Planning meeting

Hi Again,

Thanks to Sally for the following paragraphs following our Walk and Talk planning meeting.


Eight of us sat on the grass in the Botanic Gardens
and explored one another's visions for more active transport in
Ballarat. Much discussion surrounded the many barriers, especially
concerns around perceived and actual safety; adequacy of public
transport and a "time-poor" society driven by economic imperatives.
People were cautious about setting a vision but felt that in ten
years-time Ballarat would be a place where:
-most workplaces had showers and adequate bike-parking facilities;
-schools were linked to safe routes for active transport and had
adequate bike parking facilities;
-intersections and crossings (especially roundabouts) provided for
pedestrians and people using mobility aides as a priority over cars;
-more people using an integrated public transport system.
I'm sure we could expand on this preliminary vision with further
discussion.
It was evident from the discussion that there are a number of
initiatives and actions happening around town that will benefit from
linking people and information dissemination. This will be facilitated
in part by the "blog" site.
The group would like to progress one or two actions in the next twelve
months. These are evolving but are likely to be around:
-ride to school (rider education in schools) and
-"leave the car at home day" in October to encourage people to use other
forms of transport for their usual business (walk, wheel, ride, scoot,
public transport etc). This would correspond to the Australia-wide "ride
to work" day but would be more inclusive of other forms of transport and
of people who don't travel to work.

Cheers
Simon