Yesterday Bracksy announced
new funding of $72 million over 10 years to extend Victoriaís bicycle path network and provide additional pedestrian facilities.
Speaking at the Capital City Trail in Abbottsford, Mr Bracks said the funding would be used to establish and upgrade both on-road bike lanes and off road bike trails, and to provide safer crossing points on busy roads for pedestrians.
Although this announcement lacks details, it looks pretty good and Bicycle Victoria seems very pleased with it:
Bicycle Victoria welcomes these new funds and is very pleased that the state government has continued to increase its commitment to cycling facilities in Victoria. We can now expect the construction of many new and improved bike lanes and trails across Victoria during the next ten years.
I guess their ongoing campaigning (along with other cycling and pedestrian interest groups) has a considerable amount to do with the level of funding.
Without wanting to sound too much like a whiner, I'd like to hold back a little bit of praise at this stage until we see what actually gets delivered. In comparison to roads funding, $72 million is peanuts and I don't know how far it will stretch. But it's definitely a whole heap more than the peanuts that have been spent on pedestrian and cycling previously.
I think this is great and I sincerely hope that the money will be wisely spent - hopefully we won't get $72 million worth of bike lane stencils!
By the way, it looks like Peter Batchelor was at the announcement down at the Gipps St steps. Did anyone notice if he had a bike helmet on at the time? Surely he wouldn't have missed the opportunity…
I don't doubt the intentions of the Government on this issue but I also don't doubt the ability of governments in general to sometimes mis-spend vast amounts of money. And the vaster the amount, the bigger the mis-spending (or so it seems).
I was being facetious about the bike lane stencils. Clearly there are bigger things afoot (like the Gipps St steps), so I'll be interested to see what the full transport strategy includes. When I've seen the detail, I think it's likely that I'll be following BV's advice to shoot off an appreciative email to the pollies about it. But I'll wait to digest the details first.
2 million is indeed a huge amount of money and it will be interesting to look back in ten years to see exactly what we've gained in cycling facilities. But the fact remains that it's peanuts compared to general road funding. That's not a criticism, just an observation.
A rude question about how Peter Batchelor fits his helmet is tempting at this point but I'll refrain…
Comments
It ain't all nifty white line fever - there's plenty of funding for on and off road facilities. And as I've learnt over the last few years, there's no point whinging and then waiting for our well meaning overlords to provide for cyclists.
You simply have to get in there, learn, network, and then start politely telling them what to do. Otherwise various government officials in local, state and fed gov just simply don't know what we want. They're mostly well meaning - but not mind readers.
As for Peter Batchelor, he and Bracks, Thwaites and a throng of local pollies rode to the steps from the Collingwood Childrens Farm. After patiently standing in the rain, and answering the media scrum questions, they then carried their bikes up the steps. I politely looked after Peter Batchelor's bike helmet as he talked to the media.
VicRoads previously only allocated m per year for bicycle facilities for the ENTIRE state. 0m+ is more than double that and then some.