Been a while since I got my act together and posted one of these... Parking: City of Sydney is still interested in better bike parking. Unfortunately it looks like a chunk of parking on Kent St is going to be axed to make way for bicycle lanes, but that seems to be dependent on the William St fiasco. Good news is that the council is forming a committee to formalise rules for booking bikes. What is the property line, when is a bike bookable, that sort of thing. This will be made available to bikers as well as to the parking cops, so everyone knows where they stand. It is quite possible that other councils will pick this up and use the same set of rules. They still want to trial parking parallel to the kerb close to intersections, but the RTA is dragging its feet. Probably because the RTA's up shit creek over so much stuff it hasn't got time spare to focus on something so relatively unimportant. Tolls Another "bike specific" tag was tested. The tollroad people were sure they had it this time - it had an antenna so it could be put under the seat safe from water and theft. Trouble is, when tested on a bike, under the seat was where the bike's computer was! Instant interference, retire boffins baffled. M7 toll road people are the best of a bad lot. They say that if you go through and your tag doesn't work then ring them and tell them, and that will stop the whole paperwork mess and any attempt at a fine. More than anyone else is offering! [note - there are rumours that more and more bikers are not bothering to cart the tag, and so the toll road operators have to chase them up. Word is that the overhead of this is grinding them down. The MCC has no opinion on this but I do! Which is that if they made bikes toll free then they wouldn't have the overhead and until they do I think it's a good idea to keep grinding them down.] Wins! The Motor Accidents Authority (the ones who run the greenslip system) have said more or less officially that before they do anything motorcycle related they'll run it past the MCC. This is solid recognition of the MCC's work and a good voice for riders in a place they've had none before. [I doubt it means they'll ask before increasing greenslip prices but you never know!] THe MCC ran the new edition of the Positioned for Safety road safety plan past various government types recently. The reaction was favourable and it seems that they are willing to implement many of the ideas. In fact the RTA bods present said that they no longer saw the MCC as a lobby group but as the default body on motorcycling. With luck this means they'll do a bit more consulting instead of having to be dragged into meetings. Bombala council have appointed a PR officer solely for motorcycle issues. That's a first for NSW and proabably for Oz. Old Road Brian Wood of the MCC has been asked to be on the Black Spot Funding committee for the Old Road and on a committee to deal with funding being sought for improvements by Cessnock and Wollombi councils. First time there's been motorcycle representation on such things. remember the story I posted recently about funding for a road blitz? More info has come to light. The money's for black spot funding, that is for engineering works to make the road safer. The coppers wanted to spend it on turning bays so they could turn around and catch bikers! The blackspot committee nixed that. Looks like some of it will be spent on guard rails though. No idea why I don't think too many are going over the edge! The MCC is trying for better road markings, perhaps outlined medians to try and stop people getting too close to the centre and having a head on. There's other road safety campaign news for Coffs and for under 25yo riders, see separate posts. Zebee
