Getting rid of cycling hazards

I ride to work fairly regularly, and every now and then, I find large patches of broken glass strewn across a bike lane - the result of a crash causing a broken headlight, or a thief smashing a car window to break into a car. One thing is certain - when this happens, no one ever bothers to sweep up the broken glass. It is a classic case of  "they will take care of it", allowing everyone else to walk away and wash their hands of it.

I've cycled around this glass every morning so far this week. I've been following another cyclist every time, and the bloke in front has always had the courtesy to point the glass out to those behind (cyclists have an entire suite of hand signals to point out hazards to each other). Hundreds of cyclists have had to swerve around this glass to avoid a puncture - but have any of them bothered to do something about it (apart from pointing to it as they go past)?

I stopped for 10 seconds to take this photo. I then wrote an email to Leichhardt Council telling them where it is, what the problem is and what I want them to do about it (ie, street name and number, broken glass, please clean it up).

I've already had a response back from Council with a job number and a note that the job has been passed to the Infrastructure and Service Delivery Division.

It took me about 10 times longer to upload this photo and write a blog entry describing what I did.

It's really not that hard.

It's all about you

I've had a bit of media exposure this week, so I thought I'd better do a post for people that might have dropped in here as a result.

For starters, I am not solely focused on graffiti. I report a lot of graffiti, but that's only because there is a lot of it around to report. I also do my best to get rid of pot holes, fallen trees, abandoned cars, piles of rubbish and broken or faded signage. Yes, that sounds like a lot of work - but it isn't really. I put in about an hour a week most weeks - if I'm lucky. Writing these blog posts often takes more time than photographing and reporting graffiti, abandoned cars etc.

You may notice that my name doesn't appear anywhere on this blog - even though it's now pretty easy to find out who I am. This blog is not about me - it's about you, and what you can do to "make the world a better place". Sounds awfully sappy doesn't it - it's so corny, writing that makes me feel sick.

It's only two weeks until Clean Up Australia Day - March 6th. Hundreds of thousands of Australians will participate for a few hours, helping to clean up their neighbourhood. I applaud that, and I try and take part each year. However, what about the other 364 days of the year? Why do we turn a blind eye on every other day of the year to the mess that surrounds us? Why do we find it acceptable on 364 days of the year to ignore things that need fixing, treating them as "somebody else's problem?"

I think a big part of it is because we've been conditioned to think that "they will take care of it" - "they" being some mysterious arm of government that is all-seeing and all-knowing. Well, "they" don't exist. (If you think "they" exist, put some tinfoil on your head and remember to take your pills). "They" won't fix anything - if you want something fixed, it's up to YOU to do something about it.

Thanks to the Internet, it's pretty easy to do something these days. Here's what you do:

1. Take a photo of the problem
2. Email the photo to the responsible government department, along with a description of the location and the problem, and ask them to fix it up
3. Remember to say "Please"

Every single bit of government that you might need to contact has a web site these days, and every web site has a "contact us" page or an email address for you to use. Use them. They also have phone numbers - I do ring from time to time, but I find that sending in a nice colour photo and a message in writing is more effective.

Don't feel embarrased about doing that - about asking (or nagging) a government agency or your council for help. Just remember, the rates and taxes that we pay are used to pay the salaries of the people working for those government departments, and they are employed to deliver services to us. About 95% of the time, they will actually help you - and they'll sometimes amaze you with how quickly they can fix things. I've spotted a problem on the way to work, reported it an hour later, and gone past it on the way home and found that it's been fixed. (That doesn't happen very often - but it does happen).

Your Council probably has a Service Desk that has been setup solely to look after you (and the other 59,999 residents in your area). Their job is to help you with stuff like this - if you speak to them nicely and treat them with respect, they'll do their best to get the problem fixed. They are humans too - they might even live in the same suburb as you, and they'll thank you for helping to tidy up their neighbourhood as well.

