I had a brilliant week in Melbourne as a guest of the State of Design Festival. Loads of interviews and events that all culminated with my keynote speech on the Saturday.
There was, however, an event on the Saturday morning - July 26, 2010 - that was extremely interesting to be a part of. A group of citizens, rallied together by filmmaker and bicycle advocate Mike Rubbo, decided to go for a bicycle ride together on Melbourne's new bike share system bikes. A splendid idea. Melbourne's bike share system is shiny new, although unlike most cities in the world with a bike share programme, only 70-odd people are using them each day. In Dublin, by contrast, there are over 30,000 subscribers. Not to mention the cracking successes in Paris, Barcelona, Seville and most of the over 100 cities with such systems.
So, a group of people, many of them Copenhagenize.com readers, fancy a bike ride. Sounds lovely enough. They met up at the bike racks at Melbourne University. Hired the bikes without a problem. Now the tricky bit is that you can rent a bike spontaneously - the whole point of such systems - but you then have to figure out how to get a bike helmet. The State of Victoria, like all Australian states (not Northern Territory... they repealed their all-ages helmet law when they saw cycling levels fall drastically) has an all-ages mandatory bike helmet law.
I arrived at about 09:40, together with my son, Felix. After greeting some of the people I noticed two Melbourne bicycle cops lingering nearby. Speaking in low tones, eying the 'mob'. They had been there since 09:00, waiting for this 'demonstration' to kick off. Seriously. Two city employees lingering, doing nothing, for an hour because some people had announced they were going for a bike ride. Mike Rubbo had generated some good pre-press about the ride. Like this from the ABC and this article in The Age newspaper.
It included this poll, which signals a sea change in public opinion in Australia:Should public-bike scheme users be excused from wearing helmets?Yes... 71%No.... 29%Total votes: 13885
Felix and I took a bunch of photos but this shot really sums it up for me. Mike Rubbo on the left, Dr Paul Martin on the right and an ominous-looking police officer keeping an eye on us all. Dr Martin is from Brisbane and flew down for the ride. He recently recieved a ticket for cycling without a helmet in Queensland and is intent on fighting it, following in the footsteps of Sue Abbott, from New South Wales. They were all wearing badges from The European Cyclists Federation's Ask Me Why I Cycle Without a Helmet campaign. Mike Rubbo also did a film about the bike share system in the days up to the protest.(it was actually Felix, aged 8, who took this shot, which makes this dad proud, but that's another story...)
All in all, it was a frightfully well-dressed demonstration and with the exception of the recent Velo-City Global conference in Copenhagen and conferences in La Rochelle and Lleida, Catalunya, I hadn't before been with such a large group of well-informed people who knew their science about helmets and who were so passionate about promoting cycling.
After the formalities were complete and the route was completed, the bikes were returned and we retired to a local café for a coffee. Pleased with the results, pleased that a debate, hopefully and finally, has been launched in this country. Hopeful that the work of so many Australians may finally reach a greater audience. Dr Dorothy Robinson, Prof. Piet de Jong, Chris Gilliam, Bill Curnow, et al.
There's always room for a spot of Cycle Chic, even when protesting. At left is Jenny from Auckland Cycle Chic and at right is Saskia from Cycle Chic Sundays - Sydney. Both made the trip to Melbourne to hear my talk. Which was wonderful!At the end of the day it's a David v Goliath challenge, but this was an excellent start.
Now it's interesting to see what Vancouver does or doesn't do with their impending bike share system.
