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Canberra Today 27°/29° | Tuesday, March 19, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Cycling numbers go downhill

FEWER people are cycling into Civic of a morning, according to data collected by Pedal Power ACT. 

Pedal ACT report a decline in bike riders commuting to Civic.

The review, put together on behalf of the ACT government, shows that on the first Tuesday of March for the past three years, on average, there’s been a 2.1 per cent drop.

Pedal Power ACT’s communications manager Anne Treasure says that riding needs to be more viable for women, who only made up 30.7 per cent of commuter bike riders this year.

The organisation has been collecting data since 2004 to better understand how Canberra chooses to travel in and out of Civic.

The annual percentage increase in cycling numbers from 2004 has exceeded eight per cent in all but one year (due to inclement weather).

The 2017 figures indicate a 6.1 per cent increase in the number of riders who travel into the city between 7.30am and 9am since 2004. And between 2004 and 2010 there was a rapid rise with an annual growth of at least 10 per cent.

But in recent years the numbers have started to plateau.

Anne says that with Canberra’s population set to grow to 421,000 by 2020, the ACT needs stronger leadership to make cycling, as transport, appealing to more Canberrans.

“Many people haven’t even considered the idea of riding a bike for transport, and may simply need more information on how they can make active travel part of their lives,” Anne says.

Despite 114,000 Canberrans riding a bike every month, only 2.9 per cent use their bikes to commute.

More information via pedalpower.org.au

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One Response to Cycling numbers go downhill

Leon Arundell says: 20 March 2017 at 5:21 pm

Part of the solution will be for the ACT Government to spend its limited walking and cycling budget on projects that offer better ‘bang for buck.’
Since 2005 the Government has used a ‘weighted sum’ method to prioritise projects. That method favours smaller numbers of large expensive projects ahead of larger numbers of less expensive but more cost-effective projects that would collectively achieve more.
The Government funded the Civic Cycle Loop even after its cost blew out 30-fold, from $0.2 million to $6 million, and it committed $12 million to the Majura Parkway off-road cycleway even though it didn’t even make the top 100.

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