There are times of course when the whole system breaks down, or you find yourself dealing with an utter roadblock. I've dealt with a few of them over the last 3 years - in almost every case, I've found a way to go around or over them. Persisence generally pays off. Just remember to put everything in writing, and try and make an argument that sounds sane and reasonable - I've posted multiple examples throughout this blog. Some of the correspondence that I've had over the years reads a bit like Fawlty Towers at times. At other times, emails or electronic forms have gone missing (eaten by the ghost in the machine) - but all I do then is send it again.

Here's one tip though - almost every government department is absolutely useless at telling you when the problem has been fixed. Most of them simply send a crew out to deal with the problem, and then never follow up to tell you that your issue has been taken care of. If you don't hear back from them, it's  not because they're not doing something about fixing it - it's just that most of them don't have a system to "close the loop". The only way you'll find out that your problem has been fixed is if you go back to the site and have a look for yourself. Give it a couple of weeks - if nothing has happened, send them a follow up message and ask what's going on.

Using Twitter to clean up a city

I recieved a very interesting comment from San Francisco with links to a Twitter feed and a blog dedicated to cleaning up the Mission District. I'd never thought of using Twitter for this - thanks for the tip.

Graffiti time lapse

A wall over the period of less than one month. This was painted out around Christmas time by the RTA, who now regularly paint this without any prompting.

Six days later.

7 days later.

12 days later.

13 Days later.

23 days later.

It doesn't take long, does it?

Results

Ask, and you shall recieve.

The RTA has painted over large slabs of graffiti along the CityWest link. They've also cleaned a number of traffic light cabinets in Drummoyne.

RailCorp have painted over bridge graffiti in Rhodes.

Sydney Water have cleaned up one of their pumping stations in Ryde.

Canada Bay Council have towed away a handful of abandoned cars and removed graffiti from some local playgrounds. Leichhardt council have also removed an abandoned car that I spotted recently on their patch.

Energy Australia have been busy cleaning their kiosks.

It's just a matter of telling them where the problem lies and asking them to fix it.

What do hippies get up to?

I'll start on a lighter note for once - an amusing bit of graffiti under a road bridge in Rhodes. The caption says "Happy New Year (cause U no wat hippies get up 2)". It's nice to see a mildly amusing piece of graffiti once in a blue moon.

Unfortunately, the rest tends to be like this. "Cheers c*nts".

I'm not sure who is responsible for cleaning this up - it's a bureaucratic Bermuda Triangle. This used to be a railway bridge, but it's been converted into a cycle/pedestrian bridge. The question is - who owns it now? Is it still a RailCorp asset, or is it now with the RTA, or the Ministry of Transport, or what? I'm going to have to write a letter to get to the bottom of this one if my website inquiry gets nowhere.

This is the underside of the railway bridge - there is a new railway bridge next to the old one, and this is definitely a RailCorp problem. Issues like this can be reported via the CityRail website. There is a railway underpass near one of the stations that I use from time to time - vandals have sprayed paint over all the light fittings, so it's pitch black after dark. That makes it easier for them to vandalise the tunnel or to rob people, so I've finally remembered to report it to CityRail.

Not long now until I'll have reported 150 vandalised Energy Australia kiosks like this one.

Graffiti in Rydalmere - is it 'artistic' to say that "Fems love big penis"?

Or that "Jared is gay"?

Interesting message on this barrier - "The world is ours". That's a nice thought - now, how about keeping it neat and tidy instead of wandering around damaging and spray painting everything in sight?

This team of vandals have thoughtfully left their names on the back of the barrier. Amazing how much damage 11 teens with a few spray cans can do. The entire area is littered with their tags - and this is a new housing development that really only opened last year. They've been very busy.

The new walking track along the river has a dozen or so street lights overhead - every single one of them has been smashed. Is it the same group that's done all the tagging? Maybe, maybe not.

There used to be a plaque on this rock commemorating.... something. I suspect it's been stolen. I've let Council know.

