On Your Bikes Back of Bourke? Right.
- Author:
- Lawrence Gibbons
- Posted:
- Thursday, 5 August 2010
Never mind getting on your bike, here in Darlinghurst the prospect of taking to the street by foot is harrowing enough. Back behind the construction barricades of the new, multi million dollar bike lane, RTA traffic planners long ago placed a round about at a busy pedestrian intersection. Cars rat run across Liverpool past the East Village pub and from what I can glean, vehicles are not legally obliged to yield to pedestrians who huddle by the side of the road impatiently waiting for a break in the constant flow of traffic at peak hours.
After living in Sydney for fifteen years, I still find it hard to believe that pedestrians do not have the right of way when they step down from a kerb at an intersection. Just a block up from the East Village, at Crown Street, like a well trained monkey I recently hit the pedestrian walk button seconds before the light turned green and bravely stepped down from the kerb. The RTA rejected my application to cross because it was not submitted in a timely fashion and in a town where the walk signal does not automatically appear I was nearly mowed down by a young bitch on her mobile phone who hurled abuse at my audacity to step into the street in front of her turning car when I did not have a walk signal. A few blocks up on Oxford Street party goers regularly attempt to cross Crown Street after assuming someone else applied to the government for pedestrian access. Pedestrian deaths have plagued Oxford Street for years as intoxicated revellers step into the street and automobiles demonstrate their legal right of way in this town with lethal force.
In a state where traffic planning policy is made with the primary goal of moving cars and cargo along city streets, pedestrians and bicyclists are collateral damage. An American academic from outside New York City recently spent a year in Sydney and noted “an incredible level of aggression from Sydney motorists”. The problem is not that Sydneysiders are inherently more anti-social than New Yorkers or Californians when they get behind the wheel of a car, but that unlike in those states, in New South Wales pedestrians do not always come first, bicycles second and cars last under state law.
Clover Moore attempted to bypass the State’s dysfunctional road rules by creating controversial, dedicated bike lanes with barriers that will keep cars and bikes safely apart. Eighteen months before she was resoundingly re-elected Lord Mayor, Clover Moore announced plans to build up to 55 kilometres of new separated bike lanes in order to increase the number of bike trips in the city by ensuring the safety of cyclists. Two years later, the City’s bike routes are only 5 percent built with many of the cross city lanes still in the planning phase. But already she has gained the honking ire of Alan Jones and his drive time listeners, who have lost parking spaces, kerb side access and what was once a clearway during peak hours.
The City started building $70 million worth of bike lanes in an unhospitable end of town. In Alexandria, when Council removed hundreds of car parks along Bourke Road in order to make room for dedicated bike lanes, they irritated some very wealthy land owners, including the Hannan family, who owns more than a billion dollars worth of real estate on more than 16 hectacres of prime urban real estate along Bourke. Cashed up after the $530 million sale of the Federal Publishing magazine and suburban newspaper business to News Limited — they have just spent more than $30 million on upgrades and expansion at their South Sydney Corporate Park in Alexandria redeveloping nearly 100,000 square metres of commercial space along Bourke, complete with a bike lane running outside their door.
The fact that they were allowed to build massive new car parks along Bourke has not assuaged the wealthy land owners’ anger over losing street parking. The founders of the Wentworth Courier, Central Magazine and the entire chain of Courier weeklies, the family owns IPMG, one of the largest commercial print companies in Australia. They employ more than 1600 people and turn over of more than $500 million per year and still print the Courier newspapers under a commercial arrangement with News Limited. The Hannans are the chief protagonists in a threatened class action suit against the City and they have some very loud and obnoxious friends including Alan Jones and Murdoch’s right wing attack pack at the Daily Telegraph. No matter how many ads the City throws at the evil empire in a futile attempt to appease the beast, Murdoch’s hacks will always be back to put the boot into Clover. This week the Telegraph ran a picture of Clover outside her Redfern home as she boarded her rate payer funded, chauffer driven Prius. Both the local member and the Lord Mayor, Clover would probably find it difficult to read briefing papers on her bike. Taking on Sydney’s auto erotic culture and some very wealthy land owners is proving a risky business: last month Alan Jones accused Clover of hypocrisy for doing work on her airconditioned garage in which her husband parks their family car. The Hannan family would have liked that.
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August 6th, 2010 @ 9:42 am
Sadly these types of cycleways crossed by numerous intersections do not keep bicycles and vehicles safely apart, they only give the impression they do. And many cyclists won’t use them anyway creating further confusion for turning traffic. There are safer and better ways to cater to cyclists. No need to destroy local amenity.
What isn’t appreciated by many cyclists is that every street car park is a functioning community asset used by numerous different people, not just one vehicle. It enables trades people to function, renovation or repairs to take place, residents to park, visitors to call by or drop off or pick up, ambulances and emergency services to pull in, a flow of customers for local businesses, local deliveries, removalists to operate, and so on. Removing them does no one a favour, and simply creates a backlash against cyclists. The more so if the cycleway also results in the removal of needed transport for those who can’t cycle everywhere, whether bus services through cramping the road, or significant loss of parking for those who need it.
August 6th, 2010 @ 11:17 am
Thanks for providing some interesting background information on what has been a loud and confusing dispute between The City of Sydney and Alan Jones/Daily Telegraph/Bourke St.
As a keen bike rider, I’ve been keeping very up to date on all the dramas in the media and have been very surprised by all the distortions and outright lies about this project being peddled as “news”. Even while most of the cycleway along Bourke St remains undeveloped or just a hole in the ground surrounded by fences and earthmoving equipment there are people in the media screamed at the lack of patronage for the incomplete cycleway. How ridiculous!
