Queensland is FAT - We know that

image sourceed from http://www.thepunch.com.au/tags/fast-food/

I would like to first preface this posting with the statement "I am no Adonis, but I do look after myself."

According to this article in the Courier/Sunday Mail on Sunday Queensland is now the fattest state in what is the second fattest nation if not the fattest nation in the first world. I have to say this is no great surprise to me, or for that matter most people I know. I have watched my own extended family slowly get fatter and fatter.

Like most articles in the Courier (trash) Mail they have chosen to blame someone else without putting part of the blame back on the person gaining weight themselves. Don't get me wrong Fast Food outlets have a lot to answer for but not all the blame can be levelled at them alot can be levelled at ourselves. The basic reason, energy in has to equal energy out otherwise we gain weight. The reason why this is happening is what most people would call an inconvenient truth, THE CAR. The fact is the car is used for so many trips for it's perceived convenience that people have got fat and lazy.

Case Study - My Unit Block.
I live around 500m from my local supermarket. It is a flat easy walk that takes around 7 minutes to walk at a comfortable pace. Our grocery shopping takes around 10mins to do and we are set off home with our clothe shopping bags completely full. This will normally last us for 3 to 4 days before we do the next shop. The only difference between our shop and someone that might drive a car is we do not buy soft drink. It only takes 30minutes from the time we leave home to the time we get back. It is a simple task that is not hard to do or time consuming but people still drive to the shops. The sad fact is they do this mostly out of laziness but also out of perception. Perception that it saves them so much time when infact it doesn't because there are multiple little tasks with using a car eg getting in and out of the carpark. The fact is over short distances (less than 1km) the car save very little if non compared to walking when tasks need to be done.

Lack of physical activity is the main reason why adults are getting fatter and we need to admit it. Being physically active to transport ourselves makes far more sense then driving to a gym to use a treadmill. Australia has to admit they use cars far to much.

SMOG - a reason to ride, a reason to advocate

As I sit typing this posting I look out over the CBD of Brisbane and all I see is a disgusting browny grey haze. For anyone that is not Australian this is what we call smog. Smog is a no go word in Australia it is something that other countries suffer from. How could we suffer from that we are the "wide brown land" we have vast open spaces but the sad fact is that we do suffer from it and it is disgusting. What is more disgusting is that we cover it up with words like "haze" or "fog" but the sad fact is the past two days Brisbane has woken up to SMOG. Don't get me wrong we do get fog but this is not fog it is SMOG. Most of the time all we need is a little scrub fire on the city outskirts to show just how dirty our air is but I don't think that is the case this time. I have been unable to find any reference to scrub fires for past two days.

Like most cities Brisbane suffers from smog because of the overuse of the motor vehicle. In the 2006 census over 80% of all trips in South East Queensland of which Brisbane sits were made by motor vehicle. Then there is the fact that over 50% of all private motor vehicle trips in Brisbane are less then 5kms. It is so disgusting that on certain mornings you can see from vantage points the smog rising up over the arterial roads leading into Brisbane. This is one of the reasons why I ride, and why I whinge my head off to Council and Government. I hate smog and what it does to people's health. It is part of the reason why I ride, I don't want to add to that. Smog is disgusting stuff but the fact is you will breath less of it in by riding a bike then by being in a car.

The fact is if there was more high quality cycling infrastructure in Brisbane there would be more people on bikes and less people in motor vehicles creating less SMOG. SMOG is just a reminder to me that Brisbane needs to break it's reliance on roads and turn to high quality bicycle infrastructure and public transport.
OH and why I continue to annoy council!

CPF - Canberra Transport Photo

Image sourced from http://www.geo.sunysb.edu/bicycle-muenster/traffic.jpg

 Image souced from https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-33BQZUFMESA/UFbhHXz8j0I/AAAAAAAADCw/H7OLJLuXHww/s1024/Canberra%2520Transport%2520Photo_x3_2400px_logo.jpg

 

The Cycling Promotion Fund of Australia has just recreated the now famous Munster transport photo from over twenty years. The original is the top photo while the Canberra is the lower one. It is a excellent demonstration why private car travel is not the smartest why to get about in an urban environment. As the press release states

“In the space it takes to accommodate 60 cars, cities can accommodate around sixteen buses or more than 600 bikes.”
 

