Merri-bek BUG

The Sydney Rd Street Party is on today and the BUG will be there in force – so keep an eye out for the BUG stall and valet parking…

12 noon – 7pm; Sydney Road – Union to Victoria Streets, Brunswick.

And there’s plenty of good music on as well.

The Cycling Promotion Fund, the Amy Gillett Foundation and Digicast have produced four great video clips with tips on how to avoid common risks when cycling in traffic.

These clips include:

• Dealing with Intersections
• Heavy Vehicles and Cyclists
• Dealing with Car doors
• Cyclist Visibility

The clips have been developed by bicycle riders for bicycle riders with financial assistance from the TAC Community Grants program.

Cycling: Taking it to the streets, safely – an invitation to the launch of cycling safety video clips as part of the Sustainable Living Festival.

Join Matt Tilley from 101.9 Fox FM and guests.

Time: Friday 20th February 2009
Venue: Federation Square Big Screen
Time: 7.30pm
Cost: Free
Registration not required

The Cycling Promotion Fund and the Amy Gillett Foundation invite you to join us to launch four great video clips with tips on how to avoid common risks when cycling in traffic.

The clips have been developed by bicycle riders for bicycle riders with financial assistance from the TAC Community Grants program.

The launch is followed by a great free program of StreetFilms list of films.

Our friends over at YarraBUG have a bike show, broadcasting every Monday at 10-10.30am on 3CR Community Radio, 855am.

See their radio page for more information.

Those who don’t live locally or close to an AM radio, can find
YarraBUG Radio streaming live on the web at:
http://www.3cr.org.au/3CR_streaming

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.

As previously mentioned, MorelandBUG asked candidates running in the upcoming Council Elections to measure their support for cycling and thoughts on cycling issues in the Moreland area.

Below is a link to the survey with answers filled out by Moreland Council Election Candidates.

Moreland Council Election Candidates Responses (.pdf, 84KB)

Dear BUGgees,

As you would know, the Moreland Council elections will be held this Saturday, and Moreland BUG surveyed candidates ahead of the election to find out who supports cycling and who is less enthusiastic.

Attached is a press release we put out with some of the results of the survey – we had thought it was going to get a run in this week’s Leader but unfortunately it didn’t.

You will note that the inaugural ‘Wooden Spoke Booby Prize’ for least bike-friendly candidate was jointly awarded to Anthony Cianflone and Michael Andrews.

The press release outlines some of the high- and low-lights, but doesn’t give a full overview of each candidate’s position. We will aim to have this overview done by late this week, in time to help you decide how to cast your vote! In the meantime, if you have any specific questions please feel free to email me and I’ll answer as best as I can.

Cheers, Anna

Candidate Survey Media Release

Council elections are on Saturday November 29.

Bicycle Victoria has invited candidates to give their views on bicycle riding.

Here are the responses from Moreland Council candidates.

Here is the presentation (2.9 Mb PDF file) that Anna gave at last week’s AGM on what the BUG has accomplished over the last year.

At our last BUG meeting we were joined by Bill Bretherton from Human Powered, who runs the fantastic Community Cycles program out of a workshop in Brunswick East.

Bill, Joel and the Human Powered team are tireless in their pursuit to bring recycled bikes to people who need them, and it’s great to see that their story was shared with the nation on Lateline on Friday night.

To view the transcript or the video, go to:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2387909.htm