baybug.org.au/ BayBUG was formed in 2001 to promote the use of bicycles for transport and recreation, as a means to improve quality of life and protect the environment Regular Sunday morning rides are conducted (departing from Concord & Five Dock) catering for various levels, with a duration of 1-3 hours. Longer rides are usually run once a month on the last Sunday of the month. BayBUG is affiliated with Bicycle New South Wales and work with them and other Bicycle User Groups (BUGs) to improve cycling conditions. Communication occurs with local councils, the RMS and other bodies that provide for cyclists. To help promote cycling, BayBUG encourage people to apply for membership. Membership is free and it is not necessary to be a resident of the Canada Bay council area. Members include both men and women with varying levels of fitness.
What is wrong with ringing them and telling them the issue? Easy to do. It was possibly clipped by a truck, since it is on a bracket that acts as a pivot.
I sent them an email - they fixed it the next day. It may well have been clipped by a truck (but if that was the case, it might have been dented or twisted in the process of being swiveled around. I've hit things with trucks, and some damage usually results). But the point here is that if regular checks or inspections were being carried out along the detour route, this would have been detected and fixed immediately. Instead, it's been like this for 2 months or longer. That's entirely on the bridge project team and the people doing the traffic management.
PS - I've learned that you never, ever call a road authority. You always put your issue in writing. I've had too many instances of phoning in and having my issue mysteriously fail to be logged into the system. They can't deny the issue if it's in writing and there is a video showing the problem.
Its not rocket science and even a local government engineer should be able to nut this out without having to engage an external traffic management engineer. Although from what you highlight I could be wrong on this occasion🙂
The site is about a 10 minute bike ride from the council offices - if that. It's not like a site visit would take up an entire day. You could walk there in under half an hour.
Barriers and poles are there to stop you lot using the paths as a race track and achieving your personal best. They are to stop you from colliding into pedestrians.
Agreed. But even if that was the case, it should have been picked up on a daily or weekly inspection of the detour route by someone from the project team. Clearly, such inspections aren't happening - or they aren't being done very well. The point is that they need to start doing regular inspections and doing them properly.
This shit happens! Bloody hell. I was thinking, would there be any value in sending you videos of this kind of carelessness from all over the country? Airing dirty laundry in the hope that shaming the authorities into caring and correcting?
I want the site safety manager to check the detours on a regular basis. They're really terrible, and they need improving. This clearly shows no one is bothering to do checks on a regular basis - if at all.
I know that with the Causeway Bridge project, there is at least one person on the project who cycles - and that is the reason why the detours around that project have been first class. If the detours are terrible, it means no one from the project team is walking or cycling around the site.
Congratulations to you for your hard work in uploading videos on RU-vid, but it is not appropriate to discuss this here, but I would like to know about your RU-vid goals, your future plans for your RU-vid channel.
Great pick up. This is such simple stuff and just dumb that those responsible have not delivered a safe and seamless intersection modification in the interests of safety. It’s getting to the point where roading needs to be lifted from local government to a dedicated professional body. On the upside identifying this issue today makes council 100% liable for property or personal injury
I think in this case, it is out of Council's hands - I've heard there are arcane rules like only the Main Roads Dept is allowed to install Stop signs. Whether that is true or not, I don't know. But it might be a situation where the Council has put in a request and the MRD is just taking its sweet time and there's nothing that can be done about it. Or MRD has to engage their own contractor to do the work. Who knows. Either way, it's a nasty co-ordination problem and I hope someone doesn't end up in a smash because of it.
@@baybugcanadabaybicycleuser915 agree there is a disconnect between local government and Main Roads however I would have thought coordination to prioritise public safety would be simple common sense.
lifting something out of government hands and giving it to a corporation will just increase costs and decrease effectiveness, just look at any other projects they privatised and you will see the blatant trend for yourself. When you have something in governments hands you have the power to complain and have something done about it, where with private corporation it will be put on the "todo" list as if it was an idea to paint a bus shelter.
The bike racks are great. As a designer, you don't want to spend millions on a building design and put el cheapo $50 bike racks from Bunnings, that's amateur. Yes, these don't look like bike racks, that's the point, minimal simple design, but they work exactly the same.
Maybe the relevant authority should hire you as a cycle path consultant before they start the work. You know the oft-forgotten saying - "get it right the first time".
Looks like a typical main roads detour and here is no reason why the bus shelter couldn’t be removed to increase footpath usability.Great work. Also good to see the crossing call button located to the wrong side of the crossover, another typical poorly delivered shared path affordable installation 🙂
It's almost built now :) I run over the narrow footpath on the Causeway bridge most days, can't wait for the new one. Costs north of $100m for a grade-separated intersection for cars, this is worth it!
Yep, I've been over the Causeway almost daily during the last week - I hope they keep the old path on the Causeway as a reminder of how bad it was, and how good the new bridge is by comparison.
Excellent presentation. Hopefully the extension to Fremantle will happen soon as in my opinion it’s probably the most unsafe riding conditions in Perth
Clearly a cycle path designed by non cyclists as many are around Perth. Unfortunately these paths generate road rage when cyclists use the road as a safer option. An example of this is along the coast (Sorrento) where pedestrian safety zones in the middle of the further reduce safe passing opportunities. Also riding through Scarborough were the safe cycle path was “value engineered” out of the foreshore project. Local Governments knee jerk response to conflict between pedestrians and bikes has been to install ridiculous speed limit signs. There needs to be a mechanism to drive Local Government accountability
Yep, that is entirely possible. If that is the case, did anyone from council bother to visit the site and inspect the work and check it was compliant with the requirements?
