The Devine Ms Miranda is at it again. She put together a hilarious bike-bashing op-ed piece in the SMH today: "Traffic hazard ahead: vegan cyclists".

Laugh? I nearly pissed myself. There are so many things wrong with this little screed that it's hardly worth the effort to take it apart. Of course, Sydneysiders pedaller, Spinopsys, and lelak have already been over it as has Melbourne's cfsmtb but I won't let that stop me sticking my cleat in.

Skipping over the Sydney-specific stuff (about which I know little or nothing), we come to…

Amsterdam?

Thanks to Scully and an influential, pious and often militant bicycle lobby, the idea that Sydney will one day be like a large Amsterdam, with everyone riding to work in shrink-wrapped lycra, took vigorous hold, rather than being mocked as the joke it is.

Umm, has Miranda any idea what cycling actually looks like in Amsterdam? Lycra does not feature prominently (if at all). Ignorant mixed-up imagery, but not necessarily wrong - just obviously intended to be negative.

Too much, too many

Sydney has too many hills, too many narrow streets, too much traffic, too many buses, is too spread out and too hot and humid, to make riding a pushbike to work feasible for more than a handful of people.

Hills a problem? Maybe. I don't really know much about it but Sydney is hardly in the Himalayan foothills.

But "too many narrow streets, too much traffic, too many buses" - sounds like cycling is an ideal solution to me: more cyclists and fewer cars leads to better road conditions for everyone.

And Sydney is "too spread out", eh? This is a bit disingenuous, trying to create the impression that Sydney is full of super-commuters who have to drive from Penrith into the CBD, when in fact data from the NSW Department of Planning shows that relatively few people do that sort of thing (people who commute longer distances, especially into the CBD, tend to use public transport). Furthermore, the average distance of car commutes to the employment centres of the Sydney CBD, North Sydney, Parramatta, Penrith, and Liverpool range from 12km to 18km - that is not a difficult commuting distance for anyone with an average level of fitness.

So, to heat and humidity - let's go to some data from the Bureau of Meterology. I'll compare to Melbourne because I can state from personal experience that it is neither too hot nor too humid for cycle commuting here.

Mean Daily Maximum Temperature (°C)

CITY | JAN | FEB | MAR | APR | MAY | JUN | JUL | AUG | SEP | OCT | NOV | DEC

------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------

Sydney | 25.8 | 25.7 | 24.7 | 22.4 | 19.3 | 16.9 | 16.2 | 17.7 | 19.9 | 22.0 | 23.6 | 25.1

Melbourne | 25.8 | 25.8 | 23.8 | 20.2 | 16.6 | 14.0 | 13.4 | 14.9 | 17.2 | 19.6 | 21.8 | 24.1

Mean 9am Relative Humidity (%)

CITY | JAN | FEB | MAR | APR | MAY | JUN | JUL | AUG | SEP | OCT | NOV | DEC

------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------

Sydney | 71 | 74 | 74 | 72 | 74 | 74 | 71 | 66 | 62 | 61 | 65 | 67

Melbourne | 60 | 64 | 66 | 72 | 78 | 81 | 80 | 75 | 68 | 63 | 61 | 60

Mean 3pm Relative Humidity (%)

CITY | JAN | FEB | MAR | APR | MAY | JUN | JUL | AUG | SEP | OCT | NOV | DEC

------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------

Sydney | 62 | 64 | 62 | 59 | 58 | 57 | 52 | 50 | 51 | 56 | 58 | 60

Melbourne | 47 | 49 | 50 | 55 | 61 | 65 | 63 | 58 | 54 | 52 | 51 | 49

So it gets hot and humid in summer in Australia. Big deal. If there's a problem it's not with climate, it's with lack of end-of-trip facilities.

Flat and boring

Bikes need to stay in flat, boring places like Canberra where nothing much happens and a laid-back public service work culture rules.

Colourful and emotive prose, but it really says more about Miranda and her Sydney-centric prejudices than anything meaningful about cycling.

The greening of the RTA

But the Roads and Traffic Authority, which was also heavily influenced by Scully as transport minister, has gone from a practical and effective organisation run by engineers to a demoralised, leaderless rabble infiltrated by green activists.

Hogwash. From the RTA "About Us" page:

The RTA manages 17,623 km of State Roads including 3105 km of National Highways. This includes facilities such as traffic lights, roundabouts, signs and linemarking. It also manages nearly 3000 km of Regional Roads and Local Roads in the unincorporated area of NSW where there are no Local Councils. It provides financial assistance to local councils to manage 18,497 km of Regional Roads and, to a limited extent, Local Roads, through funding and other support.

