Cycling in the nation's capital | Is Canberra a good bike city?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ส.ค. 2024
- In November I was in Canberra for a few days and took the opportunity to borrow a bike and have a look around. I used to work in Canberra about a decade ago, and the city centre was chalk and cheese between then and now.
After I returned to Brisbane I got COVID-19, and then the Christmas period which contributed to such a long delay between videos. However, more than that, I just feel a lack of morale with how little things are changing in Brisbane.
Visiting a city like Canberra and seeing what CAN change in a short space of time lifted my spirits, so I did want to get this video out.
Fun fact: Did you know I ran for the Australian senate in 2016? I even out-polled a sitting senator...
Also, sincere thanks to my supporters on Buy Me A Coffee, particularly Dan, Someone and Someone who between them bought me 35 coffees! If you want to support my channel, feel free to shout me a coffee too:
www.buymeacoffee.com/CoxyCycling
0:00 Intro to Canberra's C8 City Loop
3:20 Lake Burley Griffin and Australian Parliament House
5:10 Wayfinding challenges
6:25 Symmetry of Canberra
7:30 Can you get where you need to go?
9:15 Share-a-bike
10:10 Shared e-scooters....
11:30 One way bike tracks!
13:10 Multi modal streets, not car sewers
15:30 Bike culture = better drivers?
17:01 Perceptions of riding in Canberra city
17:40 Canberra vs Brisbane
20:40 Summing up
Nice video. Canberra certainly has better infrastructure than Brisbane but overall is still very car dependent.
thanks for the journey around Canberra Chris-very interesting
A lot of the bike infrastructure in Canberra is definitely very solid! I think the biggest obstacle Canberra faces to being less car-centric is how spread out it is. They're doing some zoning reform this year so we'll see how that goes, but if far more inner suburbs were like Braddon then Canberra as a whole would have more street life and more trips that could be made within easy biking distances.
Yes indeed. I didn't get out of Civic/Braddon. I remember from staying up near Dickson that the infrastructure up there 10 years ago was painted door zone lanes and the odd 3m wide asphalt path overgrown with weeds through parks and creek gullies. Not sure how much that has changed.
Was also noticeable in the parliamentary zone that there's nothing but lakeside and park shared paths. Nothing on roads. Need to preserve the original vision of Canberra as a car sewer 😉
It is legal to ride on footpaths in Canberra. As you head out of the city, you find a lot of asphalt bike paths (like at 9 minutes) that take you to the various town centres.
The ACT also has a strong cycling lobby group in Pedal Power ACT. Anyone can join them and membership includes cycling insurance coverage anywhere in the world.
Yeah. Had similar observations last visit in 2019. Looks like a lot more infrastructure since then. The narrow bridges were not great.. but it has always been a very essy walk and ride city. Love Canberra.. a great city to go to with family..
2:15 "I don't actually know if it's legal to ride on the footpath here"
11:05 "silly escooter riders don't even know if they can ride on the footpath!"
:P
I'd be interested in a video with your takes on micromobility. Personally I think that clip is a great example of why I think the escooter rentals beat doing nothing. Yes, those three were confused, but listening to the laughs and the explicit "I'm having the time of my life" is exactly why I think anything that gets people onto right-sized transit is a step towards better active transit.
One little trip like this makes more impact on the average punter's next five decades of voting than a thousand FB comments. Entire dinner tables ranting about bike lanes will get shut down by "oh I tried one and it was fun :)"
Good point about the fun aspect then leading to support for bike lanes. I'll bear that in mind.
Out in the suburbs of Canberra there is obviously not much general bike support, but there are a bunch of "arterial" paths radiating out from the city. So if you live out in the burbs you're not generally too far from a main bike path that will take you into town.
Makes commuting in pretty damn good. We have only one in Hobart (maybe one and a half...) so if you're not in those particular suburbs tough crap.
I'm impressed that the city has opted to put bike lanes on the kerb-side of the parked cars where they have kept street parking.
That stood out to me too. It was well done.
We stayed a night in Canberra about a year ago, and had a similar sort of look-see on our bikes for an hour or two. Ours was mainly a lap of the lake and a lap of parliament house. We didn't really think to venture into the CBD, because, y'know that makes no sense to Brisbane people. It's impressive to see more of what they've got going on there - proper bike lanes and parking, etc. Impressive. I do think you should keep doing (some) snarky videos, but some more positive ones too. I think you should show some tourist-oriented 10km rides, such as along the river to Toowong, or from Boondall to Nudgee station via the wetlands. I think it would be constructive to put Brisbane more on the map and that a bike ride can be a good option for a not so furnace-hot or torrential rainy day. I'd take our bikes to Canberra again, or perhaps rent one, doesn't seem as hilly as Brisbane!
The fun thing we came across that you didn't - the National Carillon. The bells are currently out of service, but it's a very nice spot to roll right up to, take a break on a garden bench, and admire the view. I didn't realise that a carillon is a thing, or a thing in Australia, and maybe I can roll back up there when the bells are working?
