[publictransport] BV links finally updated

[Labyrinth]

Hi all.
the most recent BV statement of policy regarding bicycles and trains  
contains an apology for past mistakes and some new policy initiatives  
not so far discussed such as the carriage of fold up bicycles on all  
buses and trams. That is most welcome but it still has a very major  
deficiency.

What concerns me is that most rail stations are not staffed from the  
first to the last train every day.  In the last 20 years  thousands  
of bicycles have been stolen from stations or vandalised at stations  
and the value of these stolen bikes each year on average is greater  
than what the Victorian government spends on bicycle facilities.
I know this because as a sub-consultant I  surveyed bicycle storage  
provided on every rail station on  the metropolitan rail  system in  
1985 and in 2003 and surveyed the  additional bicycle lockers  
provided since then.

There no trial being conducted of how to provide theft and vandal  
resistant  bicycle storage facilities at the unstaffed stations. That  
is half the stations on the system. (around 110 stations) The so- 
called  trial of a lockup cage is  at a station that  is staffed from  
the first to the last train every day and their is  no is no mention  
of combatting bicycle theft and vandalism at unmanned stations.

Past experience shows that the  use of bicycle lockers at unmanned   
stations was
never managed competently and even on many of the staffed stations  
rail staff
never managed the lockers properly and line managers turned a blind  
eye to what was going on. Even members of the police checking for  
people without tickets and troublesome rail patrons where not  
interested in stole bicycles.

Before going along with BVs improved but still deficient policies I  
suggest that BV find out how many bicycles are stolen or vandalized  
at staffed and unmanned stations and have the minister set in place a  
system for monitoring such petty crimes because.

Data  on reported bicycle thefts at stations are available on the  
police computer and that data is obtainable and can factored up by BV  
surveying its own members to see what proportion of them who have had  
a bicycle stolen and reported to the police or not.

Each year the State Bicycle Advisory Committee should have been  
monitoring the bicycle theft problem generally and at stations in  
particularly but it has failed to do so because of piss weak advocacy  
by its cyclist members. The Minister for Transport needs to request  
the Minister for Roads who hosts the SBAC to issue a ministerial  
objective for this data to be  obtained .

Bye Alan






On 31/01/2008, at 5:14 PM, telstar at cfsmtb.net wrote:
> Public transport and bikes
> http://www.bv.com.au/bikes-and-riding/41105/
> -