According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the sales of bikes have outnumbered car sales for the ninth consecutive year. This is great news, but how many of those bikes are actually used for transportation within urban areas? It is one thing to say that more cyclists mean that motorists will be more aware of them, but what is truly needed is effective driver safety lessons on how to navigate shared roads with cyclists.It seems the City of Sydney offers free courses for those new to city biking. This is great, but what about motorists?

Here in The Netherlands, where it is said bikes outnumber people, cycling is not considered a sport or a form of exercise, but merely a method of transportation akin to walking. It is common to see people walking their dogs while cycling and to see partners cycling hand in hand, with the other hand resting safely on the handle bars.

The distances between home, work, shops and the city centre are shorter so, seeing people cycling in suits, uniforms and everyday clothes is common. The laws here protect cyclists first and foremost.


When I was backpacking by train though Europe, I would often hire a bike from the railway station and explore a city by bike. Seeing Bonn, Stockholm and Trondheim by bike is vastly different from exploring just by foot.

But for cycling in Australia, that is cycling to work, to truly take off in Sydney a few things must happen.

1) Infrastructure: Cycle paths are great. The more the merrier but there also needs to be cycle racks and storage facilities at railway stations and other locations. If your bike is not safe why bother? Sometime last year the ABC’s Radio National program, The National Interest had a segment on pedal-power and it noted that Brisbane City Council will commit AUD$100 million over the next four years to infrastructure. I hope the money will not just be spent on cycle paths.

2) Change rooms: Given the distances, people will not bike in suits. Work places need to provide change rooms and shower facilities for people to change from their cycling gear.

3) Driver education: In The Netherlands, the joke is to be vary of cars with foreign number plates, as they are not used to the amount of cyclists nor would they know the rules. When you learn to drive here, you are taught how to handle cyclists and given that every driver here is also a cyclist it is easy. But in Sydney what is needed is proper driver education on how to share the road and safely pass cyclists.

Cyclists also have a responsibility as well. In the CBD, people will often equate cyclists with bicycle couriers who are accused off speeding past pedestrians and cutting into traffic. If the Lord Mayor and State Government are committed in making Sydney a ‘city of cycles’ then more needs to be done to realise that vision.

Image Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 September 2009