This is very valid point but I would push it a little bit further as they are talking about area, not traffic lane length. The Bus used was a Standard 12m rigid, and the average car is 5m long, so if you times 60 cars by 5m you get a queue of 300m of cars. Then divide that by the 12m Bus and you get 24 buses in a single lane that only 60 cars would take, not including the space between each vehicle. If you include the metre that you would have between each vehicle you would fit in another bus, so that is now 25 buses.

I have to say the 600 bike claim I find a bit of a stretch as they would have to be very closely parked. That said most racks that are around the place do allow for that kind of density of bicycle parking. Traffic lane length on this one is a little harder, as multiple bikes can ride alongside each other in a single traffic lane where that is not the same for car/bus scenario. With that it could be assumed that 3 bikes across could fit into a typical 3.5m traffic lane and each bike is 2m long with a meter gap between each bike. There is 69 bikes, three across so 69 divided by three times by 3m (length of bike plus gap) equals 69m of bicycle traffic. Therefore 300m of car traffic divided by 69m of bicycle traffic times by 69 riders. I know this is all long winded but the point is, In traffic you could fit 300 bicycle riders into the a single traffic lane that it takes 60 cars to occupy.

Ofcourse this is all getting very technical and the dynamics of all these figures change once they start to move and area is also relative to speeds but the point is. Cars take up to much space in an urban environment and most sensible thing to do is to encourage people to ride a bike and to use public transport where riding a bike is not practical or possible.

I will leave it with the youtube clip from the photo shoot

QLD State Budget - 2nd day after

In today's Brisbane Times article it lists key projects that are part of this years budget. to my dismay it only lists one project for cycling, the South East Bikeway/V1 cycleway stage C. I have to say the Government had not much option but to fund this, as it is already under construction and needs to be completed. I can only hope that this funding includes the bridge that is meant to fly over Birdwood Road at Holland Park. According to NearMap aerial photo maps I can not see any work yet to begin on that part of the project. I have to say this is highly disappointing. That said there does seam to be pylons constructed for the bridge that is to fly over Lewisham St that will form the next part of the upgrade with Stage D. However Stage D was to get funding in this years budget but that now seams to of been dashed.

Today I will leave you with an image from Transport's project newsletter.  This is not the correct image for the V1/South East Bikeway. First off as can be seen on the Counts that have been reported here the majority of people that use the South East Bikeway are not on Road Bikes. Next the Lycra, then there is the fact these blokes are out for a ride hence why they are over the centerline hogging the bikeway. The South East Bikeway is a Commuter Bikeway and it should be promoted and viewed as such! This sort of image is just plain wrong and may be part of the reason why there is so little funding for bicycle infrastructure in this budget! Cycling is transport not just recreation.

QLD State Budget - day after

I would first like to disclose that I find reading State Government Budget Papers very difficult.

According to the Governments own Media Release there is to be "$102 million Cycle network grants and capital programs" This looks all very encouraging until you start to wonder what the "and" is there for and weather or not capital programs are cycle programs or something other. I have looked in the Budget Paper 3 - Capital Statements for this $102 million and I can't find it. In fact the word cycle only appears twice in that document & only once when referring to bicycle infrastructure where it states "$16.4 million to for the development of regional cycle networks in South East Queensland". I am confused. groannnnnnnnn

Then there is the Transport & Main Roads Papers which state that last year 45kms of bikeway infrastructure was to be delivered but in fact only 20kms was put down. Then it states that this financial year they expect to lay 35kms. Now if you subtract the 25kms that was missing from last year that only means 10kms is to be laid ontop of what is a backlog from last year. This is not very much when you consider the distance between Brisbane and Cairns is near 1600kms.

This is all on top of the fact that 1 in 6 Transport and Main roads staff are to be dismissed from that department. According to the CBD BUG website twitter feed this includes staff in the cycling programs area.

