Bicycle Network Victoria: VoteBike

November 2006 - A flurry of announcements.

Both major parties are making announcements relevant to bike riders.

The liberal party have shown a strong general commitment to bike facilities and programs, however one announcement that could be of concern to riders in Melbourne is the commitment by Ted Bailleau to remove the parking levy in the central business district.

This levy is currently funding almost $2 million per year for bike facilities in the City of Melbourne. Projects include a separated bike lane on Albert St and a new trail along the northbank of the Yarra.

Bicycle Network Victoria has asked for a commitment from Mr Bailleau that if elected, he will provide equivalent funds to the City of Melbourne for bike projects. Click on email me updates above to be kept informed of his response.

Since the beginning of the election campaign at the start of November, Labor has promised the following :

• $1 million to extend the existing Upfield Shared Pathway (USP) from Boundary Road, North Coburg to Box Forest Road in Glenroy.
• $3 million to build a major shared use bridge at the Mountain Highway/Burwood Highway intersection in Vermont as part of the new trail along the eastlink project. Click here for Minister Batchelor's media release.
• $300,000 to upgrade the Ballarat to Skipton Rail Trail by improving bicycle
  access. Click here for more details on the project.
• A new regional park along the Barwon River from Belmont Common to Barwon Heads, including some pedestrain and cycling trails.
• $500,000 to build a Copenhagen style separated path along Cecil Street from Albert Road to Whiteman Street, South Melbourne.

May 06 - Transport and Liveability Statement Released.

Minster for Transport released the long awaited document 'Meeting Our Transport Challenges' and delivered a unprecedented levels of money and commitments to bike facilities.

For all the details click here to go to our Transport and Liveability page.

March 06 - Election issues

We have been talking to both major parties about the election at the end of this year. We have been using a simple chart:

In each program the network has been identified and there is an established prioritising method for aspiring projects. What is needed is the money to increase the momentum of bike riding.

We propose an increase in road network funds to pay for higher-quality routes, with more separation in busy areas, as well as completing the 'economy' reach of the network.

We propose an increase in path network funds as many worthwhile projects (such as the elimination of the 42 steps in Abbotsford, the Darebin Yarra bridge and the bridge over the Maroondah Highway in Lilydale) cannot be built with $1m a year. Details of these and other trail projects are on the page link on the right.

The additional funding would bring many benefits to the community through the increased riding that would result.

You can see a short show on the Metropolitan Trail Network that we used during our presentation by clicking the link on the right of the page (Please note: it is a 1 Mb Flash file so may take a few minutes to load).

The Government will be releasing a Transport and Liveability Statement after the Commonwealth Games, which we hope will contain a commitment to additional funds for cycling.

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You can register for updates to this page (see the ‘Email me updates on this subject’ link at right), and we'll email you when we make important updates to this page.