Rates of people who cycle are lower now than in 2011
Rates of cycling in Australia are no higher than they were a decade ago according to a new national survey published today. The survey from cycling and walking Australia and New Zealand found that fewer than one in six Australians ride a bicycle weekly and just over a third have ridden in the past year.
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TVTranscript
00:00 We know that Australians really do want to cycle and walk more, and we know that that
00:06 would have benefits not just for people that do want to cycle more, but also for those
00:10 that don't.
00:11 I'll explain that one a little bit more.
00:14 That might have got people a little bit twisted.
00:16 So the majority of journeys in our city are less than five kilometers, which is a 15-minute
00:22 walk or cycle.
00:24 And so that's about two in three journeys.
00:25 So swapping those to bicycles and walking, that takes cars off the road and reduces congestion.
00:31 So some real big benefits to be had by upping the rates of cycling.
00:35 There was a pandemic bike boom.
00:38 A lot of people rushed out during lockdowns to buy themselves a new bicycle and get around
00:44 on two wheels.
00:46 But it looks like traffic's returned and we just gave up.
00:49 Is that what happened here?
00:52 I think it's about people feeling safe and the streets are quieter, which we know really
00:58 helps and people feel safer when the streets are less noisy and easier to cross.
01:02 So it's about getting these basics right.
01:05 And that comes down to investing in the right kinds of infrastructure.
01:09 And at the moment, we're investing a lot in car-based infrastructure and we're getting
01:12 a lot of cars for short journeys.
01:15 We really need to flip that for short journeys and invest in cycling and walking and other
01:20 forms of small transport, public transport too.
01:23 How much investment does cycling infrastructure get in Australia?
01:27 Is the balance right?
01:28 Yeah, so it's about a tenth of what it should be, which is not great, is it?
01:35 We're getting about a 2% of our transport budgets invested in cycling and we should
01:40 be up at the round about the 20% mark for walking and cycling.
01:45 That's a United Nations figure.
01:47 And when we do that, we see that cycling does go up and this is what we need to do.
01:53 We need to invest and the things we need to invest in, we put together an alliance of
01:57 13 peak organisations and the three priorities that they came up with were an electric bike
02:05 subsidy.
02:06 So when you go out to buy an electric car now, you get a subsidy in some states and
02:11 territories.
02:12 The same thing for electric bikes.
02:13 And there's a two to three dollar return on investment for that one.
02:17 Another really simple one, and this one's for our kids, is safe routes to school.
02:22 So I know when I was growing up, Casey, we walked and cycled to school.
02:26 That was the norm.
02:28 And 40 years ago, three and four of us did.
02:30 And now it's only one in four children walking and cycling to school.
02:34 And then the final one, the third transport priority we came together and all agreed on
02:39 as an alliance of organisations, was safer speed limits in our local areas.
02:45 So where people live, easier to cross the street, more pleasant environment for those
02:50 short journeys to nip to the shops, to drop the kids off at school.
02:53 A lot of bicycle advocates would look at a city like Copenhagen, say, and point at the
02:59 vast networks of cycling infrastructure there.
03:02 Isn't that one of the big problems we have in Australia?
03:04 If you want to encourage cycling, it's all well and good to build a bike path, a separated
03:10 bike way, until it dumps you out on a highway with no protection whatsoever.
03:16 And isn't that a really big, expensive problem to fix?
03:20 It's not too expensive.
03:21 I mean, like I said, we're spending 2% of our transport budget on cycling.
03:27 It's something that we can incrementally build on.
03:29 But I'll go back to that lower default speed limit.
03:32 This is a massively scalable thing.
03:35 This we could do across Australia.
03:37 It's a low cost solution.
03:38 And it makes people feel safer to walk and ride short journeys.
03:42 So I'll give you an example from Perth, which is where I am today.
03:47 2.8 million trips today in Perth were under five kilometres.
03:52 That's two thirds.
03:53 So yeah, investing in cycling infrastructure really needs to go up.
03:57 And that will bring down our congestion.
03:59 It'll also bring down our emissions.
04:02 It'll also reduce air pollution.
04:03 So there's multiple benefits here of walking and cycling that we can reap the reward of
04:09 if we make our investments.
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