<< Peninsula News 24 April 2002 - What cycleway transport means >>

What cycleway transport means

Councillors have, through their latest publications in the Peninsula News, shown that they do not really understand what alternative cycleway transport means, nor do they have a thorough understanding of the Waterfront Reserve environment.

Councillors do not seem to understand, how our children's' lives can be saved through the provision of safe off-road cycleways and how nature can be preserved.

The Peninsula Community Waterfront Preservation Committee has continually expressed its full support for cycleways as an alternative, safe, healthy and pleasant alternative transport system for the Woy Woy Peninsula.

However, I believe that the community's social and physical waterfront environment does not have to be vandalised by 2.5 metres of concrete to achieve this.

Gosford Council has not been properly informed of what modern cycleways actually are or how they need to be built to provide the safety we all are concerned about.

Councillors appear not to have been informed that the current "shared pathways" proposal as it stands is contrary to all modern experience in cycleway planning, and have actually been proven to endanger the safety of kids, the elderly population, mothers with prams and disabled people.

None of the European countries such as Holland or Germany with many years of experience in building cycleways, use joint paths or "shared paths" except on long overland routes without much pedestrian traffic.

It is simply too dangerous for the weaker party.

Neither is a white line on the road sufficient for the safety of cyclists.

This would put cyclists at an even greater risk if placed on the right side of parking cars.

This has been done at West Gosford.

Parking cars have to cross this "sort of" cycleway and the sudden opening of driver doors are the nightmare of every bicycle rider.

Council does not appear to have been informed that modern and safe cycleways are off the road and raised to footpath level, but separated from the footpath.

Such a cycleway, if placed along our main transport routes would provide a safe and alternative form of transport.

The old argument that our roads are not wide enough is not true as European models can easily verify.

Along Brickwharf Rd, North Burge and Burge Rds a cycleway could for example be integrated into an pavement style streetscape development, parallel to the waterfront where traffic is slowed but still passes through like at The Entrance.

This would enhance the whole Woy Woy township.

Such an integrated but off road cycleway with adjoining footpath would actually extend the reserve, would provide water views and could do much more for the equity, accessibility and safety concerns of Cr Bockholt.

We can save the wildlife and the social life, as well as every inch of green that is left on this very thin strip of reserve, which already serves 40,000 people with picnic and other passive recreational space.

At the same time, proper design of the adjoining streets will ensure that more people will truly have additional access to the waterfront and can cycle through the waterfront reserves on the existing natural pathways in a pleasant and natural environment.

Without safe cycleway access through our main arterial roads, how can our children go to the waterfront, shopping centres or the railway station?

Accidents occur on our roads because there is not enough provision for cyclists and pedestrians alike.

A 2.5 metre wide concrete strip through our reserves will not save one life.

All that is required, in our rush to develop, is that we think through the alternative ideas creatively and carefully for a change.

We have to include a bit of intelligence and the information already available from cycleway studies and waterways management information.

We need to think further ahead into the future than we are currently doing.

We do not want to waste the RTA money available with the first, most obvious knee jerk reaction.

The Woy Woy Peninsula as a relatively flat sand plain is ideally positioned for cycling.

Most distances on the Peninsula can be negotiated by bicycle.

We have to ask our councillors why there are no safe "off road" and to footpath level raised transport cycleways along our roads, for example from Ettalong or Umina to Woy Woy.

Many people on the Peninsula came here because of the natural environment.

Within this environment, waterfront reserves are the most precious public asset available.

The Woy Woy waterfront reserve contains more than 40 species of water and other birdlife.

We need a very sensitive approach to preserve this natural asset for the enjoyment of our kids and their kids.

We want our kids to have everything. We want them to have cycleways and to continue to see our wildlife rich waterfront reserves.

These reserves are a treasure worth keeping forever.

Cr Preece's insensitive and disappointing argument, that the natural environment is already so modified that it won't hurt to modify it a little more, is not exactly what one would expect to hear from an environmentalist.

Damage done in the past should be counter-acted with regeneration and not with concrete.

The Peninsula community and the many walking groups from all over Sydney and the Central Coast who currently regularly use the reserve are well aware of the rich wildlife on the reserve, which Cr Preece failed to see on his Sunday afternoon bicycle tour.

