I’ve uploaded a picture to show what I mean:
Here’s how it looks when there are alternatives to cars. (The Netherlands. Shitty photo by me today in the morning.)
I’m lucky to live near the Melbourne capital city trail. It reminds me of this though. Can you imagine a city not dominated by cars?
As a European, I hate this type of speech:
The prime minister sought to assure Australians it was still business as normal but said workers should consider taking public transport to conserve fuel supplies for those who didn’t have the option.
Public transport is presented like the last and shittiest option. What about long-term plans of solving this dependency on Putin, Iran and such? It’s to buy more oil and stockpile it? My god, grow some balls already and commit to making public transport better to avoid such a collapse in the future! Let Aussies have alternatives, don’t keep them hostages of the situation.
P.S. admittedly I live in a luxury because I live in the Netherlands and pay ~300 EUR (500 AUD) for transport annually, which is 40% bike maintenance and 60% the rare use of public transport. But then again, is it completely impossible for other cities to have even part of their citizens served by these modes of transport?
Currently, we can only dream of having such cycling systems in place. Canberra comes closest to the Netherlands in having planned-for bike paths in many parts of the city from its early days. In most of our other cities it is difficult to impossible to do because of the road and street design and bike paths can only be developed in small sections of cities. I think you’d find the same problem in many European cities. You are very lucky to have such a practical, and community-minded (and flat) country which is so ideal for cycling.
Its not really fair to compare public transport in Australia to other nations. Europe for example has ~200 people per km2, Australia has 3. It’s horrifically inefficient public transport due to the small user volume and large distance covered
I think density is not as important as frequently perceived because the vast majority of trips happen intra-city (in any country in the world). So even in Austrlia, we’re speaking about how to get e.g. from Melbourne to Melbourne.
P.S. my kid has his own bike, so he safely cycles to school if I’m sick or just don’t feel like cycling with him. I usually cycle with him in the morning though: it’s nice and refreshing before the work starts. We can chat on the way, and we have a tradition to look for cats and say it’s good when we find any along the way. Lemme maybe take a photo along the way and post it, so taht it’s not just empty words.
