Bicycle Network: Bicycle Coalition
Bicycle Coalition
This page refers to a piece of history, the formation of the Bicycle Coalition in 2007. These days co-operation among Australia's bike organisations is more regular and less formal, with frequent contact on a wide range of issues. We leave these pages here to mark an important point in the history and development of Australia's bike organisations.
It is very exciting to be able to announce the birth of the Bicycle Coalition. For a number of years the member based bike riding organisations in Australia have jointly supported the national roll out of the Ride to Work and Ride2School projects. Now the four largest groups have come together to form the Bicycle Coalition in order to advance the number of shared initiatives.
Member groups
The member groups are different: we work in different political contexts and our bike riding peaks are in different months. Organisationally we have different histories; we see different opportunities; we have different strengths and different priorities.
These differences are outweighed, however, by what we share. We share the aim of trying to convince people that ‘Life is better on a bike!’ We use similar methods - relying on support from members and riders who will pay to come on a ride. We have broadly similar strategies and celebrate the same sort of successes.
Working together
The member groups that make up the Coalition have a combined membership of over 60 000 and are in contact with a quarter of a million bike riders across Australia.
We know that through frequent communication and regular meetings we can establish and extend a base of agreement about bike riding issues; present common positions to government, community and business; develop shared intellectual property and develop shared ventures and initiatives.
We believe that the work of the Coalition will significantly enhance the ability of each group to achieve its purpose.
Initiatives
The Coalition has already identified a number of initiatives that we can unanimously endorse. We have also developed a list of initiatives that we think can be added to that list. These initiatives and potential initiatives are listed along with the Charter of the Coalition. You can reach them by following the links at the top left of this page.
Your views
We would be interested to hear your views. You may want to suggest some issues that would be appropriate to address as a Coalition.
The initial representatives were:
Alex Unwin, Bicycle NSW
Ben Wilson, Bicycle Queensland
Christian Haag, Bicycle South Australia
Harry Barber, Bicycle Network Victoria