On top of this according to the Courier Mail the worlds largest travel pattern change program Travelsmart is to be canned. This program informed people on how they could get about without using a car and was accepted to be successful at this. It is true it did give away backpacks which the now Government says was the only thing it was successful at. I would really like to understand how it failed because the graphs I was shown years ago said that it was working and working well.

With all the talk by the Government about how the they had to tighten the budget some how the Roads budget has yet again increased. I have to say I am less then impressed.

All in all I am less then impressed. Finding detail is very hard and the details I have found fill me with very little, for the coming year. The project I was most looking for was the Northern Cycleway but I am yet to find the word "Cycleway" anywhere in the documents. Another year another Road focused budget. Time to roll over and pretend it isn't happening.

To make me feel better here is a link to what maybe some of us will have resort to.
http://yehudamoon.com/20080319/

 

Sydney Cycleways set to continue

In what was a welcome development the City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has been re-elected. I must say the people of Sydney that ride bikes or would like to ride bikes must be breathing a sigh of relief. Some Mayoral candidates were openly hostile to the concept of riding bikes and the cycleways. That said it was not much of a contest with Clover Moore getting back in on her primary vote alone. This is indeed a feat as most politicians in Australia rely on preferences. While it can be said Clover's vote was slightly down by 4.9% she still got in with a primary vote of 51.6%.
Congratulations Clover and keep up the great work with the cycleways. More than Just Sydney is watching.

Image sourced from http://cycle-space.com
King Street cycleway during peak hour

http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/photogallery/opinion/cartoons/alan-moir-20090907-fdxk.html

Citycycle & the Free Helmets

The Brisbane Times this morning ran a story about how out of 1500 free helmets that were put out onto citycycle bikes only around 650 were still left sitting on bikes. I have to say this is no surprise to me given the number of times I ride past someone on there own bike with a what looks like one of the free Citycycle helmets.

Australia is the only place in the world where I understand bike share has been implemented with compulsory helmet laws for adults. For this reason bike share systems were always going to have there issues in both Brisbane & Melbourne where they have been introduced so far. Having to carry a helmet just in case you needed to ride some where was always going to cause issues. For this reason both Brisbane & Melbourne introduced ways to get helmets. Melbourne went with discounted helmets and vending machines, but Brisbane went the whole way and offered free helmets to be shared as with the bikes.

Why have so many helmets gone missing comes down to two Simple Practises that BCC and Citycycle have failed at-

1. Helmets are not clearly & permanently Marked as citycycle Helmets
2. Helmets are not always locked to the bikes.

As you see in the above Image the helmets are not clearly & boldly marked as a shared helmet. There is simply a small label that outlines safety issues and a bit of text that says it is for shared use. This label can easily be pulled off and quickly you have your own helmet free of charge. In my opinion the text "CITYCYLE" should of been boldly etched into the helmet's casing so that it could not be removed. This would mean only the very bold or desperate would of take one. As it stands yellow helmets are not unheard of and many people probably think no one will notice if the label is taken off.

Alot of the thief of helmets has probably accrued due to the helmets not being locked correctly back to the bikes. I personally have found a helmet in a garden bed and taken it back and locked it in with a bike. The above image correctly shows how it is to be locked to the bike. The straps are to be threaded over the bikes locking arm before the bike is docked into a station. Doing this means you have to destroy the helmet to get it off. The problem is this does not always occur.It is very easy to do, docking the bike and forgetting to lock the helmet in place, I have done it myself. In most cases people then just leave it in the basket but some people like me dummy lock it so it looks like it is locked in place. That said the lack of locking of helmets is also due to Citycycle Staff no correcting this behaviour themselves. There has been many times I have gone past a station after some staff have been to it and there are helmets in the baskets! Considering the staff are able to put bikes in and out you would think that they would correct any incorrectly placed helmets from the baskets & lock them over the docking arm. This would re enforce the idea in everyone that the helmets have to be locked in place. The fact that alot of helmets just sit in the baskets instead of being locked in place means that anyone can walk past & can score themselves a free helmet.

