Sydney Cycleways - Getting busier

The City of Sydney via a media release has once again confirmed that cycling in Sydney is increasing. This is inspit of the fact that no further segments of the planned network have opened in the last six months. It has to be said that this very encouraging and also not much of a surprise. It is quite common for peoples travel patterns to change slowly as they get use to a new service or facility. The same thing happens on any new road or Bus/rail service.
Some commentators point out that the counts have been paid for by the City of Sydney. There is no real difference between the City of Sydney paying for it or a State Government counting cars on a new road it has just built. Both have an interest in promoting what they have just built. It certainly has less self interest then a motoring body releasing figures on car usage.
The standout figure in my mind is these ones

Taylor Square, Oxford Street and Bourke Street intersection (1,923 trips up from 1,728 in March); and

Liverpool Street, College Street and Oxford Street (1,876 trips up from 1,795 in March).

Oxford street is one nasty street, for a lack of a better term, yet more people are crossing and riding down it. It is also where two of the cycleways hit, the Bourke St Cycleway & the Collage St Cycleway. Increasing numbers hitting this road show more people would like to be able to a ride a bike, there just needs to be the safe infrastructure.

Here is the channel 10 news report on it.

Gold Coast Bulleton - Stupidity from the South Coast

In an opinion piece that was published yesterday in the Gold Coast Bulletin it would appear that one of there so called Senior Journalists Danial Meers has no sence of the law or the facts. This piece of trash writing is a follow on from another equally ignorant piece he wrote about the Gold Linq Light Rail project that is currently under construction. So to do give a rebuff I thought I would pick some inanely stupid bits out and tear it to shreads.

THE time has come to declare war on cyclists.

Oh yes like being a cyclists is like being a soldier that is now means we are at war. What does this mean? Does he propose that a person riding a bike should be run down and killed. Should a five year old child should be now considered the enemy and have a target placed upon them? What a stupid remark to start with.

Book them when they hog half the road and motorists can't get past. Book them when they cut motorists off at roundabouts. Book them if they are outside the bike lanes and book them for having a pack mentality.

This shows a clear lack of understanding of the Road rules. First off we are allowed to occupy a lane if required. We can be fined if you ride outside a bike lane if it is free of obstruction. And what Book us for what, Pack mentality oh yes because a small group of people riding there bikes is so much more of a threat to the peace then a group of drunken men yelling and screaming at the general public as they walk from one pub to another

Police and the State Government love giving themselves pats on the back for statewide traffic operations. Stopping speeding and drink-driving and lowering the road toll, but nobody ever mentions a word about cyclists.

Obviously this man is ignorant of the blitz that Queensland police do on the bikeways of Brisbane each winter!

Nobody, I repeat, nobody shares the arrogance that cyclists have.

All I can say to the this one is if I am arrogance it is nothing compared to your ignorance of the law and/or the facts!

 Each morning I go running. OK, some of the power walkers overtake me running, but I still run.
I meet a friend at her place every morning which is about a 3km drive from my home.
It takes me a good five minutes to get there.

 Why exactly are you driving to go for a run? That is as about as smart as driving to go to the gym to jump on a treadmill. Oh what ever happened to common sence?

Because at 5am the streets of Broadbeach and Surfers Paradise are filled with cyclists. They ride in packs, big packs of 20 and they take up the whole road in their lycra gear.
I'm stuck sitting on 30km while they ride.

First up it's 5am when would you prefer them to ride in groups, during peak hour perhaps! Second, I am yet to find a group that is not able to exceed 30kmph, more likely they are riding at 40kmph and you despise the fact that you have to drive a whopping 10km less than the speed limit.

They know I'm behind them, yet they make no attempt to move.

Perhaps because it is not safe, or that they are possibly travelling alot faster then you disclose and you have an inferiority complex about being behind a person on a bike compared with your ultimate is display of Australian masculinity your car?

There's a rogue peloton of cyclists abusing fellow road users and screaming to wake sleeping residents as it barrels through Surfers Paradise every morning at 5.
Woken residents who return fire with yells of "shadup!" are subjected to tirades of abuse from riders as they blast along narrow Garfield Terrace.

There is no way that I condone noise at that hour. If they can't talk at a reasonable level indeed shut up but wait "Barrels Through" I thought you said they were only doing "I'm stuck sitting on 30km while they ride." Questions time?

Now, the cyclists will argue there aren't enough bike lanes on the Gold Coast. Council and government don't provide them with the facilities to ride.
There's a reason for that -- you wouldn't use them anyway.
It would be a waste of money building more cycling lanes because cyclists think they should be running the roads.

First off bike lanes are generally designed for single file destination riding not group training rides. Next, last time I checked bike lanes were on the road, fool!

Bicycles are just as big a danger to road safety as some of the other driving crimes which contribute to serious accidents.

Oh yes because how many cyclists have killed people compared with drink driving? What a load of rot.

Enough is enough. Motorists need to start manning up and being vocal about the issue.

Yes because people riding bikes don't already yet verbally abused and threatened with physically violence already!

Roads are for cars, not bikes.

Once again ignorant of the road rules

Make some noise people, win the roads back before something really bad happens.

And believe me, it will.

 Because the hundreds that die on Australian roads each year because they are forced to drive through poor bicycle infrastructure and poor public transport services is not already bad enough.

Honestly how is it that people with so little knowledge of the Law and of simple facts can get a job as a reporter!
No wonder Journalism students on ther first day in eithics classes get told they wont need them in most firms!