She joined me at the lights. Aboard a nondescript hybrid. Basket on the back. Jeans. Green high heels. A slow paced commuter, I thought. I won't see her again, I thought.
She joined me at the next set of lights. Hmm, for someone in highly unsuitable footwear she pedals along at a good pace.
Waiting for the lights to change we exchanged a greeting. Then she launched straight in:
Do you think it's dangerous to ride here?
[A slight accent. English? No, not quite. But very correct. Very precise.]
Do you mean just here or in the city as a whole?
In the whole city.
[Welsh maybe? Hell, what does a Welsh accent sound like anyway?]
Umm, well I don't think it's particularly dangerous—at least no more or less than anywhere else. Why do you ask?
Oh, I was just wondering why so few people ride in Melbourne.
Ah. Good question. A very good question. A good answer would be helpful. Nothing comes to mind.
[And I give up on the accent—I just can't place it…]
Why? Where are you from?
I'm from Denmark.
[Now that's cheating—either she's had a very good English teacher or she's lived in the UK.]
We have nearly as many bikes as Holland.
Quick, improvise:
Well, I don't really know why more people don't ride. It's a very good city for cycling. It's not too hilly. Not too hot or cold…
…and so on. Blathered a bit. Nothing really new. No great insight emerged.
She agrees that it's a good place for bike commuting. She shared some other remarkable statistic about the number of Danish people who commute by bike. Which I promptly forget, like an idiot, but it's pretty impressive.
Then,
Enjoy the rest of your ride.
and she's gone.
Too late to ask her more about bike commuting in Denmark.
Too late to ask her what she thinks about Copenhagen-style bike lanes in Melbourne.
Too late to ask why she thinks there aren't more bike riders here.
It's not every day that I meet a Danish bike commuter trundling down Swanston St. But you'd reckon that when it happens I'd be ready with a few more questions…
As it is, I'm left with no more answers and one more question: compared to Copenhagen, why do so few people ride in Melbourne?
Yeah, my conclusion was that it's a rather more complex question than can be adequately answered in 30 second grabs at the traffic lights. At least, not until I've sat down and thought about it some more, because we really should be able to make a short but sensible answer to a question like that.
I've just returned to Melbourne this year after 5 years living in Amsterdam, another place where as everyone knows, "everyone rides everywhere". Except they don't. In the Netherlands people who commute to work etc rarely travel more than 5 kms in either direction. I was considered very keen for commuting 8kms each way through Amsterdam and it was still considerably shorter than any of my Melbourne commutes. Shorter commutes mean you do travel in your everyday clothes, and I too would commute to and from work in heels etc. The country is sooooo flat that commuting is always easy and you can do it a a pace that allows you to stay sweat-free. Most of my colleagues at work drove the 8kms through Amsterdam using Ring Roads that meant they stood in traffic-jams for up to an hour each morning and afternoon in preference to cycling. The Randstad freeways, an area slightly bigger than Melbourne, are just one enormous traffic jam every day during peak hour with the traffic jams counted in their hundred's -per-peak-hour.
I think these points cover why more people here don't cycle. It's not as flat, the population-density is not the same and not many people live within 5kms of where-they-need-to-be. My Dutch in-laws cycle everywhere in the Netherlands but they find even Brunswick a hilly prospect after the sort of flatness they are used too!
I've always been a bit suspicious of the idea of a "cycling Nirvana" tucked away somewhere in the Netherlands or Scandinavia. While I think we have much to learn from the famous cycling cities, we need to stay aware of local conditions. That's why the question of why so few people ride in Melbourne is important.
Of faith's points, I reckon the most significant is our relatively low population density (with the consequent urban sprawl that must also contribute to longer commute distances).
I've never really thought that hills in Melbourne were a major obstacle to bike commuting but I must say I did enjoy that image of faith's in-laws panting and grunting their way up some of the lesser hills in this fair city!
Comments
Simplistic portrayals of cycling in the Australian media don't help one iota, no doubt aided and abetted by the constant push of MORE CARS MORE CARS.
If you don't have access to motorised transport, just how can you be a truly useful member of society?
Reframe the question, then place it in context with basic Sociology, ie: norms, folkways, mores, laws, and taboos. Make more sense now?
But we know these irrational attitudes really doesn't make any sense when you realise Melbourne has a reasonable cycling environment, with the potential for greatness. sigh.