Station St bike lane Bonbeach: cars parked in bike lane

Nepean Highway, south of Melbourne near Bonbeach station.

I have complained to the Kingston council about cars parked in the bike
lane on the west side of Station St. The cars are always parked near
the station in the bike lane.

Their response is that this parking is legal, and they do not propose
to do anything about it.

If you use these bike lanes going northward, then I suggest the only
safe way to proceed is to "seize the lane", and to ride in the middle
of the car lane. Of course riding no more than two abreast, as the law
requires. No need to hurry, since obviously there is no car traffic to
speak of, and they won't be delayed significantly.

Meanwhile I am going to contact the Victorian Government and see if
Kingston Council received money for this bike lane. If they did then I
will encourage them to seek a refund of the funding for this portion of
the bike lane. Since it is obviously not a bike lane, and the money
would be better spent on councils that actually make bike lanes.

Please forward this message to any cycling outlets that may be
appropriate.

Thanks.

Sadly, it IS legal to park in bike lanes (unless a clearway or signage
says otherwise).

The council would have recieved funding from Vicroads to put the paint
down and signs up at start/finish.

Please DONT write that letter to the govt. it's hard enough getting
funding.
or if you do suggest it should have been a wider parking AND bike lane
(ie either parknig indicated plus separate EBL or one big wide zone as
done recently elsewhere...


--
flyingdutch

Hm. I haven't written the letter yet.

But surely a bike lane with cars parked in it is of no use to anybody?

There is no room on this road for a park + lane option. It is this way
on the other side of the road.

In the surrounding streets there is plenty of parking available - all
the coffin drivers have to do is park and walk 100m or so.

"cfsmtb" wrote

I *strongly* recommend, if people are interested in bicycle facilities,
to have a perusal of VicRoads Cycle Notes:

http://tinyurl.com/c4m4o

The link for the May 1999 pdf on Bike Lanes is faulty - just brings up an
error message. However while perusing other Cycle Notes I found these new
designs for "bicycle friendly" roundabouts:
http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/vrpdf...R2005253v2.pdf

This is full of lots of warm words about how intimidating and dangerous
roundabouts are and providing safe roundabouts for cyclists and pedestrians.
However have a close look at the designs proposed for 2-lane, and especially
3-lane, roundabouts. Bear in mind that the provision of a bike lane compels
cyclists legally (at least in the eyes of motorists and police) to use the
bike lane and not the road.

These designs force cyclists to ride in a situation where they must give way
_multiple times_ while on the roundabout, to exiting traffic, even if the
cyclist is confident of negotiating the roundabout on the road. The 3-lane
design is a total joke - cyclists making a right turn are forced to travel 3
sides of a square, using 2 ped crossings. For _all_ cyclists, including
traffic-experienced riders, the right lane turn is not an option. Luckily
where I mostly ride there are not many of the larger roundabouts, but there
are more of these going in all the time, and in particular many outer
suburban and fringe rural routes use them a lot.

I know how I'll be riding roundabouts, but it may be harder to take control
of the road space with these god-awful bike lane designs. :angry:

"cfsmtb" wrote:
If you don't know what VicRoads are doing,
then how can cyclists interact and advocate for change?

Certainly these Cycle Notes are valuable in telling cyclits what VicRoads
are up to and whether their designs are appropriate. Thanks for pointing
them out to us.

snip

Either learn to participate in the current process

What process? Because I tend to see and hear very little about any real
process that involves consultation and listening to what cyclists need.

or contribute with
numerous community advocates/bicycle user groups who are in there
trying to negoitate with local councils, state gov and DOI/VicRoads.

I have tried lobbying and letter-writing on a number of issues, myself and
through BV, on several issues over the years. Personally I feel the chances
of success in many cases are a real hit and miss affair, subject to the
whims of politics at the time. The general response on cycling issues tends
to be "Oh we can't make those sort of changes just for a few cyclists" or
"That would be unsafe/enviromentally damaging" (in the views of non-cycling
transport, council or Parks Vic bureaucrats). Some of BVs public campaigns
have born fruit - the Gardiners Ck-Yarra Trail link was one where we got
Kennet to move. Others have flopped and will lay floundering for decades -
the Warburton Trail bridge at Lilydale springs to mind.

Ten years ago I contacted Parks Victoria about some restrictive gates on the
Dandenong Ck Trail at Shepherds Bush that were very difficult to pass
through on a single bike and impossible with a tandem or child trailer (we
were using both at the time). Response? "Oh, no. If we widen the gates
motorbike riders will get in and place people in danger. If one person was
injured by a motorbike we'd be liable. We can't allow that risk" Letters,
phone calls, a visit to meet with the Parks staff, but no change. I gave up
on bad show.

Now 10 years later all of a sudden those gates have been chopped out! Its an
open ride through to Jells Park and beyond. But what about the trail bike
danger now? I wonder what the spur was for this change - maybe I can claim
credit for my lobbying in 1995?

There's been a lot of excellent work done by cyclists & community
groups in the past, but there's unfortunately another group, whether
they're quite aware of it or not, who have left a dysfunctional mess
for current advocates to attempt to patch up.

Yep, well aware of all the good work being done on many local problems by
the BUGs and other community groups. All credit to them. I've just got a bit
past that now, just want to ride my bike on the public roads, use the trains
for extensions to my travels, and do some bush track riding. Locally I'm not
aware of any real BUG activity, Whitehorse BUG became a psuedo-touring club
for a generation older than I, and I'm very happy with MBTC in that regard.

Who's the dysfunctional group? Wouldn't be that group headed by 'Barry
Harber'?

--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ _@
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)

Peter Signorini Wrote:

Who's the dysfunctional group? Wouldn't be that group headed by 'Barry
Harber'?


Wasn't pointing the finger exclusively at BV. Have a think about it
Peter, there's some folks out there who haven't exactly covered
themselves in glory either.


--
cfsmtb

"cfsmtb" wrote:

Wasn't pointing the finger exclusively at BV. Have a think about it
Peter, there's some folks out there who haven't exactly covered
themselves in glory either.

Aww! C'mon, hint, hint?

Is this a formal group, or are you referring to bike path riders and the
general push towards this?

Cycle Vic and the roadie mobs on Beach Rd?

Or is it the RACV and VicRoads who've spent so much time trying to get bikes
off the roads?

I don't know, I give up. Do tell.

--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ _@
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)

Peter Signorini Wrote:

I don't know, I give up. Do tell.

Simple really, grumpy gits waaaayy past their expiry date who whinge,
bear old grudges and don't do anything to assist the current crop of
cyclist/transport advocates. Names? Why bother? They probably still
lurk out there on the newsgroup. As with the h*lm*t non-debate, it's
time to move on and get on with it.


--
cfsmtb

Here it is. Lots of grovelling, but I don't figure whinging will help.

To:

Subject: car parking in bicycle lanes

Firstly let me thank you for your excellent efforts in creating many
new and well constructed bicycle lanes. They really make Melbourne a
much more liveable city.

However I have one issue.

In the City of Kingston, I have complained to the Council about car
parking in the bicycle lanes at Bonbeach Station. The precise location
is the west side of Station St near the station.

Here there is an excellent bicycle lane, which is every day occupied by
cars parking in the bicycle lane.

I would really like you to legislate to make it illegal to park in a
bicycle lane. We can't create bicycle lanes and then fill them with
cars. It defeats the point.

Failing that, please take issue with those councils that allow parking
in bicycle lanes.

Thanks again for the great work on encouraging cycling.