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Adelaide aims to triple bike trips in fight against climate change

Image credit: City of Adelaide

Adelaide is escalating its efforts to build a more climate-resilient city and sees bikes as the key.

The City of Adelaide has released a draft Integrated Climate Strategy for public feedback, and among the priorities is a bold plan is to triple the number of city workers riding into the office.

Just 2.6% of city workers ride to work in Adelaide, around 3400 residents. The council wants this figure to reach 10%, amounting to an extra 10,000 city-bound bike commuters each day.

This is in line with the Climate Council’s recommendation that Australia triple its number of walking and bike riding trips to rein in ballooning transport emissions.

According to the City of Adelaide's draft strategy, 45% of the council’s carbon footprint can be attributed to transport emissions.

More than 56,000 people, or 43% of city workers, commute to the Adelaide CBD.

Roughly one quarter of those trips originate in areas that are a 30-minute bike ride from the CBD. The average travel distance to the CBD is just over 13km.

Key to the council’s success will be a detailed plan to make bike riding an easier choice for the city’s residents.

Its approach includes creating calmer streets, building out a network of protected bike lanes and increasing priority for bike riders and pedestrians at intersections.

The council is also working on a new Integrated Transport Strategy focused on movement, climate, and community health, which is due for completion by 2025.

The City of Adelaide’s draft Integrated Climate Strategy 2030 is the latest example of a government placing bikes at the heart of an approach to sustainability.

Paris has a 2024-2030 Climate Action Plan, which is boosting low-carbon mobility by creating peaceful “pedestrian hearts” in each district. Streets will be prioritised for pedestrians, bikes and public transport. The plan is being supported by the widely-celebrated rollout of 180km of additional bike paths and 130,000 bike parking spaces by 2030.

Closer to home, the Tasmanian Government’s current Climate Action Plan has allocated $200,000 for e-bike and e-scooter rebates.

 A similar program went live in Adelaide in early February when the City of Holdfast Bay introduced e-bike rebates as part of its Green Living initiative. One could be on the way in the City of Adelaide, too, where the council voted in January in support of a motion to develop an e-bike rebate program.

The Victorian Government’s Climate Change Strategy, released in 2021, aims for “25 per cent of trips to be by foot or cycle by 2025”.

Among the other priorities in the City of Adelaide’s plan to build a more climate resilient city is expanding the tree canopy cover on its streets to reduce the temperature of road and footpath surfaces, rolling out EV charging infrastructure and powering all homes and businesses with renewable energy.

You can check out the full Draft Integrated Climate Strategy 2030 over at the consultation page and have your say up until 15 March, 2024.

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