A friend who lives in Darebin City Council area in Melbourne sent me through a link to the Darebin Shared Path Etiquette. This is definitely my kind of community project – fun, positive, effective, low-cost and high-impact community participation, consultation and awareness-raising. I was delighted to see a city council being proactive and engaging the locals. Appropriately sharing pathways for all users; be they cyclists, pedestrians, dog walkers, or fitness groups, can be an issue. Such problems need to be recognised and discussed – bringing it to the streets makes this conversation a lot more personal, accessible and immediate – and the free ice-cream was also an added bonus for some I am sure!
Initiative
This Council Community Engagement Initiative arises from ‘concerns about behaviour [are] raised by the community on a regular basis, which led us to embark on 4 community workshops in November – we are now inviting the community to develop a shared path etiquette that encourages safe, respectful and considerate riding and walking on our shared paths, so everyone can enjoy using them‘ (Darebin City Council Facebook page).
Outcomes
During these community workshops, participants were asked to contribute their ideas and the responses were posted on the council event facebook page (a sample of which I have re-posted below). The input from these consultations and workshops will help inform the Darebin City Council’s Shared Path Etiquette Strategy.
To contribute your own vote to this discussion click here – voting closes January 5th 2016.
