Manly Beach Bike Week - Sustainable Mobility

Manly Council is hosting the NSW Bike Week, (pdf) (RTA) on Sunday, 280908 from 10 am to 4 pm at North Steyne.
The key objectives are to
" Raise the profile of the use of bicycles for short local trips.
Promote safe cycling and the use of shared bicycle/ pedestrian facilities."
The Road and Transport Authorities main aim is to improve safety on the roads.

Once one has "dusted off" one's push bike and obtained safety gadgets it is off to a high risk territory of armoured and petrol-powered vehicles.
The motorised community's behaviour hits the attention-economy daily with news of road rage, bullying, 'hit and run' and ploughing into pedestrians or their houses. "Accidents", speeding and intoxicated vehicular manslaughter are the norm. Bodily harm is also caused by the noise and chemical pollution that is being inflicted on all. Pedestrians and cyclists wishing to share this space seem to be perceived as a lower species with less rights, as they are not obtaining power derived from fossil fuels. Not contributing to Australia's record emissions they are treated as being 'in the way'.

Awareness needs to be raised not in the community that is achieving sustainable mobility, but in the petrol vulnerable car-dependent nation and its mind-sets. Structural change needs to to facilitate safe and emission free transportation.

Many bikes in Manly still arrive on/in cars. The 'leisure bikes' get unpacked with idling motors at the beach/car-park. Variations range from plastic uniformed racing bikes, to large family groups, with children often on dysfunctional cheap 'throw-away' bikes and mounting-bikes looking for municipality tree-edges to crack. Of course, there are some real-life cyclists arriving on bikes as well. But all are seeking to join in on the heel-to heel packed 2.4 kilometre (1.5-mile) Pacific beach path. The cycle/walkway proper is situated along the beach car park with many cars having hard or sharp protrusions right over the cycle path. At night the beach walkway has racing bikes endangering pedestrians. Off the beach drag, the fragmented bike paths are often parked on. Without the provision of physically-separated bicycle paths the life of a bare body on a wire frame is taking a higher risk. Arriving for ones "short local trip" there are insufficient bike racks to do the shopping. The odd bicycle bar is often taken up by motor-bikes, conquering the pedestrian paths increasingly. Resorting to tie the bike to trees/palms further degrades the neglected trees.

Leaving the bike and attempting to cross any marked pedestrian path is a struggle, and one had better run. The designated 'pedestrian zones' are most of the time filled with delivery trucks and trades vehicles. Idling is the norm. Car design regulations in Australia are lagging behind causing injury and death to walking people and cyclists. Fatal injuries could be avoided by spending a bit on reducing harm to the 'collided objects'.

"About 300 pedestrians and cyclists are killed in vehicle-related accidents on Australian roads each year and another 3000 sustain serious injuries.
The most common injuries are serious head injuries, broken legs and ribs and fractures to the pelvis."

Cycling is a wonderful form of mobility, but the mind set of the car addicted community and their practices has to be targeted and structural urban changes have to be realised and enforced.
Images:
1. Corso 'bike path'
2. Beach bike path with dangerous protrusion in ya face
3. Beach bike path with knife-like instrument at head level
4. Manly Cove pedestrians & push bikes only!, 3 large motorbikes, one idling bus.

Links:

• Video, Physically seperated bike lanes, US
• Fatality Analysis Reporting System with Google Maps, US
• Shocking the suburbs: urban location, housing debt and oil vulnerability in the Australian city , Jago Dodson and Neil Sipe / Urban Research Program
• Pedestrians at risk as car safety rules slip behind, SMH 270908
• Risk for cyclists 'increasing' on Beach Rd, SMH 270908
• Bicycle Paths, Manly Council
• Bikely Maps and Routes
• Sydney Cyclist
• Pedal Mobility

Update 021008
- They complain about birds swooping cyclists in their breeding season as they run out of habitat. Pity, there are no corresponding articles about the deadly dangers posed to pedestrians and push-bike riders by urban tanks steared by aggro drivers at pedestrians, push-bike riders and birds. (Manly Daily 021008, the dead-tree version is most reliable!)

Manly's Plastic Legacy - From Plastic Toy to Fish

Time has come to pack the urban tank with plenty of plastic gear and drive to the beach. Unpack the bikes, prams, pack of dogs and convienence food and drink. At the end of the day, the full plastic-poo bags are left, leaking silently. The plastic wrapping for each mouth-full are 'blowin in the wind'. A large range of plastic toys, fast-food containers and lighters are being moved by the waves. The industrial beach cleaning machinery cannot keep up.

Finally, the Pacific becomes the tip full of trash. It is thought that 80 % of marine garbage originates from the shores. Most of the inferior plastic toys are broken by frustrated kids seeking non-plastic stimulation. The plastic that does not end up in the ocean, gets heaped up in the streets, awaiting petrol-transport to the 'land-fill'-tip, which is next to a national park. Some have started to recycle this plastic deluge in to art.

In the end, the terrestial tip leaches into the groundwater and the 'marine tip' grinds up all the plastic into tiny little pellets, leaching toxins. These in turn enter the food chain. An inheritance for all the off-spring and the remaining ecology from a plastic world.
Map showing where people are most desperate to keep developing human beings entertained via (mostly plastic) toys.
Map: Toys Import, map no. 58 via WorldMapper, © Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan)
"Is there a present that a child or family member just has to have and you can't find it in any store?" Kidsource, 2000
- Keep the Sea plastic free

On gardening the mind

"…Most gardens reject the local environment."

The Old Country, Australian Landscapes, Plants and People, George Seddon, Cambridge University Press 2005, p.83 (Manly Library, 581.994 SED)