CAMWEST: Cyclists’ Action Movement West

Feb 7^th at Long St Park from  9.00 am.

2004 Rides!

Did you get a bike for Christmas, but don't know safe routes near your home? Our monthly rides are the best way to get to know the cycleways you can use.

After some discussion and planning, we have committed ourselves to run at least one ride every month - so make sure you join us. We will continue running big, popular rides such as Tizzana, but we will also do smaller, regular ones. You can see all our 2004 rides in our Rides page.

Holroyd Happenings — Cycleway Opens

Canal Cycleway

Has been handed over to Council. Open Day and BBQ at Boothtown Reserve, Gipps Rd on Feb 15^th. The 24 hour deviation around the Reservior through Wetherill Park is still not completed. A dangerous bollard on a blind bend near the Aqueduct has been removed.

Prospect to Fairfield cycleway

Holroyd Council to host an Open Day on Feb 7^th at Long St Park from  9.00 am. CAMWEST have been asked to attend. A group ride to Prospect is expected. The loop back from under the Cumberland Highway Bridge is still not complete and I have once again reminded Council. Fairfield St now has an underpass and work should start on the link to the Rail Trail. Fairfield Council have been asked by Mr. Scully to design; wewill ask if design is available for us to see shortly.

CSIRO site/Inter Transitway link

CAMWEST was invited to make a presentation to Council on this development in December. A motion by Council to fully support a ped/cycle underpass under the M4 near Fox Hills Golf Course AND the Gt Western Hwy was passed unanimously. Blacktown Council have expressed concern over possible crime in such a long underpass, traffic light crossing of the Hwy may be preferable or an overbridge.  CAMWEST is proposing that Parramatta Council and the RTA will get the potential "inter-Transitway" link happening. This involves joining up the Canal through Boral, CSIRO, Fox Hills GC, Toongabie Creek and McCoy Park into a CONTINUOUS cycleway that will link the Parramatta-Liverpool Transitway to the North West  Transitway, resulting in continuous off-road cycleway from Busby to Rouse Hill; and by 2006, on to Windsor. Council are now aware that the Western edge of the development is only 900 metres from the proposed Blacktown-Prospect cycleway.

Merrylands to Fox St

A neww residential development called Holroyd Gardens in Walpole St contains a cycleway link from Walpole St Park through Holroyd Sports Centre to the M4 cycleway near Fox St. The CAMWEST March ride will follow the completed part of this new development. CAMWEST will be asking Holroyd Council how they intend joining this to their cycleway network.

Orphan School Creek

Most of this route is sub-standard and needs to be upgraded to AUSTROADS standards. We will be contacting Fairfield Council about this.

Blacktown — Bike parking and connections

Thanks to a submission from a CAMWEST member, a condition imposed by council on construction of a new 80 room motel in Rooty Hill is that secure parking be provided for three bicycles.

A brief meeting was held with ALJV and Blacktown Council reps regarding connections between the Westlink M7 shared path and Council's proposed paths in the Quakers Hill area. After the meeting we investigated the best way to re-prioritise Council's proposed paths in the area with a Council staff member.

A map of the present and short-term future shared paths in the Blacktown area should be being printed within the next few months.

Parramatta — Council Steering Committee Starts

There has been a great response to Parramatta City Council's call for community participation in its new Bicycle Steering Committee. The first meeting was attended by two councillors, key staff, and many community members. A great start!

News in Brief

Bike for Sale

'Small' frame Apollo Kosciusko mountain bike bought new in about 1996, ridden by lady 167cm (5ft6" tall). Royal Blue and green, oversize MTB forks, shimano brakes, 21 speed grip shift gears, knobbly tyres. Good condition, from deceased estate.Price negotiable.
For more info or to arrange to see it please e-mail: evan1_p@optusnet.com.au

Postcard from the Future — Cycle Tourism

Here we are, riding in one of the many cycling tours that are organised in the future. By now, Bicycle NSW's Big Ride is so popular that they do four tours per year. Many other commercial groups run tours, and thousands of tourists (including families and baby boomers) are setting out on their own.

Because cycle touring is an immediate mode of transport, people come to know the little towns which would be ignored by people speeding by on the highway. It is slow, and it encourages more stops at country towns to either have a meal and a rest, enjoy the locals, or stay the night. Tours are combined with trains to cover vast areas.

As a result, many understand better regional and rural Australia, and regional towns are thriving again with a welcome economic boost through tourism.

In the Media Lately

Our fat future (SMH, 12.2.04)
Almost one million older Australians are obese, with signs that the middle-age spread now extends into the autumnal years, a new report suggests.

