Twelve months have come and gone since my last post on bicycle advocacy (albeit the painting of guerrilla bike lanes in London), so I thought it high time to muse on the subject again. Healthy Transport Hobart has been the driving force behind the revised Critical Mass format, ‘Courteous Mass’, which has seems to be far more sucessfull than the former with numbers of around 150 cyclists joining in. Even the State’s Pollies have jumped on board with the Premier rocking up more than once. I know Timmy and the boys from Bike Tas have done alot to improve cycleways and rider awareness in Hobart (eg: new bike lanes across the Tasman Brigde and the vast improvements on the Channel Highway between the City and Kingston) but the situation for southern riders is still far from perfect. Kingston has just gone through a major redevelopment of the CBD and cyclists were consulted about their needs on the to be revised roads. Cyclists had a small win with lanes being put in where before there were none, but.. where they are needed most the lanes are still absent. Try it, ride through Kingston CBD and see what happens.. Where the road is wide and straight, yep, there is a bike lane but hit the first intersection and, whoa, it’s gone? Same goes for the round-a-bout and where the road narrows, no bike lanes. The Kingborough Council were close, but no cigar. It’s in all our best interest to throw some weight behind groups such as Bike Tas to make sure things do go our way into the future otherwise it could a dark future, similar to that faced by cyclists in Toronto.
