The Tasmanian government is surging ahead with initiatives to improve active transport uptake, including secure bike parking and no-interest loans to buy an e-bike.
The government’s $1.4 million Transport Emissions Reduction and Resilience Plan was released at the end of September and has a strong focus on ideas to get more people out of cars and onto bikes.
As well as the work the government is already doing to help people ride, the plan introduces three new initiatives:
- Three-year, no-interest loans to buy an e-bike up to $10,000 through the Energy Saver Loan Scheme.
- Fund pilot sites for secure bike parking to support a sustainable and accessible transport network as outlined in the Greater Hobart Bicycle Parking Master Plan.
- Support for small businesses to purchase cargo e‑bikes for last mile deliveries.
No-interest loans help people who can’t afford the up-front cost of an e-bike. The loans help them buy an e-bike and pay it off over three years using the money they would have spent on public transport, petrol and parking. No-interest loans also help people who are not working and so can’t salary sacrifice an e-bike to get similar benefits.
Funding pilot sites for a network of secure bike parking is a relatively new idea in Australia. While secure bike parking is available in private buildings it’s rarer in public spaces. Train stations and council car parks sometimes offer such parking, but there is little available for a casual user looking to access multiple sites.
Bicycle Network has advocated for any pilot to include app-activated secure docks/lockers/cages that can be used by casual visitors. This will capture those people who would like to ride their e-bike to the shops, meet up with friends or go out for a meal but have nowhere secure to lock it up and so end up driving.
This sort of bike parking is popping up in one-off sites around Australia such as Perth’s RAC arena and the Gold Coast’s Pacific Fair shopping centre, but is not being implemented as a city-wide network, as is the case in New Zealand.
Cargo e-bikes provide a wealth of opportunities for businesses to reduce delivery and staff movement costs while also reducing traffic on city streets. There’s no detail yet on what the cargo e-bike support for businesses will look like.
www.recfit.tas.gov.au/policies_strategies_plans/emissions_reduction/transport