I agree, that part of the bike path/infrastructure is crappy. I would be great to have a good path from the bridge to the coast or that short cut side street (dont know its name). Most take to the road to get a smooth fast and puncture free commute through there.
Thats always been the shittiest part of a Freo ride even without road works. The Roadies never use the bike path and always block up the road. There are videos on that stretch and those lights with car/bike altercations. I rode through there last week with only minor irritation except for the Roadie not looking and cutting me off.
Yep, that crossing has always been terrible. I was hoping they were going to build a path alongside the railway line that would go over the road, but the residents shot that down.
I have never seen anyone use those racks. The day went in I thought they were badly located. When we go to the Camfield we take the bikes just inside. My guess is with all the cost over runs on that place the bike parking was a low priority.
Yeah this is a case of narrow-mindedness entirely. The whole focus then is to see only one side of the story, and correct things with only that in mind, missing the bigger picture. Flogging the cyclists is easier than flogging the drivers.
You will notice coming from eastern states that Perth street signage in general is pretty poor. Intersections in older suburbs often do not have street names on the intersection but further back on the approach to an intersection. This makes it hard to navigate as a pedestrian or a cyclist standing at the intersection. This was very annoying pre google maps. 28 views in three years gives you some idea of how the locals feel about it in the smart phone era.
Ha - the signage in Perth beats the hell out of everything I have seen in NSW. Sure, some of the older signage is pretty rubbish (I wrote to the responsible Minister about some of it well over a year ago, and it hasn't been updated), but the new stuff is generally pretty good. Yes, some of the news signs are badly sited, but on the whole, they are heaps better.
I see this kind of thing all over the place where I live too. On multi-use paths. I surmise a few lines of reasoning for it. The idea is to block cars from driving on them. They primarily do not think of cyclists, but walkers. If they do think of cyclists, they're only thinking of slower recreational riders or lots of people at the same time and slower speeds. They see these as well marked enough for people to see to avoid. Also, they'd assume anyone who rides these paths knows the obstacle points, therefore there'd be little danger. No one who puts these in are really cyclists themselves so the perspective isn't there. But what's really illogical here is that most of the paths are so narrow that no one is going to drive on them anyway. It's obvious it's not for cars. At the same time, any guy riding a motorcycle is going to be able to get by them and they will some of the time. So that leaves no valid reason for them to be there other than there being a hole in the asphalt they want to put a post into!
Yea that’s not ideal. Waste of money. They seem to be doing a lot of this converting footpath to shared path, especially up in city of joondalup, and it just doesn’t work.
My sister in law hit one of these. She so damaged her knee that she has never been able to ride a bike again. On some other paths they have used chicanes. Hard enough for a normal bike but impassable for us on our tandem. Another uses gates which I can navigate having a stand on my bike. Those with road bikes struggle to cope with the spring loaded gate. We know why the barriers are needed but no one has yet come up with a great but safe design. We have spent a lot of money removing things like bridge supports in roads because no matter how visible they are made people still hit them. Why would bikes be magically different?
The issue with putting asphalt in some of these locations is generally the height of the paver and/or truck needed to place the asphalt in the first place. If there are lots of trees to dodge, concrete can sometimes be easier to construct.
Maybe the top notch journalists at the Subiaco Post found some crash statistic data that the public don't know about? Are they saying that cyclists are better off riding on the busy street next to the cycleway?
Its not a proper cycleway unless there is a bollard, tree, power pole or road safety sign smack bang in the middle of it. But seriously IMHO choice of pavement is horses for courses. I did Wangaratta to Bright several years back and that was paved in crushed granite - velvety smooth. Otherwise new asphalt is my first choice but it doesn't take too long before degradation takes its toll. Concrete 2nd choice but maintains its qualities for much longer. So the more important issue is not choice of paving but whether there is a commitment to ongoing maintenance after the project reaches practical completion.
Yellow bollards wont stop what that reversing car in the video clip was doing, reversing out and then reversing some more into the bike path so they could turn right.
Hi BayBUG, I prefer any cycle path to cycling on the road, mixing it with cars. The new concrete paths in Kings Park are certainly well constructed. Proper engineered expansion joints with steel reinforcing to prevent the “lifting” and “sagging” of slabs that cause the uneven paths over time. In addition, they prepared proper earthworks, sub-base and then cast a layer of “no-fines” concrete that I suppose will assist with drainage of groundwater. This will prevent the softening and subsidence of the sub-base. It may also prevent tree roots “following the damp spots” (nature is wonderful) collecting under the path. There is no reason why they should not follow proper road construction, base, sub-base and stabilized filling for asphalt paths. It will cost more, but save a lot on maintenance and repair work over time. Thanks for the interesting videos!
I'll have a follow up video up at some point looking at maintenance on a concrete path that I have been riding on this week. A contractor has been using a concrete grinding machine (looks like a Bobcat) to smoothe down all the expansion joints which have gotten out of whack over time. It sort or works - it gets rid of the worst of the bumps, but the concrete slabs are still uneven and the ride quality is worse than it could be.
I'd leave the question of which is better to the engineers. I think the problem occurs when maintenance is ignored and that is evident not just in the surface but also the shrubs and trees that can impede on the path. We have some doozy paths here in Melbourne with shrubs growing almost across the entire path, debris strewn over the paths and the number of trucks and other maintenance vehicles parking or crossing paths to do maintenance on other infrastructure (not the paths).