The truth of the matter is that there are many complex issues to understand in this debate that go largely unnoticed (such as best-practice bicycle path design and the power struggles between the RTA and the CoS) and instead we just get a barrage of targeted rage against Clover Moore.
Does anyone else smell a smear campaign? Any time someone with real leadership changes things for the better there will always be people who want things to stay the way they were. When those people own media companies, things are bound to get ugly.
August 6th, 2010 @ 11:20 am
Hi!
The beauty about living in Australia is we all have freedom of speech, however, I think Lawrence is probably just one of those people a little angry with the world in general .. there are guys like that.
Lawrence unleashed a torrent of hate towards the Hannans and I wonder where it stems from. I’ve worked in Alexandria now for 6 years and the Hannan’s have been amazing – such a wonderful family and loyal to their working environment and each other.
The guys from News are the best bunch of customers any café could wish for – I’d go so far as to say probably the friendliest and most fun of all the areas my husband and I have ever worked.
As for the petition we all put together down here. My landlord (Hannan) was pretty much dragged into this in a very busy time in his life but has been 100% behind each and every signature once he took it on. When I lodged the petition with Council I also dropped a copy off to Alan Jones who acknowledged what an impending disaster we have ahead of us. Love Alan or hate Alan, without him situations like the one Clover is presenting us would be rife through Federal, State and Local Government .. we could only count ourselves incredibly fortunate to have Alan take this on – head on!
My father has always pointed out that there are those who feel quite insignificant in this world and begrudge any form of perceived success .. the only way to perk themselves up is by belittling those who stand far grander in their eyes.
It may very well be the cold weather but as Spring presents herself again in September, Lawrence might feel brighter and possibly do a little more with life to help himself feel better.
Averil Dorego from Astori’s Licensed Café in Bourke Road, Alexandria.
August 6th, 2010 @ 12:52 pm
PS
Lawrence, you make excuses for Clover not riding like: “Clover would probably find it difficult to read briefing papers on her bike.”
That doesn’t stop Premier Kristina Kenneally cycling, and she lives further from her office, and isn’t inflicting her ideology on others.
August 6th, 2010 @ 3:43 pm
In reply to this article, the unsafe bike path on Bourke Street Surry Hills: is too expensive & is threatening Sydney City Council’s financial viability; has excessively reduced local resident & business amenity; is subject to a class action because CoS failed to examine & take account of environmental issues.By contrast the excellent cycleway on Cleveland St designed by Centennial Park & Moore Park Trust is fantastic! Thumbs up!
August 8th, 2010 @ 6:30 pm
Actually Clover has been known for riding to work one day a week with the ‘Bike Bus’ crew that passes through the area. That’s more than most of us so give her a break.
Owl
I think you have grossly over estimated the amount of time a car parking space is put to multiple uses. The majority of the time they are used to park cars for long periods of the day. That makes it difficult for friends to visit by car if the space is already used. A cycle lane enables friends to visit by bike and vehicle access for emergencies and deliveries is usually not blocked by a cycleway. Yet car parking at the side of the road does block such access.
August 9th, 2010 @ 10:11 am
I think “has been” is the operative word Paul. Christina Kenneally looks like a cyclist, Clover doesn’t. She looks awkward on a bicycle and clearly doesn’t cycle much. In any case the odd heavily publicised bicycle stunt for the photographers doesn’t replace a car which is essentially what this cycleway is about is it not? Many of us already cycle, but still need our cars. You want us to give her a break? She stopped representing us and many others 2 years ago.
As for friends visiting by bicycle, we have two who regularly come by bicycle and they have no problem at all without bicycle lanes. In fact one who used to ride up Bourke Road, Alexandria, to work thinks the new bicycle lane there is ridiculous and dangerous. He feels relieved when he gets off it and back on the roadway. He even got televised saying so but of course that never made the CoS promotional BS clip on You Tube.
As for cars sitting in parks all day, there is a 2 hour limit in Bourke Street. The only cars that sit in one space for long have permits, and most of those are used during the day vacating the space for other users. It’s mainly at night that the residents are all parked. If you lived here you’d know that. It functions now but removing some hundred car parks will be crippling and is unnecessary.
Narrowing the road will also make it as difficult for fire engines to access Bourke Street, as it now is for buses in Woolloomooloo. And all for an unsafe cycleway. You don’t have to live with it.
Currently road works are taking place and the construction team are using parks, just another example of the multiple use.
August 10th, 2010 @ 4:51 pm
This was an excellent article by Lawrence Gibbons. No question, when Murdoch and his attack dogs go after a public figure like Clover Moore, you can bet your life it is because she is doing something good. Anyway Lawrence, do not worry too much about our number one “shock jock” on Sydney radio. Just think, while the ‘great man’ is being kept busy, at least, he is not getting into anymore trouble with London’s police………….(!)
August 25th, 2010 @ 11:18 am
Isn’t it amazing how a few residents bleat about some loss of parking, actually public space that is appropriately being reallocated for sustainable use, not the parking of private motor vehicles.
And in the last 24 hours the legal firm finally admits it was only representing just one company, not over a hundred as claimed earlier.
On the other side of the harbour in North Sydney, there are close to 20 N/S travel lanes through its CBD and in the vicinity, but not one provides a reasonable facility for cyclists. A similar situation applies to the southern side, but to the credit of ALL 9 councillors on the City of Sydney Council this neglect is finally being addressed.
Increasing numbers in the community realise, unlike some residents and the NRMA, that there has been billons and billions of dollars spent on tunnels, distributors and other motoring infrastructure in close proximity only to result in even greater traffic congestion. Before world oil prices go through the roof, let’s get some sustainable transport options in Sydney. Fortunately Sydney City Council is now making its enlightened contribution.