MOAB Rant: Cycling Infrastructure

An outtake from Ep4, could also be called 'tallman shouts into the void'.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey listeners, thanks for tuning in to a Mike on a bike podcast rant. This short came from the editing of episode four. After cutting it from that episode, I thought it might be useful to locals who are considering where to send their vote at the next council elections. What I'm ranting about here isn't just a SESNOC problem. I suspect it exists in every LGA in the country. If we want cycling infrastructure, then we have to agitate for it. Remember that the public servants work for the taxpayers and not the reverse. Cycling is the only sport where we ask our kids to train on the side of the road.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

That is so true.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Rugby league gets stadiums and grounds.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

You know, soccer, cricket in the in the summertime. Yeah. Netball courts, basketball courts, basketball stadiums, everything. But cycling gets and I spent a lot of years agitating on behalf of the cycling community here, and that's why I'm kind of really quite busy in local not so much busy in local politics, but but I'm always lobbying, right? Because if we stop talking about it, then the public servants who want us to go away get their wish.

unknown 1:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

And so I just keep talking about it. I keep on saying they took away a BMX tract that had been there 20 years that people had built themselves. Locals had built it, got bobcats and backers and stuff, and brought it out and built this BMX track. And the council got some money from the state government and the federal government to to build a proper BMX track. It had a start hill and had everything. So we were pushing quite a lot of that, making submissions and all this stuff, and they had called it all the way through a BMX track. And when it got to the um, you know, we've finally got the money, we've got everything, the DA has been approved, and we get to see the plans, it's a pump track.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Oh, not a BMX.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

And I go to the council and I say, hang on, this is not a BMX, and they go, Yeah, that's a BMX track. I go, no, no, it's a pump track. And they go, well, that's BMX. And I and No my goodness. And the way I described it to the public servants was that they had built some netball courts and called it a basketball facility, right? Um, because they just they just didn't care enough. But but what it what ultimately what it means is that the council don't want to provide more facilities that require maintenance because a pump track is zero maintenance, there's no club, there's no competition, there's no, I mean you can have pump competition, but but there's no point in starting a a club just for pump.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

That's just skillful for a lot of other disciplines.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

It was so disappointing. We saw the plans. I'm like, hang on, where's the start hill? Where are you putting the start hill? And they go, what start hill? I go, well, I've got to start I'm gonna start a club. And yeah, it was really frustrating. So the the public servants here, because we're in such a wine tourism area, they don't they don't really see they don't see fine detail. They go, okay, soccer, we get it. Netball, we get it. Kids grow up, they pay play soccer in the winter and they play rugby league in the summer, or they play cricket in the summer. The cycling thing, because the public servants will say, every road is cycling infrastructure. What are you talking about? We give you shared paths all the time. I go, yeah, but the the big shared path they built went through a bus stop, like literally through it. The people sitting in the bus stop, if there's somebody riding their bike, they've got to kind of hold their feet out of the way.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

See it all in Newcastle. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

And we say shared paths aren't cycle ways.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

No, or it'll just stop. Like literally it will just stop.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

So you can't take kids on it.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

And that they do that here too. The concrete just comes up to that street and then it stops. What do you do? Yeah, where am I? Okay, I'm on back on the road now.

unknown 4:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Um, it's frustrating. And so that I um with a lot of along with a lot of local campaigners over many years, I've just given up now. Because it there's no amount of mud that we could throw at the wall that would cause it to stick. We just could not get anything to stick on the wall.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yeah. We just don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

We just they they don't get it. Um, and it's because there's no cyclists. And and when I realized this, I said to the council, I'm gonna give you an electric bike, a commuter, uh, you know, a car coffee, step through, basket on the front, basket on the back, headlights, taillights. I say, I'm gonna give it to you. And I want the council to make it available for council staff to take for a week. Just have this bike for a week, find out what it's like to be a cyclist. No charge. I don't want to, I don't want anything returned. Yes, I'll talk about it, but my objective is to produce as many cyclist thinkers so that when they make decisions that could be good for us or could be bad for us, and this is not graft, it's about making clever decisions for cyclists, right? You put a cycleway that comes up to a canal, so run the cycleway up at the canal at an angle, put a bridge over the canal, and run the cycle, but they don't do that, they run the cycleway up to the canal, they put a bridge at 90 degrees, at 90 degrees over the canal, and then another 90 degrees on the other side, and it's just impractical. Somebody with a trike is not going to get around it, it's cancelled all the recumbents, it's you know, it it it it knocks out, and then the problem, of course, is the same thing as on the fur firm leaders, they're walking, they're walking with the headphones on, they're pushing the pram, they got the dog. One of the things that should absolutely be banned is these long 20 metre extendable dog leads.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Oh I can't I can't tell. I lost count this morning how many times I went. What?

SPEAKER_00 6:27

What are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 6:28

What are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 6:28

That the punter's off the footpath over there, the dog's on the other side of the footpath over there, and and there's just a big string across the trip everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Just trying to find them and it's frustrating. It's so frustrating.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Um and so after a while, it's psychologically safer to stop hitting your head on the wall. Yeah. Stop hitting your head. Yeah. Just give away, just go and do your thing, just come out here and ride. I haven't really stopped agitating for cycling infrastructure because none of us can. I go to the council meetings every month and I talk to the councillors. I'm still a member of the council's trails reference group, even though it's a tick on a project plan and has no power to affect change. We have to keep working for better cycling infrastructure because if you don't ask, you don't get. If we stop agitating, then we will be locked out of the bushland we've cared for and maintained over decades because it's easier for the public servants and cheaper for government agencies. If you live here in Cessnock, email your local councillors and remind them that the Shiraz to Shore project is a tourism asset and not a bike path. The new general manager at Sestock Council starts in a few weeks. When I meet her, I'll offer them a free bike again, and maybe they will say yes this time. Third time lucky, right? Okay, round over. Thank you, Ingrid, for agreeing with everything I said. Stay tuned for the next episode soon.