Post #2724363

I talked to so many people at the Glenroy Festival that either want to ride, used to ride, or only ride a little bit that would love to ride more but don't feel safe. I spoke to someone from Germany that rode a bicycle all the time in Germany but said "the bicycle infrastructure in Melbourne is terrible". Bicycle infrastructure in Glenroy gets neglected because people on the council think it's somehow different to Brunswick, that nobody rides or wants to ride, and that it's too low density to ride there anyway. But Glenroy is one of the places that would benefit the most from good cycling infrastructure. Glenroy doesn't have any trams, infrequent buses and the gap between train stations is greater making access to public transport more difficult on foot. But everywhere in Glenroy is only ~2km from a train station and Glenroy still has multiple local shopping strips so everyone is still within a 10min ride of shops. Glenroy, Hadfield, Fawkner are all optimally laid out for bicycles to be the best mode of transport but the lack of infrastructure and attitude of motorists in the area make cycling stressful. Lots of people in oversized utes being aggressive. Running more frequent buses is expensive and can seem hard to justify in an area where most people drive and where it's low density enough that ridership would still be low. Bicycle infrastructure is really cheap in comparison and doesn't require any operational costs, very few people need to actually use it for it to be worth building.