Faith and Val are joined in the studio by Nik Dow of Bike Melbourne. We share our usual bike moments before turning to the Draft City of Melbourne budget currently out for consultation. Nik explains that Despite Mayor Reece's commitment during the 2024 elections to “maintain investment in bike lanes over the next four years at the same level as the previous term of council”, the draft budget shows a huge cut to funding.The City of Melbourne is proposing to spend more on Christmas decorations than it will on building new protected bike lanes and will fall significantly behind in its aims to build 50km of new physically protected bicycle lanes by 2030 on local roads. City of Melbourne is proposing to spend $1.5M in comparison to the City of Sydney spending $13M in an area twice the CoM. With such a small investment the schedule for buidling the nwtork of 50km of new protected bike lanes by 2030 can never be met. You can make your submission to the Draft Budget here. (The section for the first text box is "Bike Lane Funding") Share your story about riding in Melbourne, or not being able to, and ask that funding be re-instated to the same levels as the previous term of Council. You can also join the Critical Mass Ride planned for this Friday in the City with the theme BIG CITY LIGHTS!