Cycling in Melbourne Australia
Bicycle Surveys: Coming to you soon... or not.
An interesting story about bicycle surveys on www.bv.com.au but a worrying factor is that the surveys are being limited to a 10km radius in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
I live 15km out in the southeast and see loads of people riding, many of them travelling from way further out than me. These are valid cyclists, doing it every day, a surprising number between 04:20 and 05:00 when I commute for early shift, most with some form of bag, indicating they're commuters.
The thing that particularly worries me is that in all three major cities, a 10km limit doesn't survey as broad a cross-section as a 15km or 20km radius. Is it an oversimplification to be concerned about a greater proportion of Mercedes driving weekend warriors and carbon-fibre riders, or am I just being a reverse snob?
If this is where the movement is taking its stats from, it's no wonder "vehicular" cycling is as popular in BV circles as a fresh turd on a plate.
What do others think?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Cory on -
I can't determine from the link how they are getting the sample. If it is random, then previous stats seem to indicate they'll get a higher proportion of bike riders in the 10km radius. (?)
I also suppose it says a bit with respect to what they want to do with the stats.
It's that 10km radius where it's most likely that people would forgo the car, and try a bike. And, probably the 5km radius even moreso. I suppose they have to draw the line somewhere... and then in 5 yrs, that may be 15km?
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Permalink Reply by Chris Harris on -
Rules me out by about 10km too.
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Permalink Reply by Adrian Tritschler on -
So why don't BV just rename themselves Bicycle Inner Melbourne then? I know Victoria is a small state, but the 10km circle centered on the inner bit of Melbourne excludes a hell of a lot of their constituents.
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Permalink Reply by Steve Jay on -
And, after 24 hours, the idea occurs to me, this is a city with trains. People 10km from railway stations can still fit the narrow view the campaign seems to fall into, yet if they live outside the 10km inner city radius, are excluded from the survey.
To be fair, BTW, Bicycle Victoria are just reporting on the surveys.
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Permalink Reply by John E. on -
Their methodology seems a bit basic, with a major apriori judgement made:
"more detailed meaurement (sic) of cycling in the inner urban areas where riding to work is more prevalent"
This is what you are objecting to, the assumption that riding to work is more prevalent in the inner urban areas; well, it is probably true, and using the same methodology in each city allows direct comparison b/w them.
However, don't despair, they also say:
"The main national survey will give a measure of cycling participation in metropolitan and rural areas for each State and Territory."
It seems that this phone survey is only part of a larger survey, the 'main national survey', so keep an ear out for a phone call just as you are sitting down to dinner.
Surveys are always just an indication of the actual situation, they will never give a 100% true picture unless you ask 100% of the population, however, they are sufficiently refined to be able to draw a strong conclusion from a certain sized sample with a degree of correlation they can rely on, depending on how the survey is conducted. What they then do with the statistics is the important thing.
The main statistic that pisses me off re bikes is every year the industry says 'we sold over a million bikes' & more recently 'we sold more bikes than cars in Aus this year' - this is rubbish, most of those bikes were kids bikes, actual sales of adult bikes were in the 10's of thousands.
Happy & safe riding, & answer that phone and lie through your teeth - tell them you 10 bikes in the household!
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Permalink Reply by Neil on -
"...tell them you [have] 10 bikes in the household!"
What? Why would I want to under-count like that?
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Permalink Reply by Steve Jay on
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Alright, tell them, "I have <10x as many bikes as you actually have> bikes!" ;-)
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