when will we be taken seriously

interesting article here

I ride along that road all the time! I hope the council does go ahead with that plan, but I'm not getting my hopes up just yet.

Those separate bike lanes are a stupid idea anyway. If they tried that idea up here, the thing would be full of debris, broken glass and other rubbish within a week, and most cyclists would just be using the traffic lanes regardless. And where do you ride when the dog walkers and rollerbladers take over?

If you just leave the existing roadway as it is, you actually have more space because there are no barriers to clog it up, and you don't divide road users.

I used to think Melbourne was a good place to ride, but the proliferation of these types of "facilities" in recent years is making me revise that opinion.

both good and valid comments thanks guys

I agree with Chris. This project sounds like another non-cyclists trying to solve a non-problem.

Segregation vs. integration. When gas hits $6/gallon we'll see gobs of cyclists. Perhaps then we can get what's most needed - education & enforcement.

I always like to see people thinking about safer cycling, but they always come up with these kind of expensive plans, instead of the obvious. At least obvious to me. Reduce speed limits 15 and 25 everywhere except the interstate. Very heavily enforced. ALL road users would then be much, much safer.

I can see advantages and disadvantages to each method...

Aaron

Problem Solved!

Now if only the "bike lane"/"wide outside lane"/"excluded cyclist" types would advocate that I might actually agree with them.

Separated center of the road bikelanes is an idea that I've never thought about. That may be a good idea. Of course, not to the exent in this picture, we don't need this much room for bikes...yet.

In answer to the OP: Their alleged "advocates" certainly won't be taken seriously if they propose over-the-top "obvious" solutions that will be rejected out of hand by 99%+ of the public.

Would you really want a center bikelane? It would make me feel trapped, especially on busy roads where just getting to and from the bike lane could prove problematic.

25 mph? That is ridiculously low on anything but a residential or farmland area, or maybe in dense city traffic. Most people on a bike riding downhill can easily exceed that. A lot of people can go faster than that on the flats.

When the roads look like the above picture I'll be sure to park my bike in the middle of the car lane and block it off.

No- what is ridiculous is 43,000 people a year dying on the roads.

No one is going to take seriously such a loopy proposal, nor the ideologues who make them.

With the traffic situation in the centre of Melbourne, you probably won't go much faster than that anyway.

That said, I tend to agree with you in general terms. Unfortunately, a lot of "advocates" tend to go for this sort of tokenism with the whole "lower speed limits" thing (which only upsets everyone else, resulting in the limits never being enforced) or the sort of thing described in the OP. mandovoodoo best summed up what was needed, but "advocates" will never campaign for anything like that because overall cyclist safety just isn't on their agenda.

Could you describe for us what it is like to ride on that road now?

Motorists like it because there are few traffic lights and no tram, apparently. These seem like factors that make it attractive to cyclists as well. (After all, you say you use all the time.) Few alternatives for cyclists?

From the article, it sounds like the proposed project will be rather short in length. Is that your impression? Thanks!

Very balanced response.

I've been to Melbourne. The only thing I can think of is that people there don't have much experience in the art of complaining. In other places people have many things to complain about and they learn at an early age. But, people in Melbourne may go through their entire lives with maybe only one or two things to complain about. Complaining, it's new stuff for them and they just don't have it down just yet.

Apart from the J turns and that there doesn't seem to be a distributor of Pepto Bismo, I can't think of anything in Melbourne to complain about. And I can't complain about the J turns because I don't quite understand them enough to make a proper complaint. So I'll just let it slide.