Story of my ride: Bike path review - Green Square, Sydney. Great intentions, bloody confusing!
Vložit
- čas přidán 29. 08. 2024
- Just before sunrise in Sydney, set off for a ride. Traffic insisted: 'Rob, go a different way. Follow the safe option: take the bike path...' So I did.
I listened to my inner urge, and tried desperately to follow the signs - and the logic - of Sydney's new bike paths. I failed.
And then I eventually started my ride again, once I was back on familiar roads.
This is the story of my ride on Friday, 29 July 2022.
- Rob
#StoryOfMyRide #Cycling #TouristInMyTown
____
For more, see the Story Of My Ride playlist:
• Story of my ride
___
Music:
Real Simple by Cast Of Characters
CBMQ6QOXM56SB66L
Words For A Good Man by Lost Ghosts
PBV9AO7K8C6KJCQB
Rob, you nailed it. It takes a PhD to know how to thread together all the bike paths. I’d honestly be happy with half as many kilometres of path in exchange for the remaining half to actually be a single continuous protected cycleway that WORKS, and whose resulting popularity finally provides a solid argument to put in more continuous protected paths that go all the way from the burbs to the city. At the moment we don’t have a single damned one.
I laughed so much 😂 but also genuinely the best education I’ve had on Joe bike paths work in Sydney thank u!
A "peloton of Utes," said no other country in the world... 🤣
Greg, I'd say that it's also the only time that I'll use that expression...
- Rob
I’ve often wondered which riders are the bike paths for? I think they’re mainly for people commuting or riding for recreation rather than someone training (aka roadie).
That said, the existing network is a hodgepodge of paths that often don’t lead anywhere as you have pointed out in your vid.
I totally acknowledge that trying to shoe horn in bike paths retroactively must be difficult and you’re right to ask have the potential users been consulted.
Consider the northern end of the SHB, one of the most of important links to/from the city and you need to push / carry your bike up / down 40 steps. Can’t wait for that to be sorted.
Yes these bike paths are for utility cycling. Kinda like the Netherlands. These bike paths even the ones in the Netherlands are not designed for roadies.
i have retired and will be getting back to Sydney soon - will be tootling around the bikepaths just to see what you are on about - but i rarely used bike paths to commute for the last 15 years of my working life.. too bloody disjointed to use all the way - sections here and there, but the concept of trunk routes going from A to B is an alien concept - as councils do not co-ordinate or communicate.
This is a relatable experience, Rob. I've explored some of those same paths (plus others like the one along Bunnerong Rd near the cemetery that turns off Bunnerong with no way to get off it easily in order to continue), and they've never made any sense to me. How many riders actually use that Bourke Rd path? I've maybe seen five cyclists total on that path in the years that it's been there. The only one that made sense to me (though again, it was incomplete) was the one along College St in the city, and they removed it! Hundreds of people ride down there into the CBD every day. If there's a grand plan, I'm failing to see it, and they're certainly not publicising it.
Nsw rules state you must use a bike lane where available unless its unpractical to do so. (Which I find is most of the time). Echo everything Rob has said and add there is nothing quite as fun as having to repair punctures any time you use them because they are full of debris wash over from the street. Having infrastructure is one thing maintaining it is another it seems.
Great video, would love more videos like this.
As an inner west resident who cycles to the office in Woolloomooloo, I never knew the blue line meant shared path. I'm always paranoid that people would think I'm being a dickhead riding illegally on what looks like a footpath
People (might) only think you're being a d****** because all pedestrians and cyclists are mostly meant to compete for
Who could we vote for to get the cycleways built and improved.😊?
Nice video! a big hug from Spain
Only been that way once, never again. What a nightmare. Riding from the shire to Centennial park. There are better ways which I have found or used on recomendation of others. Coward street is still the weak link. Gets better after Botany Road.
Bike paths of Sydney, Watch out down Liverpool St, Broken glass from bottles all over the Bike Path.
That bit on Bourke near “The Grounds” at Alexandria ….. a nice gentleman stepped in front of me on purpose as “I shouldn’t be on the footpath!” (Even though it’s shared?). Shared is 💩💩💩!! U 74??? I don’t believe u!!!!
Same here in Liverpool, England 🏴 the bike paths of my City are a joke.
I keep saying it to local bike advocacy groups in melbourne who just want to push infrastructure. We'd ALL be better off if we changed the CULTURE and this means EDUCATION. There will never be enough infrastructure for cyclists to only ever use separate lanes/paths and so when we ride roads, or interact/intersect with them we need drivers aware of what they MUST do and what they SHOULD do. Both legally and just as decent bloody humans.
Shits me to tears when all this money is being put into crazy arse (not wide enough) paths and bridges and zero into campaigns run CONSTANTLY on radio and tv.
Also the on road off road nature of some lanes/paths shits me. It's the perfect indicator of how serious councils are about prioritising cycling when they have dangerous pinch points or lanes that just run out. It's also funny how it's perfectly fine for cyclists to use footpaths when councils need them too...but not of your own volition.
Sing it brother..! I'm with you.
Here in Sydney they're making bike paths that have clearly been designed by CAD, driven by 'planners' (term used very loosely) who have no understanding of what it is like to actually ride a bike.
What's worse, is that there is NEVER a campaign about:
1. What the actual rules are (for all users of public space - cyclists, as well as motorists and pedestrians... and scooter riders or whatever).
2. Where the bike paths lead you (or what to do once they suddenly come to a halt).
3. How to interact with one another - ie. like you say, "legally" and "as decent bloody humans".
Further, there is loads of legislation that's been passed to, apparently, make conditions on the roads (and paths) safer... but the police cannot manage the regulations (or they simply choose not to).
It's a shit-show from beginning to end.
Making matters worse is the proliferation of Bike Litter (ie. share bikes that are just tossed aside once the trip is finished). And, of course, the Gig Economy whereby people are employed to make deliveries (of all kinds... and that seems to include drug shipments disguised as food packages). Yet there doesn't seem to be any training and/or requirement for the riders to have any level of cycling skill (or understanding of the road rules).
I could go on... but I agree with your sentiment and it's frustrating as hell. More than that, it's outright dangerous.
- Rob
Is that the Cuore Blaxland jacket>
I don't give AF about bike lanes or paths now. Equally I don't care about signs saying No Bikes either. The level of stupidity and ridiculousness that has gone into putting in 'infrastructure' often makes for a far more difficult and dangerous AND SLOWER journey than if I just used the road.
The only time I'll ride paths/lanes is if I have literally no legs and am happy to ride at 20kmh...or it is in the rare case...a shortcut and quicker.
Also bike lanes and pahs fail to recognise that everyone travels at different speeds and has different capabilities unlike cars that you just need to push your foot down to maintain a certain speed. So sticking a thin path/lane that would only allow one rider makes a mockery of how designers and planners and council think about bikes like cars and don't allow for at least...at least two bike width paths. I'd be like building footpaths wide enough for just one person...which never happens.
Grrr...man after my own heart. I've given up getting angry. Stupid keeps happening and being built. New suburbs with no bike lanes on all main roads in and out and around. Dumb arse bollards in grey that are dangerous for everyone. and no education. Zero education. Zero campaigns. Zero leraning. Just an expectation that everyone will know what to do. SMH
Much too narrow these bike paths.
Sydney = cycling backwater...