The summer holidays are always a peak time for graffiti, vandalism and malicious damage. I've seen a number of street signs around the place that have been bent partially or fully over - some have been snapped off. That's not the result of being hit by a car - that's teenagers grabbing the pole and pulling it over. I reported the one below to Canada Bay Council via email on Sunday - they fixed it on Monday. That's another couple of hundred bucks that the ratepayers will have to pick up the tab for.

Graffiti on a Sydney Water pumping station. 2116 is the post code for Rydalmere. I've read a bit about gangs putting up tags with their post code, but this is the first one I have seen east of Parramatta. I've reported this via the Sydney Water web site.

Finally, a problem caused by engineering "vandals". A trench has been dug across the road here between the jetty on the other side of the road and the park behind where I'm standing. When they've filled it in, the crew has either run out of tar, or they've been in a hurry to get home. The surface of the refilled trench is at least an inch below the rest of the road in some places. It's not so bad if you hit that in a car, but it's an almighty crash when you hit it on a bike - and this is one of the busiest bike paths in the inner west.

I emailed Leichhardt Council this morning and asked them to put a bit more tar in the trench - they've logged it and passed it over to their maintenance division for action.

Bits and pieces

Some of the members or visitors to UTS rowers take an occasional liberty with the foot path, parking right across the path. I almost ran (literally) into this one in December - I'm fed up with it, so I reported this to Ashfield Council. A ranger rang me the next day and said he was going down there to have a chat with management about it.

There's been a lot of talk about building bike paths around Sydney of late. The path around the back of Darling Harbour has recently been realigned, widened and painted. Just one problem - they didn't bother to fill in all the enormous holes and cracks in the new route before laying down the paint. I wrote to Clover Moore about this particular one before Christmas, and got a letter back saying it is somebody else's problem - in this case, the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority. That's funny - all the media attention regarding bike paths has been directed at Clover Moore. She's been taking all the credit - but doesn't want to take any of the responsibility for the problems.

This car is a "serial offender" as far as lack of registration goes. It was left on the road all last year until the rego expired. I reported it a few months after the rego expired, and soon after an orange "we're going to tow you away" sticker appeared on it, it was re-registered. The rego has lapsed again - it expired in November. I've reported it again. Let's see if it goes for good this time.

This sign in Lilyfield was bent over to the point where it was going to collect a cyclist sooner or later. I reported it to Leichhardt Council before Christmas, and came back from holidays to find it fixed.

These two Jags have been quietly rusting away in Abbotsford for about 10 years - they were last registered about that long ago. They used to have drop sheets over them - they rotted and finally blew off in a storm late last year.

I've reported them to Council - because they are on trailers, I'm not sure about the laws regarding towing them away. We'll see - it will be an interesting test case.

A few more for the crusher

A short stroll around the suburb last week unearthed a handful of abandoned vehicles. I don't go for a walk looking for these things - I go for a walk to stretch my legs. I just have an eye for spotting things that look out of place - like rusting, spider web covered out of rego abandoned vehicles.

The first was a courier van that hasn't done any deliveries for 18 months - the rego expired in Feb 2009.

If I can find the rego sticker (not all abandoned cars have one visible), I photograph it and email it to Council, along with a photo of the vehicle and the street address where I found it. Council can only remove vehicles if the rego has expired, so they know you're not wasting their time if you send them evidence that the rego expired long ago. They don't want to have to do a pile of paperwork, only to find that the vehicle is still registered. (Sometimes it is registered, but the owner hasn't bothered to attach the new rego sticker - you can cop a $75 fine for forgetting to do that).

I found two abandoned cars on opposite sides of the street. The rego of one expired almost 12 months ago, and the other one about 6 months ago.

I guess this car was crashed into something, and the owner couldn't be bothered fixing it - so they just abandoned it in the street - leaving it to the ratepayer to pay for its removal. Some people have no class at all.

Art - cabinets and laneways

I spotted these in a laneway in the city last week - it's a series of 5 babushka dolls that have been glued to the wall.

