Comment on Australia’s new physical activity guidelines won’t shift the needle – here are 4 better ideas
SaneMartigan@aussie.zone 1 day ago
- Redirect road funds to walking and cycling
Now with the fuel crisis is the perfect time to embrace cycling infrastructure. I mean 20 years ago was also the perfect time.
Unfortunately infrastructure around transportation isn’t always possible to majorly change, at least not realistically given how incompetent and corrupt our governments are.
Take Brisbane for example it’s an absolute mess that looks like it has zero forward thinking or planning. Without levelling the whole city there’s not much that can be done to fix it.
Not only is it possible, there are hundreds of examples we can learn from. It’s been done over and over in Europe to astonishing success. That could be us.
You’re definitely not entirely off the mark. It’s difficult, and our councils especially are insanely corrupt and useless.
But it’s definitely not true that you’d need to level the city to fix it. There’s a lot that can be done comparatively easily.
I would start by laying down ground rules: apart from motorways, no road should have more than one lane in each direction (temporary lanes at intersections, such as turning lanes, excepted) unless that road first has unidirectional safe, separated bike paths on both sides, with priority at the vast majority of intersections. Existing roads that violate this should be fixed at the first possible opportunity, such as the next repavement or intersection upgrade. All new motorway at train extensions should include separated cycleways parallel to them, similar to the Kippa Ring line or the Deagon Deviation and Gateway North Bikeways.
We need to develop a set of design rules that seriously prioritise the comfort and safety of pedestrians and cyclists. And engineers need to be held to them, much like they are in the Netherlands. Deviations from the standards may be permitted, if backed up by evidence, but they open themselves to risks of professional liability if they do so.
Councils already have PCNPs. They need to be required to act on them with priority.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 day ago
As they say, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”