Tuesday, October 07, 2014

Drafting a Bike Plan

The City where I live... and maybe you do too has just released a Draft of it's Bike Plan for the next 5 years.

Kids riding against the traffic, no helmets....Why?
I don't believe I am a control freak. I just get agitated when I see people doing something that defies logic. I understand the reasoning people use for riding against the traffic. The argument just doesn't stand up to logical scrutiny. If they were doing it out of contempt for rules or to tempt fate or play chicken with a potentially high impact death, that would make sense... However I am quite sure most people do this because they think it gives them some mastery over the road and circumstances because they can see oncoming traffic, it makes no sense.


The plan comes in three volumes, including baseline data, The Proposed purposes of the plan and it's implimentation.

Darwin is a really great place for  cycling but infrastructure is inconsistent and there are major attitude problems on our roads and shared cycle paths. Anyone who rides a bike will know that cyclists do not fit neatly into a single demographic. Cyclists needs are quite diverse, similarly are our attitudes toward road use, other users and how we prefer to ride. I hope the study has been able to take into consideration some of this diversity.

I'm gonna head down to the library to get hold of a hard copy, if you're interested in how our municipality is attempting to address cyclists needs and plans to cater for us over the next 5 years then you can read it yourself HERE.

http://www.darwin.nt.gov.au/darwinbikeplan

Cambodia.... where?

Time to learn a little about Cambodia...
What do I know about Cambodia? Nothing really. When I was just a baby there was an horrendous war there, while I was growing up I heard a bit about Kampuchea, refugees and starvation, as I grew older and started paying attention to current affairs I heard about a despotic dictator who caused unspeakable suffering to many people.

Until last year the only Cambodian person I remember meeting was a woman I studied Bahasa Indonesia with, and that was 20 years ago. She had somehow managed to come to Australia. I'm not sure how she got here.

Last year I was fortunate to meet the hypnotic singer Srey Thy and the band Cambodian Space Project. These guys have the most amazing sound and cover art. Check their website HERE

CSP have revived a bunch of pre-war Khmer music from the 60s as well as some awesome original music.

So for a bit of optimism after having watched the The Killing Fields last night, I decided to listen to some CSP and found this song:


Whiskey Cambodia - by Cambodian Space Project



I still haven't got any of their CDs yet and am wondering how I'm going to get to sleep without this playing in the background!