BENDIGO commuters and bicycle groups have reacted with anger and disbelief to a New Year law that bans bicycles on peak-hour country trains.
The State Government introduced the state-wide ban of bicycles on public trains from January 1 on peak-hour services to and from Melbourne, arguing that it would free up more space on crowded trains.
V/Line confirmed the ban would apply to four services to Melbourne leaving Bendigo between 5.18am and 6.37am and four return services leaving Southern Cross between 4.15pm and 5.37pm.
Swan Hill and Echuca services will not be affected by the ban. But Bendigo +25 Transport Action Group chairman Laurie Whelan said the government's position made no sense when V/Locity trains had specific bike storage areas that had no seats for passengers.
"This is a total contradiction of their policy aimed at getting more people to use the services," Mr Whelan said.
"Do they expect people to stand where the bicycle space is? Well, they can't, because there is shelf there - it's totally ludicrous.
"I can understand it for the metropolitan system where Connex is running at capacity, but to apply it across the state does not make sense.
"People knowing these (bike) facilities are available on the V/Locity trains have made them quite popular."
Bendigo Bicycle Users Group president Keith Longridge also condemned the ban, saying the government had given up on providing better services to attract more people to alternative transport.
"It's self-defeating and I don't understand why the government would take this approach unless it is opportunistic to clamp down on something it wants to phase out," Mr Longridge said.
"It is really not serious about improving the service when it takes a too-hard approach to providing better services and more flexibility.
"If you provide the facilities people will use them, but here it is whittling away at a service... and using a logic that is transparently false and you begin to wonder what the real motive is."
He said the ability for peak-hour commuters including workers and schoolchildren to use a "roll-on, roll-off" combination of regional rail and bikes eased parking congestion at stations all along the line as well as having numerous greenhouse and health benefits.
"The government is preaching sustainability, but it is not living up to it," he said.
"And it is this lack of integration across the whole of the system that drives people crazy."
Mr Longridge said V/Line must look at better alternatives and expansion of bike storage facilities at stations if it was not going to allow them on the train.
A spokeswoman for Victorian transport Minister Lynne Kosky, Stacey Hume, said service provider V/Line and Connex had requested the ban.
"Because of increased demand during the past year on peak V/Line services, space is at a premium and that is why the ban applies state-wide," Ms Hume said.
Ms Hume said all the peak-hour services also passed through Zone One in metropolitan Melbourne.
V/Line spokeswoman Rebecca Cusack said the priority was to ensure as many people as possible could travel comfortably and safely and that the high number of people taking their bikes on packed trains was becoming a problem.
Ms Cusack said V/Line did not expect to issue penalties for notices, but would not allow people with bikes on to the peak-hour services.
She said V/Line would continue to monitor the situation when new V/Locity middle carriages arrived from the middle of the year.
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