Wayno wrote:rev wrote:We aren't a country, we are a small city.
There are limited funds.
Limited funds means things of more importance take priority.
Sorry but your crappy little bike isn't a bigger priority then the majority of the population who rely on their vehicles and freight transport for their goods.
Attempting to be agnostic here. Just noting as this is an interesting part of the puzzle.
Similar arguments are often used by the 'why waste money on <insert topic here> when our hospitals need more money' brigade.
Topics open to ridicule by such brigades range from Adelaide Oval, New Years fireworks, arts funding, and yes even road funding - basically anything that runs contrary to ones, often narrow, viewpoint. Culture-related funding is often the most misunderstood, hated and vilified.
Rev, I'm not saying your viewpoint is narrow. Far from it. I'm in 100% with roads for business as top priority, with 'roads for peak hour single occupancy commute to the CBD so I can park out front of my office everyday' as a much much lower priority.
Now for an opinion with which some may not agree. This isn't a car vs bike argument. We simply need better cycling infrastructure as a contributor to a broader set of 'cultural' improvements, including Adelaide oval, festivals, riverbank precinct, etc. Why? Because Adelaide is in dire need of retaining its youth, and we're already seeing good in-roads with the city becoming an oasis.
Trams, as Turnbull puts it, can also catalyse cultural improvements, and you can bet body parts that the same bike-hating populous will be furious about the impact of trams on their daily commute.
Now for a bit of a tangent, just to open the door on this aspect of the conversation. Will our working-age youth tend to stay in Adelaide because of excellent hospitals and roads without annoying cyclists, with only mediocre lifestyle/culture related funding? At the risk of sounding negative. No they won't.
Will these same people stay in Adelaide because of an excellent focus on culture and lifestyle coupled with slightly better than average hospitals and roads? Well maybe not all of them but I think the answer will tend towards more yes than no.
My point is the cost-benefit of cars and cycling is far more complex than what Joe Public could contemplate, and far more complicated than this discussion to date.
I'm all for better infrastructure including bike infrastructure, but better bike infrastructure shouldn't be at the cost of road infrastructure because roads are far more important and vital then bike infrastructure. You aren't going to transport frieght with your bike. You aren't going to cross the metro area or a large part of it on your bike(time is a major factor) to go to work.
New roads and road upgrades should be done with separated bike paths and footpaths. Bikes do not need to have the width of a road as infrastructure. You are not riding the peloton in the tour while on your way to work or out for a ride to keep fit.
Failing that, and I very much doubt we will see such things done any time soon, there should be specific road rules for cyclists, that are enforced by sapol, as well as a licensing course. Because the alternative to separated paths is cyclists on the roads.
Everyone else using the road has road rules a license for that vehcile etc.
It's part of how road rules are enforced. It's part of how road safety is managed.
To now have one group of self entitled extremists on the road who are exempt from the regulations everyone else on the road is, is ridiculous and a dangerous situation.
You do an honest survey of drivers. I bet you well above half will say they don't feel comfortable with cyclists on the roads now.
And it was never my intention to have a cars vs bikes argument, but to point out the dangerous situation on our roads with this stupid 1 meter rule, while almost every cyclist you see is breaking road rules all the time.
An example..do you often see if at all, motorists doing burnouts and donuts and drifting in traffic?
No you don't.
Why? Because they have a rego plate and people can report them or take a photo or video of them and send that to police.
It obviously doesn't stop every moron out there, and there'll be more morons as a percentage in cars given more of the population drive cars then ride bikes on our roads.
I ask again why shouldn't cyclists who want to use roads(who think public roads are their personal tour down under) be subject to licensing and a form of registration where at the least they can identified by authorities?
The only reason I can see why the cyclists on this forum are opposed to it, besides the iffy argument of cost to the government, is that they them selves are guilty of doing the things I've mentioned many cyclists do on our roads, and they know if at least a registration system is introduced where they have to have plates on their bikes, their little rogue adventures of using public roads as their personal tour down under courses will be over.
My belief is that we need better infrastructure of the sort that separates dangerous heavy vehicles from lighter flimsy vehicles like push bikes. Not because I don't want to share the road or think I own the road in my car but because the last thing I really want to do is run over and kill a cyclist even if it is their fault and not mine(example).
We aren't likely to ever see that, and the decision has already been made to let the cycling hoons on our roads, so the compromise has to be about making sure every road user is able to be held accountable for their behaviour and actions on public roads. Motorists can be held accountable because they can be identified by authorities through their rego plates.
Cyclists can't because there's no way to identify them.
If everyone is able to be held accountable and everyone has something to lose, then our roads will be safer then they are now.
They say they want safe roads and a safe environment and to share the road. Try passing a group who think they are in the peloton, try telling them they need to get out of the way because what they are doing is illegal.
You'll get the R rated version of the responses I've had in this thread from some people.
