AUTHORITIES should consider reducing the speed limit on 100-kilometre roads often frequented by cyclists, a prominent Bendigo cyclist said.
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Bendigo Cycling Network’s Edward Barkla said members of the cycling community would like to see roads along their ‘designated routes’ reduced to 80 kilometres an hour.
“One hundred kilometres an hour with cyclists is not the best mix,” he said.
Mr Barkla identified Sedgwick as a particular area of concern.
“We've got names for all those roads which mean nothing to anyone else but a rider, but what we call the Snake Iron out to the Gooseneck and Axe Creek Road… all those sorts of places where we ride.
“We’ve been doing this now for 20 – 25 years, where we ride the same routes every weekend.
“We try to make it that way so the community knows we’re there.”
He said there was a structure, a formation, a purpose and a plan to how members of the cycling community went about their rides.
“It’s getting the infrastructure to support that in a better way,” Mr Barkla said.
His comments came after the Ride of Silence, which saw hundreds of people get on their bikes to raise awareness of cyclists who had lost their lives on the roads.
The City of Greater Bendigo has been calling itself Australia’s first Bicycle Friendly Community since March, following recognition by renowned bike tourism organisation CycleLifeHQ.
Community engagement and bicycle education efforts saw the city awarded a silver accreditation.
The council aspires for Greater Bendigo to become the nation’s regional bicycle capital.
(VIDEO: Bendigo council meeting May 16.)
Attendees as last week’s council meeting considered progress on the city’s award-winning Integrated Transport and Land Use Strategy.
Half of the 153 actions are in progress, with the council recognising 29 actions as ‘ongoing for the foreseeable future’.
Ten actions are complete – five of which are priority actions – and 36 have not yet started.
Council adopted the ITLUS plan in August 2015.
(DOCUMENT: ITLUS Actions May 16)