Please pass this message on: Cyclist Memorial Ride

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Permalink Reply by ChrisS on October 13, 2008 at 4:06pm

Update from forwarded email

Please refer to the attached flyer and pass on.

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Dear Friend,
This Wednesday 15 October is National Ride to Work Day. On September 18th this year a young cyclist lost her life on Swanston street. She was an experienced cyclist who rode to work everyday.

If you share concerns about the safety of Swanston street for cyclists we invite you to join us on National Ride to Work Day (October 15th).

There will be a group meeting on Swanston Street at the front of the State Library at 8:00am. At 8:10am the group will ride slowly down Swanston Street to the Melbourne Town Hall. Here the group will stop for one minute of silence in respect for a life lost and as a hopeful gesture for change.

You are encouraged to leave a flower at the site of the accident (the corner of Bourke and Swanston streets) as we make our way to the Town Hall.

Pedestrians are welcome to join the group on the day.

It would be greatly appreciated if you could take the time to forward this to family and friends who may share our concerns.

Kind Regards

A Melbourne Cyclist

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Permalink Reply by Marianne on October 14, 2008 at 12:14pm

From The Age:

In Carolyn's name
http://www.theage.com.au/national/in-carolyns-name-20081013-4ztc.ht...

Jeremy Rawlins, husband of Carolyn Rawlins, the cyclist killed on Swanston Street last month.

The death of Carolyn Rawlins has rallied many cyclists to demand safer road conditions. Heading that charge on Ride to Work Day tomorrow will be her husband Jeremy.

HE READ about his wife's death online. The horrific story of a cyclist hit by a bus and killed on Swanston Street.

When hearing the news that September morning, many Melburnians contacted their friends and relatives who cycle to the city, to check that they were OK.

But for Jeremy Rawlins, there would be just devastation.

"I read the story in The Age, online, but it didn't even occur to me it would be Carolyn; you never think it is going to be someone close," he says.

"I sent her a quick email, thinking she would get back to me. Then I got a phone call from her work saying `Carolyn hasn't come to work yet'. I basically just ran down the street at that point."

Carolyn Rawlins was 12 weeks' pregnant when she died. She had just qualified to practise as a solicitor.

She was hit on her bicycle at the corner of Bourke and Swanston streets about 8am as she was riding to her workplace in St Kilda Road.

In what appears to be an accident (though a final report on the incident is still pending), one of the scores of tour buses that line Swanston Street each morning hit her. She died instantly.

Tomorrow, when Australia's annual Ride to Work Day gets under way, many thousands of Victorians will take part. Because of Carolyn Rawlins'
death, there will be a special poignancy for many.

Before his wife's accident, Rawlins usually rode into work. He returned to work this week, but hasn't ridden yet. Tomorrow, he will take part in the ride.

He and some friends - and all riders taking part in Ride to Work Day are welcome to join them - will meet at 8am at the State Library and ride down Swanston Street to the corner of Bourke Street, to lay flowers.
They will then continue on to the Town Hall and Federation Square.

Jeremy Rawlins is determined that his wife's death not be in vain, and that the city be made safer for cyclists. He and a group of friends - all architects or planners - wrote a letter this week to Melbourne City Council demanding it make Swanston Street safe for cyclists.

"Carolyn rode every day. She mentioned several times to me over the course of the last eight months that it was dangerous," says her husband. "She always intended to write ... she mentioned it to her mum less than a week before the accident."

Jeremy is meeting Lord Mayoral candidate Catherine Ng tonight to discuss what the council can do to improve conditions for the growing number of cyclists riding into the city centre, and down Swanston Street in particular.

"Carolyn Rawlins' death was a tragedy," Ng said yesterday. "We need to make it safer, by getting delivery vehicles out at peak times, by moving on the buses, and by making the tram tracks better so that cyclists don't get caught in them."

For many cycling activists and policy makers, though, the time for such small changes has passed. More has to be done now to make the streets safer for the growing number that ride the city streets.

"In many ways, the growth (of cycling in Melbourne) is happening back to front," says Cycling Promotion Fund spokesman Eliot Fishman. "We do the marketing and then the infrastructure is a lot slower coming behind."

Other less diplomatic transport experts say this practice has another
name: greenwash.

RMIT senior transport lecturer Dr Paul Mees supports encouraging cycling by making it safer for cyclists. But he doesn't believe this is what Victorian local and state governments do.

"Governments and city councils that want to distract attention that their main agenda, which is facilitating car use, will often say nice things about cycling, and they run Ride to Work days. They will put on breakfasts and barbecues for people that do the right thing, because it's a lot easier than actually substantially changing transport policies."

Ride to Work Day, which attracts 30,000 cyclists nationally, is about attempting to get more people riding more often.

But it is hard not to speculate that there is an element of greenwash in the event, given its sponsorship by, among others, VicRoads and the RACV.

Its organiser, Bicycle Victoria, gets some of its money from Melbourne City Council, VicRoads and the State Government - which it rarely criticises, even in extreme circumstances such as earlier this year when bikes were banned - albeit briefly - from trains during peak hour.

Melinda Jacobsen, who finished as general manager of the Amy Gillett Foundation last week, says much more needs to be done - and constantly - to educate road users on cycling.

And more needs to be spent on improving infrastructure, to make cyclists safer, and the make them feel safer. "One of the major barriers to more people riding is their fear on the roads," Jacobsen says.

The growth in cycling in recent years had happened at a much faster rate than governments had anticipated, she says. "In the past couple of years, I've seen some major changes in on-road infrastructure, but we need to (keep rolling that out). If it is in place, people are prepared to ride."

