On Thursday 9th February government officials, politicians, cycling activists and members of the media met at an otherwise unremarkable car park about four kilometres west of the city centre of Canberra, ACT to launch an Australian first.
Anna Gurnhill who is Coordinator, Active Travel Office, Transport Canberra & City Services within the ACT Government, was on hand to explain the idea.
“This is the first Park and Pedal scheme in Australia. It’s a scheme that has had success overseas, particularly in the USA, Canada and the UK,” she said.
“It’s a very simple scheme. We’re encouraging Canberran’s who currently drive all the way to work to instead drive part way, park their car, get their bikes out and pedal for the remainder of their journey.
“This particular location is an ideal location for this initiative. It’s right on one of our major parkway roads, capturing a lot of vehicle traffic heading both north and south. It also connects perfectly with our main shared path which takes people a comfortable 30 minute bike ride to the city, to Woden, to Belconnen, the National Triangle (federal parliamentary precinct) – a whole range of different destinations.
“We do not that in Canberra 75% of people own a bike, but one of the biggest barriers to getting people to ride to work on their bikes is that our distances are quite large.
“So by encouraging people to have a part way point where they can drive, avoid some of the worst traffic congestion and then pedal the remainder of the journey, provides a great solution.
“People joke that we don’t really have a peak hour in Canberra, but when you’re out there on the Tuggeranong Parkway each morning you realise that we do have traffic congestion, even if it might not be as bad as Sydney or Melbourne,” Anna said.
Bicycling Trade can attest to the surprisingly large amount of traffic congestion on the morning of the launch. There was at least a two kilometre long traffic jam heading in the opposite direction towards the city and we were slightly late arriving (via car…) due to further congestion at the turn-off.
Anna continued, “For many people, to be able to park their car here and then pedal their bike, it might be quicker, because they don’t have to find parking once they get to the town centres and it’s free parking here as well. (Whereas it is payable by the hour at the destinations mentioned previously.)
“We know that park and pedal is something that already happens informally. Today is effectively a mass marketing campaign to encourage more people to do it.
“We would like to install some permanent road signage, but we’ll need to go through an approvals process.”
