Bicycle Network
presented a Bicycle Futures Seminar in Launceston, through a collaboration with
Launceston City Council, and with support from DIER and GHD.
Four members of the
Bicycle Tasmania committee attended: Emma Pharo, Dan Teague and Jeff Dunn from
Hobart, and Richard Muir-Wilson from Wynyard. (Emma and Richard were funded by
the other organisations they represented, that is UTAS and Waratah-Wynyard
Council.) Bicycle Tasmania funded Dan and Jeff’s registration.
The aim of these
sessions is to “give delegates access to initiatives, ideas and tools that
enable cycle growth”. It is pitched at council staff and consultants and the
content of this event was tailored to the interests and needs of Tasmania
participants.
Bicycle Network
brought 10 staff and guest speakers from Victoria. 67 people attended,
including:
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DIER: 10
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HCC: 6
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LCC: 5
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Other
northern Councils: 9
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Other
southern Councils: 8
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Consultants:
8
Program
When to separate and how to do it
well
Bart Sbeghen,
Good Design Guide, Bicycle Network
Recreation and Rail Trails –
Design, Development and Promotion
Kate Butler, Bicycle Network
Ashley Pittard, City of Ballarat
Developing a behaviour change
strategy for enabling cycling in the City of Sydney
Jonathan Daly, GHD. Sponsored by GHD
Implementing the Tasmanian
Walking and Cycling for Active Transport Strategy 2010
Janine Pearson, DIER.
Effective treatments for road
crossings at shared paths and allocating ‘lazy’ space on the road creatively
for riders
Malcolm Daff
Learnings from regional Victoria
– Bike developments in the City of Greater Bendigo
Brett Martini, City of Greater Bendigo
How to develop a great bike plan
Melissa Grimes, Bicycle Network
Economic appraisal of cycling
infrastructure: Benefit cost ratios of bike facilities
Dr Cameron Munro, CDM Consulting
Participants were later sent an email with links to download
all the presentations.
Summary notes on presentations
Welcome address by Minister Nick McKim
The minister announced $100K funding for preliminary work on the Humphreys Rivulet track, proposed by Bicycle Tasmania in the Creating Healthy Connections Plan.
When to separate and how to do it well
Critique of on- and off-road bicycle paths, and presenting
analysis tools to determine what level of separation is appropriate for a given
traffic volume and speed, and given rider type.
Discussion of one-way and two-way paths, and case studies of retrofits
and new streets.
Recreation and Rail Trails – Design, Development and Promotion
Kate presented a simple step-by-step process for creating a rail
trail.
Ashley described the new Ballarat to Skipton rail trail,
especially showing how 3 councils successfully collaborated, and a tip about
testing track surfaces.
Developing a behaviour change strategy for enabling cycling in the City of
Sydney
Jonathan described innovative programs developed to bring
about behaviour change around cycling, stressing the need to tailor the
approach to the situation, and avoid common approaches which actually have
little positive effect.
Effective treatments for road crossings at shared paths and allocating
‘lazy’ space on the road creatively for riders
Lots of great pictures showing how little thought has gone
into many frequently used components of bike infrastructure. Bollards and
barriers used as if riders are little children who need to be physically
restrained from rushing across roads. These impediments actually cause
injuries. Priority at crossings can in some cases be given to bicycles, however
all indications of priority must be consistent (if install zebras then should
also have Give Way signs to reinforce the priority.
Examples of fitting successful bike lanes to even narrow
roads.
Learnings from regional Victoria – Bike developments in the City of Greater
Bendigo
Challenges and successes in Bendigo, roundabout treatments,
and trying things outside the road engineers’ usual default treatments.
How to develop a great bike plan
Step-by-step guide for developing a council’s bike plan. The
“Local Government Bike Plan Workbook” is available for download from Bike
Futures website.
Economic appraisal of cycling infrastructure: Benefit cost ratios of bike
facilities
The difficult and important task of quantifying the benefit-cost
ratio of bike projects. Many of the benefits are long-term and
whole-of-community. Public health benefits can be estimated through
reduction-of-risk for a range of expensive diseases and constitute very
significant financial benefits of cycling. Social inclusion is much harder to
quantify both in terms of effect and dollar value, but is increasingly
important. Note that one potential cost of cycling is injury of riders – but a
sad quirk of economics is that fatal accidents do not have a high dollar cost –
graves are a once off cost, people with preventable disease can spend years in
hospital beds!
Cameron has developed a database and software tool which is
available for deriving the benefit-cost ratio for bicycle projects. Many major
road projects struggle to make a ratio of 1, but bicycle projects frequently
obtain much higher numbers, although he showed an example of a multi million
dollar bike bridge in Qld which had quite a low ratio.
The Technical Bike Tour
We saw some of the many on-road bike lanes that now exist in
the CBD. These do not fully join and many intersections have no special
provisions for the riders, but at 9.30am a loop of the CBD was easy to
negotiate (would have been more interesting to start the ride at 8.30am!) North
from the CBD open space for off-road paths is provided by levee banks, flood
plains and wide footpaths. The two main bridges to the NE are easily crossed on
the footpath. We were shown the proposed route north using a wide low traffic
street which parallels two main arterial roads. Merits of this plan were
debated and disputed by some of the presenters. The plan also proposes a new
bicycle bridge over the North Esk, between the existing car bridges. The
benefit-cost ratio of this $2M structure would be interesting!
UTAS – Sustainability Manager
Morning tea was provided at UTAS and Corey Peterson
presented some of his work as Sustainability Manager for UTAS. His team has now
grown to 4 staff and has a recurring budget. One facet of this relates to
sustainable transport, and this is being addressed by:
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Steps to encourage cycling including new end of
trip facilities. Further value is gained by having students design these
facilities.
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Redline buses have been contracted to provide a transport
service between the Hobart and Launceston campuses.
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Adjusting Sandy Bay campus parking fees so that
UTAS no longer subsidises staff parking by about $0.5M per year.
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Contracting CoolPool (?) to organise car pooling
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Setting up priority parking for car poolers
Jeff Dunn 12/7/2012