MNLY: The Manly Blog, Sydney Sustainability: urban

27 September 2008

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:

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!)

Growing population centres and the inefficient use of water is “the greatest threat to waterways”. Mega cities, such as L.A., are “growing too fast for its water resources”.

With the advent of agriculture, and its associated urbanisation people exchanged their produce as well as “parasites and infectious diseases.” (J.Diamond) Dense aggregation of people, changed water and land scapes aiding disease transmission. Road construction projects are the 'highways for diarrhea' as such.” When fecal-oral pathogens meet human poverty and dislocation, diarrheal diseases are a predictable outcome.”

Today sewage infrastructure in Australia has not kept pace with the rapid sprawl on the dryest continent. Demand for drinking water outstrips supply. “If we keep taking more water, we're going to be looking at increased salinity, toxic algal blooms, fish kills” some warn. Add to the algal blooms suburban sewage and one has fuelled the growth of microbial harmful agents. The security of drinking water and the health of the (coastal) population could be compromised.

Urban health, a main achievement of civilisation, was only made possible through modern sewage and water treatment systems. Back in the mid 19th century an amateur scientist found the connection between contaminated drinking water and sewage bacteria in Europe. The cholera (Vibrio cholerea ) epidemic was transmitted to humans by water. “...An outbreak of the disease is evidence that people have been drinking each other’s feces. Much of modern civilization has been geared toward making sure that this doesn’t happen.” The 1854 epidemic of London was “killing more than ten percent of the population there in a matter of eight days”. Many of the people who lost their lives were well known.The source of the contaminated drinking water was traced to a street pump. The disease thriller The Ghost Map tells us of the mash up. “In many ways, the story...is all about the triumph of a certain kind of urbanism in the face of great adversity, the power of dense cities to create solutions to problems that they themselves have brought about“ (video)

In some developing countries today, such as in China “...more than half the country's population of 1.3 billion people, including 278 cities, live without any form of sewage treatment.” Access to uncontaminated drinking water, in developing and OECD countries might not be guaranteed in the 21 century. Ailing or non-existent sewage infrastructure might compromise the health of the global mega city. Here are some random recent examples:

At Evans Head “ the outfall near the northern New South Wales town's surfing beaches will pump treated effluent into the sea all year-round, 24-hours-a-day.“
At Glenelg sewage treatment plant, “the water ..currently goes out to sea”
“It's alleged 50 000 litres of untreated sewage and trade waste spilled into the rivulet at south Hobart in June last year “

“...after a sewer main ruptured and spilled untreated effluent into the river system at Culburra, east of Nowra."
“ More than a million litres of effluent” was detected in Mount Isa creek in north-west Queensland
Raw sewage was spilled into the Crookhaven River on New South Wales' south coast, Oysterfarm got covered in sludge.
“ Caloundra City Council has worked through the weekend to repair a sewer pipe that burst during torrential rains on Thursday, releasing raw sewage into the Pumicestone Passage.“
It is alleged that faulty wastewater drains in England caused the recent foot-and-mouth epidemic.

In the small, historic bay settlement of Apulia (Italy) they just had a resurgence of waterborne disease.“ The outbreak of viral gastroenteritis (norovirus)... is probably the largest one associated with drinking tap water in Italy.“

At the moment " We are seeing a wave of multiple outbreaks that is already spreading across Australia....Noroviruses have accounted for a five-fold increase in infectious gastroenteritis cases in recent years.” The virulent strain norovirus 2006b occurs especially in places where people aggregate densely. (Nursing homes, hospitals and child-care centres and cruise liners.) ” Transmission of caliciviruses is generally by the fecal-oral route, but they can also be transmitted via the respiratory route.”

Acute gastroenteritis (AGE) is now a global phenomena. Other water bugs, such as cholera, typhoid etc can spread under unsanitary conditions to infect water. The diarrhea enters the drinking water via the ground water supply. V. cholerae, lives in water bodies on plankton...”Coastal cholera outbreaks typically follow zooplankton blooms.” Eutrophication fuels the thick carpets floating on the world oceans, a rich nutrient culture for (re-)emergent microbial diseases.