Oh, and you could borrow a mountain bike and join in the Australia day ride on the BVRT. Not much to snark about, can promise you that! Except perhaps the early start and inevitable heat of the later morning.
I've seen somewhere a division of cycle campaigning into three categories: promoters, criticisers and organisers. Promoters tend to be happy about new cycling infrastructure even if it isn't all that good, criticisers tend to be critical of new cycling infrastructure for not being good enough and organisers tend to not have a public face at all but get more involved at the political level. (People can fall into more than one category but rarely all three). The theory is that all three are necessary and complement each other in progress towards the ultimate goal.
So don't worry, the rants are good but so are the happy, feelgood videos where we celebrate the good and just appreciate how much better it is now than 10 years ago. I loved seeing the cyclist's view of Canberra. I haven't been there for close to 20 years so it's great to see how much has changed.
Australia is a difficult place to live completely car-free, but it certainly looks like Canberra is a place where some people could own a car they only bother driving when they need to go out of state.
It gets disheartening being a criticiser, you get stuck in the negative. Organising is thankless and often a feeling of one step forward, 2 steps back. Australia has a really hard car culture to change.
Great video! Canberra's bicycle network is fantastic but cycle commuting is not for everyone. Canberra is quite spread out so distances can be quite daunting, especially if you are unfit. And riding all year means dealing with the heat of summer and the cold and darkness of winter.
Of course, bike commuting or bike travel doesn't have to be every trip, every day. But a network makes it easy and feasible for more people, more often.
I don't know why we need to qualify the benefits of a bike network by saying "bike riding isn't for everyone". I mean, neither is driving, catching a bus or walking.
Cycle commuting should appeal to more people, especially in Canberra. I think the terrain, the distance, and riding in the dark and bad weather are the major turn off's. Everywhere I have worked provided a secure, well lit, undercover area to park your bike with showering and changing facilities. In my experience at best about 2% chose cycle commuting as their primary travel option. Maybe another 2% riding occasionally in good weather only.
Whoa wtf, TH-cam highlighted the thumbs up/down buttons in rainbow right as you said "hit all the things on the screen".
This definitely seems, on the whole, a lot better than what we have in Brissy. I love the fact that the bike paths are predominently one-way. BCC's insistence on using two-way paths is infuriating. That said, I noticed in this video a severe lack of at-grade crossings at intersections. There was that one wombat crossing you mentioned, but every time the bike path was crossing an intersection, it was down at the level of the road. Not ideal.
"We're getting the fantastic new bridges. And you'll never hear me say something bad about the bridges." Well, I've got one bad thing to say about them. The promised 5 is now down to just 2, with councillors trying to gaslight residents into not calling them out for reneging on their election commitment.
Yes. Canberra is far from perfect, that's for sure. Having bike lanes at kerb level dropping down to street level at intersections is definitely something that should change, particularly on these marked "C" routes.
And also yes, it's utterly depressing that the guy who became Lord Mayor on the promise of 5 green bridges and a need to shift away from car transport, to the man we see today going on and on about road projects and car tunnels, while cutting 3 green bridges and cancelling or "go slow" on numerous bikeway projects... there's no reason to vote for him.
The moment they started sprawling and abandoning the original vision of the city, they ruined it.
"You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy" Got a chuckle from that, well done.
Not hares, definitely feral rabbits...
You complained about those kids not knowing where they could ride the scooters 5 minutes after you said you weren't sure where you could ride your bike 😂
Ha, fair call.
Remove the car’s from brisbane city
Probably a bit ambitious, but I think there's definitely a number of streets where car traffic can be greatly reduced and the streets made to be a walkable, cyclable street. Margaret and Mary Street spring to mind, Albert Street is already being pedestrianised.
I think it would help if we converted the one way streets back to two way as well.
Lol how come you don't like one nation, because they have a slightly scaled back view on immigration. The best way to prove you're anti racist is to walk around a brown area by yourself at 10pm with lots of expensive stuff on you.
And they're anti-science, self interested right wing tossbags.
@@ChrisCoxCycling I don't reject climate change science nor do I reject studies showing the benefits of mass transit and cycling. Being in favor importing millions of non Whites who hate you and rejecting all evidence that it is a detriment to our society to bring them in and even going as far as to claim that race is skin deep and a social construct is delusional and fatal as in the recent case of Vyleen White.
well thankfully here in the mighty northern territory all footpaths can be used by bicycles and you dont even have to wear a stupid bike helmet ! the only time you have to use a helmet is if you are under 16 years old or if you ride on the road and if they catch you without a helmet it is only a $10 fine ! as for your stupid left wing political opinions, you can keep them to yourself, we are here to watch bike videos not rubbish politics rants
One Nation are racist rednecks. I simply speak the truth. Enjoy the NT.
@@ChrisCoxCycling spoken like a true woke left loony, i simply speak the truth