACT Greens in comparison have proven unable to deliver on their ideas. Worse still, the ACT Greens have failed to approached cycling advocacy strategically. ACT Labor is delivering on its election pledges, although the achievement humble, as ACT Labor do not plan to do much. They lack the ambition necessary to get cycling moving in the ACT.
Pushing uphill in Whitlam
The lower section of Whitlam Stage 2 has opened so that we now have access to the ridge bike path that as been the topic of discussion for over two years now. In Whitlam, the bike paths have not been built along alignments that provide low gradient that bicycle need. The result is some of the steepest paths in Canberra.
30 year history: cycle infrastructure in Belconnen
Belconnen Town Centre opened in the late 1970s. Over the last 40 years, we have had many plans to improve the cycle infrastructure but the progress has been slow. Here maps for the Belconnen district from 1992, 2004, 2007, 2011, 2016, 2019, 2022
18 years later and still not built!
We must remain sceptical of consultations. The consultation for (ACT) Ten Year Master Plan Trunk Cycling and Walking Path Infrastructure 2004, shows us that the recommendations have still not be implemented 18 years later. The process in 2004 has an eerie familiarity to the 2021 District Planning consultations.
Connecting the Molonglo community to Civic
Trying to cycle from the shops at Wright, Molonglo Group Centre or Whitlam to CIVIC will not be easy without good planning. Molonglo Valley currently lacks good design for cycling. The Molonglo River Reserve Management Plan makes it harder, as cycle infrastructure is needed in the reserve area. Cyclist are expected to ride around the reserve area which, as can be seen from maps in this article, will be a long ride.
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