Welcome Daniel,<br><br>In Melbourne we have
recently aquired a mayor whos was formerly a motoring
columnist for a newspaper, so you can imagine his attitude
to bikes. Well, for example, he just recently pushed
through a decision to re-open a street in the centre of
the city to car traffic. This street had been closed
to cars to make a type of transit mall. Previous to
its closure to auto traffic, about 7 years ago, this
street was the most dangerous stretch in the city for
pedestrians & bikes. A group of us lobbied to keep it free
from auot traffic. We got a petition together with
about 3000 signatures, attended the council meetings in
force & wrote many letters to the councillors & the
mayor, but to no avail. The pressure from traders on the
street who blamed their lack of business on the lack of
auto through traffic was too much.<br>The reasons
given for re-introducing auto traffic to the street
were; to bring life back to the stretch?!?!, to make it
safer for pedestrians by reducing crime?!?! & to
improve business for the traders?!?!<br><br>So, the
street was reopened between the hours of 7PM to 7AM.
Since the reopening there has already been an increase
in pedestrian & bicycle accidents.<br><br>Basically
the whole excercise was a huge step backwards fpr the
city & quite a waste of money.<br><br>Apart from that
sort of thing, we actually have quite an extensive
bike path network in Melbourne, which takes you out to
most of the suburbs. However, this is really only good
for recreational riding, being separate from the road
system and going through parks etc. rather than
following commuter routes. They actually tend to serve as a
smoke screen to the real issue of making it easier for
people to commute by bike. As a result, the attitude of
a lot of motorists here is that bikes dont belong
on the roads and should stick to the bike
paths.<br><br>Well that just a bit of what its like in
Melbourne.<br><br>Happy cycling,<br><br>Ben