Page 2192 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 August 2014
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In response to the second part of the question, bike-and-ride facilities have long been a large part of transport infrastructure planning in many countries across the world. Two excellent examples of this are in Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Brussels in Belgium. Amsterdam central railway station boasts a three-storey bike parking facility. This allows people from central Amsterdam to park their bikes at the station to go to work in other parts of the city. Sixty per cent of trips within central Amsterdam are made by bike and 38 per cent of all trips within greater Amsterdam are completed by bike. Other stations around the Netherlands also boast large secure bike parking stations.
These bike parking stations, though vastly bigger than the ones here in the ACT, are based on the same principle—for a low cost you can securely park your bike and then continue on to your destination.
Brussels combines buses, trams, trains, and the metro system to form a bike-and-ride system. It is possible to take bicycles on all forms of public transport in Brussels. Interestingly, a relatively new building regulation in Brussels also stipulates that new or renovated office buildings must have at least one bike place per 200 square metres of office space. This is a different approach to facilitating active travel and bike-and-ride systems than the approach in the ACT, but they are great examples of the popularity and acceptance of combining active travel and public transport options.
In the future I certainly hope we can take the learnings of successful active travel experience from cities across the world to improve bike-and-ride and park-and-ride facilities across our community.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Minister, how do bike-and-ride facilities help the government deliver its active travel objectives?
MR GENTLEMAN: Thank you, Ms Porter, for the supplementary question. Active travel is defined as any travel which involves some physical activity such as cycling or walking. It is important that government promotes active travel in a growing city like Canberra, due to its large geographical area. With the distance from north to south being approximately 40k, most people in Canberra need to commute in many directions in order to get to their destination. A particularly common route is from the outer suburbs into the city where many workplaces, we know, are situated.
Like in most cities around the world, managing congestion is one of the main challenges faced by town planners as they try to meet the needs of those who live there. Providing active travel options has the added benefit of promoting healthy living as well as reducing the stress on health systems. Active travel helps both of these objectives.
For residents living in the inner suburbs of Canberra, it is quite attainable to ride or walk the full distance to work. This is facilitated by bike paths and bike lanes along the way. For those who live further out, for example in Higgins, a five-kilometre bike
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