Ofcourse the ultimate solution to the problem of helmets is to have the laws repealed completely, or partially for citycycle but that is highly unlikely in a country that is risk adverse. More clear and permanent labelling combined with better enforcement of the helmets being locked to the bikes is the only way that Citycycle helmet thief will be reduced. Personally I am for the free helmets but the two points I have outlined have to be adhered to.

Daily Commute Whats Faster - 7 News story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMchfBrIhj8&feature=youtu.be


I have to say instead of a negative TV media story a good one for a change this time from the commercial station Channel 7. It was the typical Car vs bike vs Public Transport in this case the bus. The starting point was in Yeronga down near the river and the End point was Bike (cbd) Car (Bowen Hills) and Bus (CBD).

In no great surprise the Bus lost out. This is because the route 107 is a needlessly windy route that has stops within 50 meters of themselves within Yeronga itself. This would make any bus route overly painful and slow. Stops so close to each other that you can throw a rock between them are stupid and wasteful. This is a route that needs to be fixed in the Bus Review that is about to happen. Luckily this route does use the Busway system but the damage was done, travel time over 50 mins

The car came next. In no great surprise it got caught in traffic. But of course this traffic was created due to so many people using there car for trips that could of been done by other means. Travel time came in at 25 but it did have to travel a fit further.

In what would be common sense from such a close suburb the Bike won and won by a long shot. Travel time came in at 15 minutes. I have to say this was quite a good time but it did go straight to the stereotype of male in Lycra on a road bike. That said the route used would of been along Annerley road, a road that has a bike lane all be it a doggy one at times. You can see in the footage him racing up the beside cars in the bike lane. If the bloke wearing Lycra was not enough of stereotype him saying it took "some effort" was enough for me to slap my head with a thud. I have never seen riding as an effort but that is me. That said it was still good to see the bike beat the car.

I have to say for my inner city cross town commute riding a bike is faster then the Bus even with it being mostly Busway. My normal Travel time for the bike is 28 mins, where the Bus even with perfect connections comes in at 35mins plus. As for the Car I have been told by a college that lives near by it is usually 20mins, mind you that is not including the walk he has t do after finding a place to park.

PS I with correctly like the Video in place as soon as you tube search function works properly.
All in all a welcome story about how bikes can make a very quick trip into work. Now only if they do the same story but with a woman on a city bike coming in from Toowong. I can wish.

Sydney Cycleways - SBS interview

The Free to air channel SBS has a show called Cycling Central. Normally I do not watch this program mainly due to it's airing time. However this week they interviewed the Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore regarding the cycleways. I have to say it is a welcome distraction that was the load of manure that ACA put out on last Thursday.

What I noticed first out was the number of bikes that road past in the 10 minute interview. With my limited knowledge of Sydney I can only assume that it was shot on the Bourke St cycleway. So much for that serial Youtuber pain posting false claims that no one uses it. Next was the type of bikes & people that road past. I only really saw one Lycra warrior in the footage.
Besides that there are some simple points that the interview brings up

• Each path is part of a boarder network
• Only 20% of the separated network has been built so far
• Each path is signed off by the State Government Department
• cycling is up 82% in the City of Sydney
• All the path funding is from the Council itself
• cycleways/bikeways are not the solution but part of the solution
• People need the option of cycling by providing the infrastructure
• Helmets need to be discussed

I have to say it was an interesting interview and I hope that Clover Moore gets back in this Saturday. Her plan and cycleways are something that Brisbane bicycle riders are watching very carefully. The better the results down south the more weight we have up here to get things improved.

Kickstand Comics reply to ACA story

Kickstand comic an excellent comic strip that deals with with cycling has come out with three excellent strips in response to the ACA crap that was aired on Thursday Night

I have to say they are so very true, and the best one is this one
http://yehudamoon.com/comics/2012-08-29.gif

 

Futher kickstand comics can be found here http://yehudamoon.com/
They are both funny and insightful at the same time. You will get more truth in 4 drawn pictures then what Australia concieves as "A current Affairs" programing.

It is sad when a comic is more truthful then a so-called news program!