YarraBUG

Melbourne BUG news and a Book Review: Nik Dow from Melbourne BUG on what is happening at the Melbourne City Council regarding the funding, planning and transparency surrounding the city's bicycle infrastructure.If you love riding bikes but the weather has kept you inside, there is nothing better than reading about them and their makers. Melbourne authors Christine Elliott and David Jablonka have produced something special with Handcrafted Bicycles, Builders, Frame Design, and Insiration. Great photographs, a wide range of designs and a text that is part history and in a way, 32 Bike Moments.  

On this weeks program Chris catches up with Laura Aston Wayfinder Labs to talk about her Street Joy Kit, Regenerative Streets Podcast and recent activities. We discuss new ways to slow down, make local connections, interpret our streets, ongoing challenges with traffic and public space and the opportunity to feel more welcome via offering people a series of tiny seasonal activities and experiments.Follow streetmakerlaura, #streetjoy on insta and Bring Your Street to LifeLocal news and announceables galore include (drumroll) Gipps Street Ramps finally opening, Iris Dixon Veloway opening (also see Footscray Veloway - Opening Week User Experience Survey), Federation Trail Link works completed, Somerville to Baxter Trail apparently opening very soon and take a look at the new Heyington Avenue bridge in Doncaster.And the Victorian Government have followed NSW with banning after market e-bike changes instead of a blanket ban around the PT network, the changes start on 21 December 2025.As I ran out of time, here's that bell hooks quote:'Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community'Program musicJon Brenner, Tour de VeloCharlie Parker, Now's the timeB I K E, HONNE

Val and Faith are joined in the studio by Anthony Aisenberg of CrowdLab. We all share our bike moments before taking a look at some very exciting news; firstly the completion of the Gipps Street ramp after a twenty-plus year advocacy effort, and secondly, the opening of the Dixon Veloway, named after our favourite studio guest, the late Iris Dixon.  Talk turns to CrowdLab's latest project, CrashDash; a platform for providing acess to crash data collected by agencies across Australia. CrashDash pulls together the sometimes impermeable state governement crash statistics and provides filters and tools that give advocates, councils, consultants and others user-friendly access to data about their local areas and projects. Anthony fills us in on the differences between the ways different states collect data in Australia and the need for a uniform national approach. You can also check out Anthony's earlier project BikeSpot. 

On this weeks program Chris talks with Lachlan McKenna about e-bike standards, Saul Griffith observations about using e-bikes in hilly areas, torque vs. power discussions, different potential uses in Australia, lower transport emissions, Australia returning to the EN-15194 standard after they were scrapped by the previous Australia Federal Government in 2021 and we discuss his petition: Increase Tasmanian E-Bike Power Restrictions to USA Standards (750W) TAS is not Europe.Local news includes Critical Mass 30, both Gipps Street Ramps and Westgate Veloway opening real soon, Adopt safe 30km/h streets in Richmond petition and in related news earlier this week, Darebin Council adopted 30km/h as part of the High Street Preston Streetscape Upgrade.Program musicKing Stingray, Camp dogShonen Knife, Cycling is fun

Faith and Val are joined in the studio at 3CR by guest Vince Masci. We all share our bike moments before taking a look at a couple of local news items. Last Friday an ammendment was passed in Parliament that sees $15M of the revenue collected by the parking/congestion levy allocated to walking and cycling projects in participating local council areas for each of the next ten years. This is a small but significant boost to local Council's active transport budgets and we look forward to seeing the results! Also announced last Friday, the federal government is re-instating tthe european standard EN-15194 for imported electric bikes while also working on a framework to regulate the import of electric mobility devices. This will give people clarity on what is and isn't a legal electric bike and also help state governments sensibly regulate the use of electric bikes, particularly on public transport. Talk turns to Vince's project with the VicBug.app, mapping the different sorts of bicycle infrsctructure around Melbourne and building a platform for community input and maybe even data informed advocacy. Its only been online for a few weeks so take a look and sign up and give your feedback. You may also want to check out Vince's other project at bikeroutes.com.auFinally we finish up with a reminder that Critical Mass is coming up this Friday, its a BIG one, its the 30th anniversary this month of Critical Mass in Melbourne so make sure you come along and join the party!