Shared bike paths !

Sydney Lord Mayor, Clover Moore has announced that there will be six newly extended " shared bike paths " in central Sydney.   Many people - both pedestrians and cyclists - will shudder at the prospect !

There is a perceived incompatibility in trying to mix the range of people who use these paths with the people who ride bikes and expect to swiftly reach their destination.  It might work if rules only permitted people to walk briskly in single file and cyclists to keep to the left and only attain a speed of five kilometres an hour - but that is not the rules that apply to shared bike paths.

The law is clear.  People can use them to exercise their dogs, and these dogs must be on leads.  Women pushing prams are quite welcome, and some little kids accompany their families while riding tricycles.  The aged find bike paths a convenient place to get daily exercise.  It is not unusual to see walkers greet others and continue in a group - or sometimes block the entire path while they converge for a chat.

From a cyclists point of view, non bikers on the paths are a nightmare.   They can expect a dog on a lead to dart across their path, pedestrians to change direction without warning - and kids of all ages are totally unpredictable.   At least riding in road traffic means that some rules apply.

One of the gripes of non cyclist path users is the silence of an approaching bike.  It is suggested that cyclists ring bike bells to give warning, but not all bikes have bells and some walkers take umbrage at such a sound and construe it as a demand that they yield the right of way.

It might be a better idea to require bikes using shared paths to have a " clacker " - a throw back to a much earlier age.  Many kids used to clamp a piece of cardboard - or in some cases plastic - to the bicycle fork and this engaged the spokes of a wheel to produce a soft " drumming " sound.    The big advantage is that is occurs naturally and makes an approaching bike audible to others.

We live in an age where many people reject compliance with rules.  It has been suggested that a new law apply a ten kilometre per hour speed limit on bicycles using shared paths.   That would be almost impossible to police.   Bikes have no number plate identification - and without that - the points system that applies to motorists would be impossible.    Forcing bike registration and identification would certainly involve a fee - and would be a very unpopular measure, but it would tend to bring biker discipline to the bike tracks.

It seems that there is no answer to the shared path problem.  We rely entirely on common sense being applied, and that seems to be in short supply in this crazy world.