The lower part of each doll is a montage of photos of large dolls that someone has lugged around Sydney and photographed in iconic locations. I'm assuming this is guerrilla art of some sort - it makes a lovely change from the tags that are sometimes scrawled along these walls.

Canada Bay Council has engaged an artist to beautify a number of RTA traffic light cabinets around the Drummoyne area. Personally, I think the cabinets in Leichhardt are better - but that's just my personal taste. This is certainly much better than the graffiti tags that were there previously.

I just hope that Council views this as a success, and rolls it out across the rest of the Canada Bay area.

More of these dolls - anyone for a pie floater?

Smashing stuff - update

Someone - I am assuming Council - cleaned up this smashed pay phone very quickly. I reported it after 5pm on Thursday, and by 7am on Friday, the pay phone had been wrapped in warning tape and all the glass on the footpath had been swept up.

They didn't get all the glass - some was left on the road and in the bike lane - but the turnaround time was quite amazing.

Smashing stuff

A Telstra pay phone tonight - a car went over the kerb and smashed the advertising screen on the back of it. Might have been an impatient driver who didn't want to wait for someone turning right, went around them and found that the road wasn't wide enough. The police turned up, and a tow truck took the car away.

Result - broken glass all over the footpath and road.

The impact must have been fairly hard, as glass was sprayed a good 10 metres down the road.

The owner of the car isn't going to clean up all that glass. The police won't do it either, or the tow truck driver. Lot's of people had a look at the glass when I went past, but no one seemed inclined to do anything about it.

I've emailed these photos to Council, along with the location. They'll probably have it cleaned up tomorrow. If you don't tell them about it, how can they take care of it?

How a rubbish trap is supposed to work

We've had good rain for the last few days - the run off has flushed plenty of rubbish down the local canals and into the rubbish traps that line the harbour. This trap in Lilyfield has come adrift twice so far this year - when it's floating around aimlessly, it isn't collecting rubbish like this.

When I see all this rubbish being scooped up by the trap, it makes the minor hassle of reporting it all seem worthwhile.

Pot holes filled - success

The pot holes in Lilyfield that I reported on Wednesday have all been filled in.

See - all you have to do is report them.

Testing, testing...

John Rolfe, the "public defender" at the Daily Telegraph has started a campaign to get councils to fix basic services - like pot holes in our streets.

Good on him.

Canada Bay Council is generally pretty good at fixing pot holes - if you bother to tell them where they are. When I spot a pot hole, I try and photograph it, then email it to Council along with the location and approximate size. In some cases, I've reported one I've seen on the way to work and then found that it's been fixed by the time I've headed for home. The key thing is letting Council know they've got a problem - they can't be everywhere at once.

We've had some heavy rain around here lately, and possibly as a result, at least a dozen pot holes have opened up in Perry Lane, Lilyfield (near Le Montage). Most are the size of dinner plates or larger, and a few inches deep.

By the look of all those tar patches, plenty of pot holes have opened up here previously.

I emailed the top photo to Leichhardt Council on Wednesday morning, and got a response just after lunch. The pot holes have been logged. I go past here every few days - I'll keep an eye on how long it takes them to fill them in.

Destruction of public property

Vandals just love smashing up our local bus shelters. This is the 2nd or 3rd time that I've reported this particular one in Abbotsford. Last time, the glass panel was completely smashed and there was glass all over the footpath. This one is right outside a primary school and day care centre- big chunks of broken glass and little kids don't go well together.

Bus shelters are owned and maintained by our local Councils, not the bus companies. So ratepayers are paying for this damage directly.

I've emailed this photo to Canada Bay Council, along with the address of the bus shelter. Council are generally very good at getting onto problems like this - once they know about them. If there is glass all over the footpath, they'll have someone out straight away to clean it up. Replacing the glass panel usually takes a little longer.

Unfortunately, a lot of people (including bus passengers) look at the broken glass and think that somebody else will take care of fixing it up. No they won't - if you want it fixed, you need to do something about it. Something as simple as emailing Council to tell them about the problem.