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January 15, 2008

egads!

Posted by dogpossum on January 15, 2008 1:01 PM in the category bikes

Read this article.
The bit that kind of blows my mind is this:

Transperth's cycling integration manager Jim Krynen said a car park survey found 60% of motorists drove less than two kilometres to their preferred station. And 40% had driven less than 800 metres to the station.*

That kind of blows my brain. I walk about a kilometer (maybe 1.20km?) to the station and it takes me 20 minutes. That's a nice, short walk to get the blood flowing. Certainly not taxing or warranting a change of clothes. To think of driving 800 metres... holy moley. There are, of course, extenuating circumstances - infirmity, kids, etc. But, really, if you're able bodied and the weather's fine, why would you drive? I enjoy that type of quick, purposeful walk, and couldn't think of anything nicer than sharing with someone, so why would you choose to drive?

You know how I feel about bikes on trains. I'm for it. I'm totally for it. The 'ban' is kind of shitful (though you don't get fined, so it's not a massive deterrent), and of course I feel there should simply be more trains running to accommodate the crush (yes, yes, I know that's it's more complicated than that, but please. We're talking ideal world, here). I still don't really understand why more people don't ride bikes or walk, and why there aren't better bike lanes. I mean, it's just plain fun! And I'm a currently scarily unfit, ordinary person who doesn't ride a supermachine bike, isn't a super bike rider and doesn't ride terribly quickly...

I know people who drive down from the 'wick to Melbourne Uni. That kind of makes my brain explode. It's a 15-20 minute bike ride from my place. You could walk it in an hour. It's all bike paths, all the way, and it's a nice walk - down a lovely tree-lined avenue for the most part. Or you could cut through the parks and go down the lovely bike path through the park. It'd be a frustrating drive and it would take you at least as long (if not longer) to drive - the traffic is poo down Sydney Road in peak hour. I mean, I'd ride every day, and catch the odd tram when the weather was bad, and I'm not a hardcore rider. I'd do it just because it's such a nice thing to do...

Look, I'm still trying to get my brain round that not walking 800 metres thing. It's just such a short distance. Maybe 2 minutes drive. Only about 15 to 20 minutes walk (20 slow minutes at that). Easy, even in work clothes. And if you have someone to walk with and talk to... Or if you live in a suburb like the 'wick, where there are plenty of people to say hello to, lots of interesting things to stare at as you walk long...
I mean, I'm constantly looking for new ways to squeeze a bit more incidental exercise into my life - I choose not to ride to the station because I need the extra 15 minutes walk (it's about 5 minutes, max to ride).

Golly. It's mind boggling.

Oh, remind me to post the number of steps I took at MLX. Crinks and I wore pedometers one night of the exchange. I wore mine from 9.30 til 6am on the night I was running an event (not dancing) and racked up a phenomenal number of steps. The stupid pedometers got all confused by dancing, especially with nice, fat lindy hopping bounce, so we had to discard that data. Next year we'll get it together and wear our pedders every night.

*I wonder how they got these results? Let's just assume they're 'accurate'.

Posted by dogpossum on January 15, 2008 1:01 PM in the category bikes