Council during its inspection was also unaware of the extent of wetlands on the reserve or of the fact that a large proportion of the proposed concrete cycleway would be under water at high tides or damaged through tidal inundation because it is actually a wetland area.

Councillors are obviously not very well informed.

Council's decision has been rushed and needs a thorough review of alternatives.

We merely need to think through various alternatives thoroughly, openly and in a spirit of creativity and not divisiveness.

Cr Bockholts' quotation of one letter, which is in no way representative and is contrary to so many other letters she received, is not helpful at all but serves only divisiveness.

Let us ensure that the community will get a first class solution instead of the current third-rate outdated and unsafe proposal.

This is what the community as represented by 1641 signatories (only 7% of these are waterfront residents by the way) is asking for.

Many people I spoke to while I was collecting signatures asked me if the council had gone mad when they heard of the proposal to go through the reserves.

Many said they would not bother driving all the way from Sydney or other parts of the Central Coast to come here any more.

Between 70 and 95 per cent of people asked were against a route directly on the reserves but for a cycleway either parallel or elsewhere.

There is one important point that still needs to be raised.

If councillors are truly concerned for the lives of children, as I am sure they are, they need to consider the results of cycleway studies.

Cycleway studies conducted by the RTA. show that teenagers are the main bike riders, and that they along with other users, will ride predominantly on direct routes to shops, station and schools.

Studies show that if we do not provide them with safe off-road cycleways on these direct transport routes, which the reserve is not, they will continue to ride on the road regardless and get killed.

This means that Lynne Bockholt's idea whilst well meaning does not apply to the principal transport bike rider in our community and is not an alternative transport system that will save the lives of these users, as presumed by councillors.

These teenage kids, however do not have the lobby group that other recreational or sporting cycling groups in our community have and can't therefore access the appropriate RTA and council funding.

This is the problem with a "stakeholder" rather than whole of community approach to community consultation and funding.

It would be a cynical exercise indeed if a million dollars were spent to provide a dangerous "shared pathway" for recreational cycling when recreational cyclists can already ride safely on the bush track existent on the reserve, while kids and others have to continue to risk their lives in competition with the traffic.

It would be a cynical exercise if it were used on downgrading the environment in the name of the environment

As a last comment, the dangerous and disgraceful state of affairs where women have to push their prams along the roads to get to bus stops could be solved by using the funds to provide separate footpaths and cycleways on the main transport routes and roads.

These women and other vulnerable groups, such as the elderly or disabled people who currently have to risk their lives on roads should not be misused in the name of access and equity.

These community members are currently often not even able to walk in safety to basic community facilities needed for their day-to-day lives due to the lack of footpaths.

As a clinical psychologist, I am on an almost daily basis confronted with the fact that many people on the Woy Woy Peninsula cannot even afford public transport to gain access to community facilities.

The situation of many people in our community who are depressed, impoverished or isolated is exacerbated because they cannot afford to participate in the community.

They can't participate with equity because they either can't afford transport or can't afford to access many other facilities.

Spending the money on proper transport cycleways on main transport routes would not only help save lives because people don't have to walk on the roads, but would give these citizens a cheap, safe and alternative form of transport, which means more community access and equity.

Disabled people currently also have to push wheelchairs along roads or cannot get to community facilities at all.

There are no footpaths outside their own homes.

If our councillors really mean it when they talk of access and equity for the Woy Woy community, they will provide the most vulnerable in the community with cheap, safe transport so they can access and participate in the community.

These are the basics of life.

Sure, running a million-dollar concrete de facto road through our precious reserve for recreational cyclist groups is much easier.

Is that the reason, why all of the community's letters of concern, cycleway studies, community arguments, common sense and the environment are being ignored?

I hope however that Gosford Council is open to community consultation which I believe will solve the problems and create a satisfactory win-win situation for the entire community.

The issue is a little more complex than it seems, and the usual piecemeal, not thought through, knee-jerk planning is not the answer for our community.

I believe that the Woy Woy community deserves and will get a first rate solution which will benefit everyone, not a third rate solution which benefits a few interest groups only.

Karin Solondz, Woy Woy