Let's get one thing sorted out upfront.  Sydney is nothing at all like Amsterdam, or Vienna, or Antwerp or any other bike loving, level grounded, liberal minded European city.  Sydney is three times bigger than even the largest of these cities in both population and geography.  On top of that Sydney has hills - which is great if you want a view of the harbour but not so great if you are a slightly overweight and mildly underconfident cyclist contemplating a journey to work on two wheels.  For those of you who, like me, have longed for a cycle or at least pedestrian friendly city below are my observations and biased assertions on some changes that might move us in the right direction.

The Vicious Circle of Hate

I believe the making Sydney cycle friendly debate is vastly misunderstood primarily because people lose site of what the main aim is.  The goal is not getting more cycles on the road, the goal is getting more cars off it.  The reality is that in cities like Amsterdam a far greater proportion of journeys are completed outside of a car.  Whilst many of these non car journeys are on bikes, many of them are also on public transport.  What all these cities have that Sydney doesn't is viable public transport that a lot of the population use.  The net result is that commuting in Sydney has become a nasty battleground.  Motorists, cyclists, bus riders and pedestrians alike share only one thing in common - a hatred of each and every other group - while competing for road space at least.

To lay my cards on the table I am a semi regular bicycle commuter, often times car driver and very rare public transport user.  I have no particular axe to grind other than that borne from years of frustration with watching my great city's only significant transport initiatives involve the expensive bleep of an e-tag and the funding of the bottom line of some public private partnership.  So with that in mind here is my blue print for making Sydney a more bike and commuter friendly city.

Number one is getting public transport right.  Yes, yes just after we've solved world peace I hear you think.  I won't focus on what's needed to do this as whilst I have many opinions they are no more informed than the next guy.  Suffice to say that until people are given a viable, reliable, affordable and safe way of getting to work, it's not fair to expect drivers to give up more of the road to cyclists and pedestrians.  The only relevant thought I have on this is that for better or for worse Sydney has a massive urban sprawl - Accordingly whatever result we do end up with won't look the same as the medium to high density living of those cities we often point to as examples for how we would like our city to look.

Assuming you make a genuine attempt at improving public transport in a way that allows for our urban sprawl, I think the following would go a long way to improving Sydney as a cyclist's city.

Cyclist or Psycho list & the Helmet Myth

Cyclists or more to the point their attitude is a big part of the problem.  When I started riding to work I expected a welcoming community of like minded individuals happy to have another member of their clan.  Unfortunately it seems that some cyclists in Sydney are more frustrated tour de france competitors struggling to compete a break neck speed time trial than enlightened environmentalist trying to "do their bit".  For cycling to work in Sydney, in the CBD in particular cyclists need to slow and calm down.  I don't see much point of simply replacing road rage with cycle rage.

Slowing people down brings a number benefits.  The first is that you then don't need helmets.  If people want to wear them then that's fine, but I can't be convinced that there is any public benefit to people who are riding at a reasonable pace in a designated bike lane.  While helmets are painful to carry with you and ruining your hair do might sound incredibly superficial, they represent a significant reason why people won't simply jump on their bike and head to the shops.  The second is that it opens cycling to slower riders - riders who ride bikes that are comfortable to sit on, that don't look out of place with a basket, that don't need more than three gears or a rider covered in a polka dot jersey lurched over a multi thousand dollar set of curved carbon racing bars.

The Power of Electricity

Now before you start writing a letter of complaint to someone who cares, hear me out on this next point.  We should be systematically encouraging the use of electric bikes.  Not motor bikes, but simply a bike that has an electric motor that emits no exhaust fumes and assists less fit riders go up a hill no faster than they would if they were a little fitter.  It would offer no assistance on the down hill.  Why this is so important is that you can't cycle in Sydney at the moment without looking like you've been in a sauna.  While people can argue that more work place showers will help, until people can make all manner of journeys (not just their work commute) without smelling on arrival, cycling will never be mainstream.  The cycling lobby needs to understand that to be successful they need to attract a totally new breed of cyclist, rather than simply convince more people to become like the cyclists that we already have and in a city of hills and traffic lights electric bikes would assist this greatly.

City Bikes in Sydney- Would you like a Funeral Bond with That?

Sydney is a hard enough place to ride a bike for experienced riders.  City bikes in Paris, Vienna and London are heavy and slow.  With the current levels of Sydney traffic and road rage I'd give the bikes 6 months or multiple fatalities before they are relegated along with the monorail to the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" scrap heap.  What could work is if Sydney could create a city bike styled system where the bikes were ridden on bike only lanes on a tourist focused cycling route. Obviously the route would be open to local commuters and sightseers alike.  The benefits would be numerous.  People would start to develop a more positive image of bikes and having them in their city and it would provide an alternative to riders battling through central CBD streets.

It's Like Learning to Ride a Bike

The one thing that strikes you while travelling through bike loving cities is that there is no typical rider.  They are aged from 8 to 80, from hippy students to trendy merchant bankers - and you know what, the 80 year olds have been riding since they were 8 and the merchant bankers have been riding since they were hippy students.  It angers me when motoring associations and former Australian Rugby Coaches lean on figures of bike lane usage as though they have somehow been proven right that they will never work.  The reality is that to make bikes work in Sydney we need a generational change.  The 25 year old metro sexual on his fixed speed needs to become a father of three who rides his kids to school before heading to work.  The kid who rides to school needs to start riding to university, and the person who is driving through the city needs to realise that our CBD is a place of work, leisure and sightseeing for hundreds of thousands of people rather than an annoyance on their way from a Balmain Bakery to North Bondi Italian and calm the fu*k down.

I don't know if it will ever happen but I do envisage a utopian Sydney where you park the BMW X5 somewhere east of Centennial park and take a stroll down a bus and car free Oxford Street.  If you are in a hurry you will have your bike or jump on dare I say it, a tram that will have you down to Pitt Street in a couple of minutes.

Public transport in Sydney does suck and almost getting side wiped off your bike by that BMW X5 isn't great either, but being stuck in a car in peak hour traffic surely isn't much better.  Now if we can just find a state government from either side of the fence with the political will to do something about it, we can finally put this Melbourne being a more livable city rubbish to bed once and for all.