Other areas of RTA interest include 4787 bridges, major culverts and tunnels and nine vehicular ferries.

If that's not an engineer-oriented organisation speaking, I'll eat my helmet.

Back to Miranda:

Instead of concentrating on building safe roads to move the most cars in the most efficient way around our city, thus reducing pollution, petrol waste, gridlock and frustration, the RTA's mantra has become "The Road is there to Share" - with the rights of cyclists, pedestrians and koalas deemed at least equal to those of motorists.

Ah, I see she's applying a bit of Duffy-think there: moving as many cars as possible is a recipe for "reducing pollution, petrol waste, gridlock and frustration". Yep, her mate Michael couldn't have put it more absurdly.

And yes, the road IS there to share. Cyclists and pedestrians do have "at least equal" rights to motorists, actually exactly equal rights - no more, no less. But I personally can't speak for koalas.

Mission impossible (to find)

The RTA website describes its "mission" as "delivery of the best transport outcomes balancing the needs of public transport passengers, cyclists, pedestrians …", with motorists and "commercial operators" last on the list.

I had a bit of trouble tracking down this mission statement. In fact, the RTA web site does not feature a mission statemet at all (the closest you get is their "About Us" page). It's actually not on the RTA web site per se, it's in a 2002 Annual Report that you can find on the RTA web site (if you look hard enough). Hardly a current statement of the RTA's priorities. And hardly the smoking gun.

Ex-general manager

The RTA even had a General Manager, Bicycles and Pedestrians, until Michael Costa abolished the position when he was briefly roads minister after Scully.

You'd have thought Miranda would be happy that this position has been abolished, but she uses it as further evidence of the RTA's lack of concern for motorists. How twisted is that line of thinking?

Incidentally, why shouldn't there be a "General Manager, Bicycles and Pedestrians"? Don't these people use the roads? If Miranda had her way, no.

Cash cow?

Tougher penalties, lower speed limits, more traffic lights, red light cameras, speed cameras and double demerit point periods all conspire to enrage the most placid driver.

The "most placid driver" won't be enraged at all - they won't infringe the road rules so none of this will trouble them.

The result of this warm and fuzzy road-sharing philosophy is that driving in Sydney is now like negotiating a minefield.

She ought to try cycling in traffic for a real — rather than a figurative — "minefield" experience. You know, the sort of experience where losing a limb is a real possibility.

Newly entitled?

Newly entitled pedestrians and cyclists, and their emboldened lobbyists, behave increasingly arrogantly. Pedestrians wander across roads with iPods and mobile phones stuck to their ears, oblivious to the physics of car braking. They expect instant obedience from motorists at zebra crossings, stepping off footpaths as if cocooned by an invisible shield of righteousness, incapable of accepting that they are at least 50 per cent responsible for their own safety.

No, there's no new entitlements - pedestrians have always had the right to "expect instant obedience from motorists at zebra crossings": drivers are supposed to operate their vehicles in a manner that allows them to stop when a pedestrian steps out onto a crossing. It's not like zebra crossings are exactly hidden from view.

Tulips and rainbow kisses

As for cyclists, who believed the mirage of Scully's $250 million bike plan for NSW, with hundreds of kilometres of cycleways lined with tulips and rainbow kisses, stand by for the tantrum as the vision evaporates under the blowtorch of commerce.

I've no real comment about this. I just thought it was hilarious.

Her truth is out there

The truth is, jealous as we are of our share of the road, most motorists would probably happily get out of our cars and onto other modes of transport if they only worked as well.

Yeah, sure. Other options do work as well — often better — but many motorists don't seem to be prepared to try them.

Light rail ≠ monorail

Light rail activists such as Sydney's Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, forget Sydney has already experimented with light rail; they pretend the under-utilised, inexplicably unfashionable monorail doesn't exist, and any murmurs to expand it are quickly silenced.

Oh come off it! The monorail is not the same as a road level tram system. And I can easily explain why the monorail is under-utilised: it costs a packet to take you nowhere useful.

The climax

She and her ilk should face facts. The road is not there to share. It is for cars. Footpaths are for pedestrians. And bike paths are for bikes, if there is any room left.

I laughed so hard my sides hurt. It must be so hard for Miranda to sit comfortably at her computer with her head jammed between her buttocks.

I dunno, if she released this into a usenet group she'd just be another bloody troll. I've really got to stop responding to these things, it's too easy to tear them apart. Too easy, but too much fun.

Update

There no sign of bloggers coming out in support of Devine:

  • suze oz isn't even playing into this debate (wish I'd been as smart…)

  • Peter Chen is concerned about where this sort of crap is leading public opinion

  • from Canada Dave reckons "Miranda Devine today took the public interest reversed over it in her driveway".