For this presentation I decided to look at the communities I have been apart of within Australia as a whole and then the smaller ones within cities and states. Weiss’s reading about how different cyclists interact and some of the tensions between certain groups was what inspired me to think about this. The first thing I thought about this was the relationship between Sydney and Melbourne which are two of the biggest cities in Australia. Growing up which of the two was better was a constant topic of conversation, which was mostly a result of them being so similar and such big tourist locations. When the capital city was being decided there was so much controversy over whether it should be Sydney or Melbourne they ended up building Canberra in the middle of the two. Another example of this is the tension between the eastern and northern suburbs of Sydney, which again comes a result of the two being so similar and both in close proximity of the city. Going to school in the city there were people from both which made it a constant topic of conversation, where was better to go to study on the weekends or had the better beaches.
To link this to bicycles I looked at the issues regarding cyclists in Sydney as it is a constant topic of conversation both amongst people and on the news. Sydney has a really strong public transport that is easily accessible to everyone no matter where they live, meaning most people use buses, trains and ferries as their main mode of transport if they are not driving by car and as a result there are limited numbers of cyclists. The city only caters for those riding bikes in certain areas of the cities and in big parks through the use of bike lanes, as well as this laws are more lenient on whether or not they have to use roads or can ride on the footpath. I decided to ask my mum about her opinions on this because going to school in the morning it is something I vividly remember her constantly commenting on. She said that she is often frustrated by cyclists early in the morning. There are already more buses and cars on the road and a single cyclist trying to get up a steep hill can completely congest the traffic and add a significant amount of travel time. I spoke to my dad about the same issue and he said he doesn’t have a problem with cyclists for the most part, however he said it is frustrating when they will switch between the road and footpath constantly throughout their trip. In conclusion, I thought this was interesting because it shows how differently different places cater to cyclists. In a city like San Francisco there are so many facilities that benefit cyclists however in Sydney there is much less.