West sitting on obesity time bomb, warns UN (SMH, 12.2.04)

North Sea exploration a loser, say oil experts (Times Online, 26.1.04)
As the North Sea continues to deplete after peaking in 99, companies are getting out: "OIL GROUPS face growing pressure to quit the North Sea amid evidence of global failure to find big new oil deposits. The world’s top ten energy companies are failing to find enough new crude to replenish their reserves, according to Wood Mackenzie, the oil consultancy, which sees exploration in the UK North Sea as the industry’s biggest waste of money over the past five years."

OPEC to cut oil output by 10 per cent (SMH, 11.2.04)
In a surprise move, OPEC will cut excess production of crude at once and lower output quotas by 1 million barrels a day effective April 1, several oil ministers said... The combined cuts, if effective, would curb OPEC's production by about 10 per cent, or 2.5 million barrels a day.

Plan Now for a World Without Oil (MICHAEL MEACHER - UK environment minister 1997-2003, Financial Times-London, 4.1.04)
It is hard to envisage the effects of a radically reduced oil supply on a modern economy or society. Yet just such a radical reduction is staring us in the face..The conclusion is clear: if we do not immediately plan to make the switch to renewable energy - faster, and backed by far greater investment than currently envisaged - then civilisation faces the sharpest and perhaps most violent dislocation in recent history.

The Bottom of the Barrell (George Mombiot, 2.12.03)
Every generation has its taboo, and ours is this: that the resource upon which our lives have been built is running out. We don't talk about it because we cannot imagine it. This is a civilisation in denial... Oil itself won't disappear, but extracting what remains is becoming ever more difficult and expensive. The discovery of new reserves peaked in the 1960s.2 Every year, we use four times as much oil as we find.3 All the big strikes appear to have been made long ago: the 400 million barrels in the new North Sea field would have been considered piffling in the 1970s. Our future supplies depend on the discovery of small new deposits and the better exploitation of big old ones. No one with expertise in the field is in any doubt that the global production of oil will peak before long.

Hopes of $50bn gas sale (The Age, 14.1.04)
Australia is confident it can win liquified natural gas contracts with the United States worth up to $50 billion, amid warnings that America is facing a looming energy crisis... The Bush Administration has admitted that America's capacity to meet its voracious hunger for energy through domestic production is limited. Mr Macfarlane warned that the US could face an energy crisis that would rival the 1973 and 1980 oil price shocks. Both events triggered a combination of soaring inflation and economic stagnation in the major economies of the world. 'The US have only very recently become open about their energy requirements, and some say it's as big a crisis, or potential crisis, as during the oil shocks,' he said.

Shell's shocking news (The Economist, 15.1.04)
A dramatic cut in Shell's reserves has the oil world buzzing... the firm's rate of replacement of reserves„which are inevitably depleted as firms pump hydrocarbons out of the ground„was not 105% as previously thought, but an abysmal 57%, significantly below that of both BP and Exxon Mobil (see chart). Recalculated, Shell's ñfinding and developmentî costs in that period jump from an already relatively high $4.27 per barrel to $7.90 per barrel.

Life's cheaper in the faster state (SMH, 14.1.04)
Comparative data from the United States shows a speed limit increase does push up the road death toll, writes Peter Martin.

Gore Vidal Interview (ABC Sunday Profile, 15.1.04)
Gore Vidal: It [the US Bush administration] has no aims other than more oil and gas because Cheney had a study done about a year ago that by the year 2020 the entire world would be practically out of fossil fuels, theyÍre going to grab all of it and the biggest supply is in the Caspian area and all those countries whose names end in ïstanÍ. ThatÍs what our eye is on.

Scully chooses his path for an M4 extension (SMH, 17.12.03)

Motorist to be hit with new M4 toll (news.com.au, 16.12.03)

Toddlers burnt as car smashes into nap room (SMH, 15.12.03)

Natural Gas Exports (ABC's RN The Business Report, 13.12.03)
By 2020 the Bush Administration has documented it will need fifty per cent more natural gas to fuel America. Its own source of natural gas, the Rocky Mountains, is running out; so it's looking to other sources. So we're trying to sell them our own gas, from WA.

CAMWEST Needs You

We need more members to achieve better bike facilities in Western Sydney. There's a number of projects we'd like to get involved in. Join us and make a difference.

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Action Corner!

Why not write a letter to your State or Federal MP and ask for better funding of cycling? See our letter writing page.

CAMWEST's Action Corner is where we include one or two suggestions of something simple and concrete that you can do: write an email, letter, representation, turn up for a ride, etc. Join us in making a difference! More advocacy info

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