Bicycle Riding. Credit: latch.r/flickr

The city of Melbourne recently came up with a great idea; a bicycle program for the city’s central business district (CBD).  Indeed on the face of it, this looks like a progressive plan to encourage more people to leave their cars at home in favour of alternative transport options. The combination of the bicycle initiative and quality public transport would have been an excellent way to make the city even more accessible for transport other than private motor vehicles.

But like so many other promising programs, the Labor Victorian government has again failed to deliver.  And it has failed on a number of levels – another recurring trait of this government.

As noted in The Age’s and Herald Sun’s letters-to-the-editor sections, the Victorian Government decided in its infinite wisdom, to roll out the program without an accompanying helmet awareness program.

While this has enabled Victorian Police to raise unprecedented levels of revenue from cyclists not wearing a helmet, it has attracted criticism. Many tourists would find the bicycle program an excellent way to see the city as well as doing the right thing environmentally, but they would be less happy to run afoul of Australian road rules.  These kinds of bureaucratic oversights could result in a ripple effect from visitors and create problems in restoring faith in Melbourne as a tourism destination.

Better foresight?

With all of the junkets by Victorian politicians to Europe and Asia, and especially to cities that already have rolled out extensive bicycle programs, one has to wonder exactly what they were doing while they were there.

Surely it was not just to see how well the Europeans built roads, or nuclear power plants for that matter.  Were they not shown how well these cities are adjusting to climate change through their own time-tested bicycle programs, how they are helping to reduce the amount of cars on the roads?

Surely from their experiences in China, France, Amsterdam, Vietnam, Indonesia, Germany, and Malaysia and others the Labor government representatives would have acquired better foresight into how such a program should be developed and rolled out?

Apparently not.

The dubious wisdom surrounding the bicycle program was further extended to its pricing policy instigated at (presumably) the behest of the winning tender, the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV). That’s right. A bicycle program for Melbourne’s CBD is being rolled out by the state’s largest and most cashed-up car & motorist lobby group.

Perhaps this is yet another sign of Brumby’s pollution agenda.

Victoria's Premier John Brumby 2007. Credit: Another melbournite.

Apparently, the hire of a bicycle is free for the first hour. There is apparently only the disclaimer that there are significant fees after the first free hour. What a wonderful idea. Make significant profits from significant fees because to go anywhere and enjoy the sights, sounds and delights on offer is going to take longer than an hour.

It is no wonder newspaper commentators – particularly at The Age and Herald Sun – make a mockery of Victorian parliamentarians’ so-called international educational tours and trade missions by politicians and senior bureaucrats; many of them to extravagantly priced cities.

Unfortunately, this is another excellent initiative that has been effectively junked by the reigning Victorian state Labor Government’s policies.

By Alex Schlotzer: Interested in writing on this or another category for theangle.org? Contact us via our online form.

Alex Schlotzer is a straight talker when it comes to politics and loves to vent his spleen.  He is actively involved in Australian and international politics with a keen understanding of the dynamics of the political machine. Alex has a prolific online presence and has been a cyber activist for over 15 years. He can also be found at his blog and his exciting online project Australian Politics TV.

Tags: bicycle program, carbon reduction, Melbourne, Sustainability, Victoria Labor