BTA at the end of the road ?

[Rusty6149]

Received the email below from BTA yesterday.

Never good news to see a cycling advocacy group disappear.

--Rusty


Bicycle Transport Alliance Suspension of Activities
Posted: 06 Aug 2015 04:12 AM PDT
Dear BTA member,

We regretfully inform you that lack of money have forced the indefinite suspension of all activities of the Bicycle Transport Alliance (BTA). The CEO, Heinrich Benz, has resigned. All formal advocacy on behalf of the BTA will cease. Social media communications will cease other than to share important information regarding the BTA and your memberships.

Current and valid memberships will remain so until their stated expiry. The BTA’s membership includes third-party insurance for your cycling activities. This insurance will remain valid, and you will be covered until your membership expires.

The BTA has played a vital role in advocating for good cycling for everyone in Perth. It has been outstandingly effective promoting transport cycling with State Government ministers, government departments and authorities, local councils and relevant organisations. The tireless efforts of Heinrich ensured cycling remained at the forefront of transport issues, and his resignation is a real loss for Western Australian cycling.

Despite the strong and optimistic growth in Perth’s commuter cycling, funding for organisations like the BTA has become increasingly scarce. The BTA could not get funding from WestCycle, WA’s peak cycling organisation. This made the activities of the BTA unviable.

While this message is solemn, the organisation has not dissolved yet. We want to hear from you about why the BTA is important to you and cycling in Perth. In the coming months, a workshop to explore transforming the BTA will be arranged. Please express your interest for the reimagining at the BTA email info@btawa.org.au.

Thank you for your support of the BTA and your interest in promoting better cycling in Western Australia. We have been humbled to work in your interests, and we hope your passion for cycling burns as brightly as ever.

Please let us know you are out there and still believe in what the BTA can achieve



Sincerely,

The Bicycle Transport Alliance Board

Robert Hunt, Peter Bartlett, Eddy Campbell, Michael Haynes

[Thoglette]

Received the email below from BTA yesterday.

Got the same email. That I'm disappointed is all I'll say. Hopefully those doing the good work will find another roof to shelter under.

[Thoglette]

http://aushiker.com/westcycle-dumps-on- ... australia/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Grev]

Still being quoted in the SundryCrimes!!

[ColinOldnCranky]

Thanks to Heinrich and BTA. I hope that those involved still retain the "push" ethic and apply it vigorously to lawmakers, media, policy makers.

[roller]

BTA facebook page is great, really well positioned and good at getting a positive message out there.

http://aushiker.com/westcycle-dumps-on- ... australia/

I can't really disagree with anything Auhiker has said there, imho the work BTA is doing is the most important piece of the cycling advocacy puzzle.

Everything else should come second, if the community becomes accustomed and conditioned to accept bikes on the road for transport, that will have a natural flow on effect for recreation cycling.

But having a primary focus on cycling as something to do as recreation, trivialises it.

[CycleSnail]

I now understand why the BTA lost funding from WestCycle. At the Senate hearings on Road Safety in Perth, WestCycle explained:

“The infrastructure spend that separates cyclists from motorists has been exceptionally good in Western Australia.”
“Our philosophy is that we need to work with government and various stakeholders to achieve outcomes. We are not an advocacy group. We do not inflame the situation.”

The BTA did ruffle feathers. The BTA was an advocacy organisation. The BTA was instrumental in increasing direct funding for cycling from less than $2mio pa to well over $12mio pa. And that is far from an “exceptional infrastructure spend”.

The transcript of the hearings can be found at http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Bus ... c_Hearings" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I originally posted some of this on the BTA Facebook page, but after a complaint by WestCycle a BTA board member removed it.

[citywomble]

Heinrich,

What a pity that the BTA WA board member did not see fit to strengthen and respond to questions on the formal BTA submission you drafted. It appears that he ignored his responsibility as a board member and 'stole' the allocated time to present his divergent ideas and introduce the West Australian Bicycle Club.

He also criticised the WABNP for only dealing with the metro area with little reference to regional cities and shires. I think that this was both unwarranted and missed the point that it replaced the PERTH Bicycle Network Plan (PBN).

Critically I think he missed the fundamental reason for this. Cycling anywhere within the metro area generally traverses many local councils, as do routes, and this needs an overarching strategic pan-metro approach to ensure that the routes, planning and (to some degree) funding achieve solutions across the metro area. In his own statement, Mr Haynes recognised that inter-town routes in the regions, because of the tyranny of distance, is not practicable and that the major opportunities are about town centres. Put simply, the towns are all essentially single shires and well capable of determining their own strategic networks and solutions.

Furthermore, the heavy hand of 'state' is not as necessary for regional centres, and neither is dedicated DoT funding, given that 'Royalties for Regions' has provided substantial levels of funding outside Perth. In that respect the metro area can be considered disadvantaged and needs a metro-centric WABNP to compensate.

I am disappointed that the highly valued, relevant, and well articulated views of BTA were not advocated to the Senate Enquiry and that the board member elected to do that abrogated his responsibility to do so.

[AlexHuggs]

Citywomble, what's the context to this? A bit out of the blue to me.

[rolandp]

Citywomble, what's the context to this? A bit out of the blue to me.

Try this link http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/sea ... %2F0000%22" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or the link to the PDF
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/dow ... d4/0000%22" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not the most useful web page where I had to click on the html/PDF link twice before getting to the above.

[AlexHuggs]

It reads like he figured the BTA is defunct so why bother? I'll be interested to see the objects, etc. of this proposed WABC and why the already existing BTA simply wasn't revived. Evidently a different focus. I think bicycle transportation needs strong representation and advocacy. Hopefully we'll soon see.

[Thoglette]

An announcement is likely to be made during BikeWeek. The WABC will not be the BTA