The things that will make more people cycle, says Mees, are simple:
restraint on the construction of new freeways, integrating cycling with public transport, and lower speed limits for cars.

"And you also need proper segregation of cycling lanes - and lanes that don't start, go for one kilometre and then disappear," he says, in reference to Melbourne City Council's "Copenhagen-style" bike lanes at the northern end of Swanston Street.

The bike lanes funnel riders into the city's main arterial street, and then leave them without a bike lane - and to contend with buses, delivery vans, tour buses and thousands of trams a day.

For Jeremy Rawlins, the existence of those Copenhagen lanes may have led to his tragedy: his wife used them every day.

The Greens' candidate for Lord Mayor, Adam Bandt, has already proposed making permanent bike lanes on Swanston Street, and a range of other measures to make cycling within the city centre safer.

"The number of bike trips to the city has tripled in the last five years, and it is only going to increase," Bandt says. "Sustainable transport is about more than just lip service; the way to avoid tragedy is to separate bike traffic from other traffic. You shouldn't have to be a road warrior to get to work on your bike."

Other candidates for Lord Mayor have not yet said what they would do, but Jeremy Rawlins hopes all will have safer bike lanes on Swanston Street "at the front of their minds as a concrete policy".

Michael Frazzetto, an architect who cycles down Swanston Street every day to get to work, was a friend of Carolyn Rawlins for 14 years (in a sad irony, Rawlins was a former town planning student).

Frazzetto is a signatory to a letter sent to the council yesterday by architects, planners and urban designers, in a bid to get them to make the street safer for cyclists. "The council has a duty to provide safer conditions," he says.

The group wants buses, vans and taxis removed from Swanston Street, and dedicated bike lanes put in. They also want a central tram median strip that discourages bicycle encroachment.

"In Swanston Street, they have constructed Copenhagen lanes that funnel you into the main (part of Swanston Street) and then you have to run the gauntlet until you get to St Kilda Road. It is such an ad-hoc approach."

The council, for its part, has agreed to get tour buses out of Swanston Street by November 24. Eventually, after an interim location at Federation Square or outside the Old Melbourne Gaol, they will be relocated in mid-2009 to near the corner of Bourke and Exhibition streets.

Commuting to work on a bike has surged in recent years in Melbourne's city centre, but it has remained stagnant or even dropped in outer suburbs. The 2006 census shows that the number of cyclists entering Melbourne's CBD each morning had increased from 4137 in 2001 up to 7169.

In many outer-suburban councils, however, trips to work by bicycle decreased.

Jeremy Rawlins says he will lay a flower for his wife tomorrow as a way of encouraging the council to do the right thing, and to send a message to the State Government as well: that rhetoric is no longer enough when it comes to looking after cyclists.

"We need to do this in Carolyn's honour, to ensure there are no other tragedies."

TWO-WHEEL TRAVELLERS

Growth in cycle journeys to work

* Melbourne city centre:

2001: 4163; 2007: 7225

Growth: 11.7%

* Inner Melbourne, excluding Melbourne city centre:

2001: 3981; 2007: 5981

Growth: 8.5%

* Non-Metropolitan Melbourne:

2001: 6098; 2007: 6250

Growth: 0.5%

Trips by bicycle into Melbourne's CBD grid:

* In 2007, cyclists accounted for 8% of all trips into Melbourne's CBD, up from 4% in 2006.

* On-road cycling increased by 10% in 2007, and off-road by 20%.

* Cyclists make up 22% of traffic on St Kilda Road.

SOURCES: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2006 Census; Melbourne City Council 2007 Bicycle Account

Clay Lucas is transport reporter.

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Permalink Reply by Marianne on October 15, 2008 at 9:54am

Anyone else go to this? It was a fantastic turn out, and a moving and understandably sad walk/cylce down Swanstwo.. Rather annoying/unbelievable to see a huge bus parked near the spot Carolyn died.

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Permalink Reply by ChrisS on October 15, 2008 at 10:38am

Got a good run in the media, no doubt will be on the news tonight.

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Permalink Reply by Marianne on October 15, 2008 at 11:54am

here's an article from The Age.

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Permalink Reply by stubacca on October 15, 2008 at 11:43am

I had plans to make it, but a slightly grumpy baby this morning thwarted my attempts to get out of the house quickly enough. I saw the group of riders as they were approaching Fed Square... looked like a substantial number of riders..

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Permalink Reply by RobE on October 15, 2008 at 1:23pm

Yes, I was there, it was very moving, and I agree, you think the coach companies would take one day out and not bring their monster killers into the city at that time.... that is insensitivity of the highest order... well they didnt get a chance to move on the left side of the street for an hour, but they didnt hesitate to come and go up the other side... posted above some pics of today's gathering and the scene in Swanston Walk

feel free to share these pics around.... and the others I put on this forum for discussion on Monday here

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Permalink Reply by ChrisS on October 15, 2008 at 10:54pm

Tonights teevee coverage was incredible.

Although there in zero online coverage in the small paper now retitled "The Shun".

Several hundred riders & supporters walk peacefully down Swanston in a young woman's memory and the so-called journos at Limited News can't be arsed covering it.

Although it could be in tomorrows edition with a suitable hyperbole laden title cooked up by the sub editors?

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Permalink Reply by Marianne on October 16, 2008 at 8:40am

as an aside, my sister is a journo at The Age, and said that it was always likely that that paper would cover it as the editor is a keen cyclist...

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Permalink Reply by Cory on October 16, 2008 at 5:35am

So good to see so many cyclists (although I wonder what proportion knew what the hell was going on, and were thinking they'd be late for work).

Yes, the spectres of the buses loomed large.

Lots more pix of the day here

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