Merri-bek BUG

Phuong and Anna are helping to organise a sustainable transport rally outside the Melbourne Town Hall this coming Tuesday 16th Dec, to welcome the new Lord Mayor to his first Council meeting and let him know that we don’t support his plan to allow cars back into Swanston St. The council meeting starts at 5:30, so the rally will begin at 5pm to make sure Mr Doyle and his fellow councillors get an ear-and-eye-full of us before they head into the meeting.

During the council meeting, some councillors are planning to put forward a motion to have a range of options canvassed for Swanston St – one of which would be reopening it to cars, while others would focus on making it a bike, pedestrian and tram friendly route. It will be important for council to know that there is a loud and proud bike community that wants sustainable transport to be front and centre in the City of Melbourne, which is the purpose of the rally.

The media will be there and Jeremy Rawlins, whose wife Carolyn was killed on Swanston St earlier this year, will address the rally. Tomorrow Anna will send through a flyer (to the BUG list) that you can email round to your networks; in the meantime, just pop the date into your diary and let Anna know if you’d like to help out – we’ll need a few people on the day to act as marshalls, making sure that the rally doesn’t venture onto the tram tracks, as well as some people to hand out flyers along major cycling routes in the lead up to Tuesday.