ANTHONY New of Sutherland Shire is an Australian Cyclists Party candidate for the NSW upper house.
The party has 15 candidates standing for the upper house and six for the lower house at the 2015 state election.
Mr New, who studied Sports Science at the University of NSW, said successive state governments had not implemented a transport and infrastructure program able to cope with current and future needs in an integrated and sustainable way.
"We need an integrated approach to transportation, not just focusing on bicycles," he said.
"We need to encourage bicycles but they need to be integrated into the overall transport system.
"Bicycles are best used for trips of between five to 10 kilometres but we want to encourage people to ride their bikes to the train station to get to work.
"This means we need lock-up facilities for bikes at train stations; we need to encourage companies to have facilities at work for people who ride bikes to shower and change.
"It works well for those who get to exercise on the way to work, and for companies who have an energetic and focused staff.
"Research shows that every trip a cyclist takes saves $21 for the economy through health benefits.
"[But] we are supporting all forms of transport.
"We are simply looking at all options of getting people around.
"We are not trying to force people to do something they don't want to do; we are simply giving an alternative."
Mr New said the Australian Cyclists Party was not a one-issue party.
"The Cyclists Party opposes the privatisation of electricity simply because it is a profitable business.
"We are not opposed to privatisation as such, but it needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis, based on the evidence.
"We are also opposed to the WestConnex road project, because it is a cost-ineffective piece of infrastructure which will fail to return on investment.
"Every metre of road is going to cost $500,000 — bicycle infrastructure costs $1.5 million a kilometre."
What do you think of the Australian Cyclists Party's policies?
