Bicycle Victoria
Bicycle Victoria (wiki) (representing the state of Victoria, Australia) is in the news:
VICTORIA’S peak cycling body claims a major upgrade of Melbourne’s bike routes could cut car trips into the city by a third.
Bicycle Victoria yesterday released a network map to include possible new and upgraded routes as well as better facilities at railway stations.
It shows a full set of radial routes from about a 15km distance — a 30-minute bike ride — into the city.
The concept has been submitted to Premier John Brumby for further consideration.
“In January the Premier asked for new ideas to tackle congestion and this is our contribution, based on our philosophy that every bike trip that replaces a car trip cuts traffic congestion,” Bicycle Victoria chief executive officer Harry Barber said yesterday.
He estimates it could cost as little as $500,000 to improve a bike route.
“Roads need to have separation barriers and bike paths have to be made wider to cope with extra riders,” he said.
I couldn’t find a link to a map the newly proposed bicycle routes.
Bicycle Victoria has 40,000 members and 45 permanent staff. That’s no joke. By comparison, two of the largest - if not the largest - bicycle groups in the U.S. are the Cascade Bicycle Club in Seattle, Washington, with 9,000 members, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, with 8,500 members. Zowie.
[Point of information - the League of American Bicyclists and the Adventure Cycling Association are both based in the U.S., and both have upwards of 40,000+ members. Bravo!]
VicRoads seems to be a quasi-governmental organization that basically serves as the Department of Transportation for the State of Victoria - they have some maps of bike lanes in the standard PDF format, and there is an interactive map tool, too.
I think it’s probably fair to say that the mapping tools and technologies currently available to the people of Victoria are similar in a lot of ways to the people of Texas, and people all over the world. We should all have better, more-effective mapping tools available to us, and I’m hoping Google can help us in this quest.
Our petition has definitely gotten a lot of support from Victoria (which includes Melbourne, and St Kilda, and the Espy) and all over Australia, so to all of our friends down under, good on ya! And good luck getting the funding for those new and improved bike routes.
March 30th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
While it’s true the largest regional bicycle “club” in the U.S. is the Cascade Bicycle Club, the Adventure Cycling Association is the largest bicycling organization in the U.S. with 43,000 members. It has a 38,000-mile bicycle route network and publishes the only bicycle-travel magazine in the U.S., Adventure Cyclist. For more info, go to http://www.adventurecycling.org .
March 30th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
thanks Michael - good to know!
March 30th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Sorry Bicycle Victoria is a joke, it is a dysfunctional quasi corporation run by one aggressive individual who has taken upon themselves to alienate government and cycling groups since 1995. As for the claim of 40,000 members the actual paid membership is closer to sub 30,000 and rapidly decreasing.
March 31st, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Sadly, Bicycle Victoria is not a joke, they are in many ways as much of a danger to cyclists as a rabid petrol-head group. Both Bicycle Victoria and Vic Roads seem to dedicate themselves to getting cyclists OFF the roads and onto cutesy little off-road paths that never go anywhere useful. With every new metre of off-road path they soundly congratulate themself and and avoid the problems of a road system designed solely for cars and trucks and a widespread mentality that cycling is only a recreation activity done in the park in nice weather.