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By Max, May 17, 2012

It’s great to see more cyclists sticking with their new transport mode when it gets chillier. In most European countries, cycling remains popular in winter – and Copenhageners aren’t even bothered too much by deep snow: the cycleways get swept just as much as the car lanes (video)!

But Auckland, even without snow, still “loses” about a third of our cyclists in the cold months.

Auckland Transport have now created a winter cycling campaign that aims to keep you safe, warm – and out and about. Some highlights for the coming months:

• Bike workshops all around Auckland on how to make your bike and yourself ready for winter
• Light stops – Auckland Transport will be handing out free bike lights to cyclists on various cycleways during late May and June!
• Coffee stops – Check in with your helmet at one of the participating cafes on these days, and get a free coffee to warm hands and belly…

The whole programme is online at Auckland Transport’s Winter Cycling page.

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By Max, May 15, 2012

Guest post by the AHB Pathway Trust

1. It’s our goal to provide the Pathway at no cost to ratepayers (in fact we believe the project will be a revenue earner for Council)
2. The $1.3 million seed funding requested for the LTP can be capitalised and reimbursed.
3. The Pathway project is now at detailed design stage.

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By Max, May 14, 2012

Earlier this year, CAA attended a workshop of Auckland Council on the impacts of the shared space areas in the City Centre. These streets remove the traditional kerb boundary between “road” and “footpath” and encourage everyone to mingle in one common, shared space – including car drivers and cyclists. The design and the road rules encourage slow traffic, and vehicles have to give way. Putting people first in the road is a very new concept for our car-focused city, but is really a very ancient one too – many historical cities have no defined boundary between the carriageway and the footpath in their (usually quite old) inner cities, and work well for people, without needing to exclude cars altogether.

The Council workshop we attended focused particularly on Fort Street, as only part (the westernmost block) of the street was changed to shared space ahead of the RWC – and the design for the centre and eastern thirds would be subject to a design review to decide whether shared space would be used there as well.

The good news is that the eastern third will now also become shared space (yay!), based on monitoring results and public feedback that generally supported the concept. Most businesses were also happy that the upgrade was working for the area, and supported further shared space area for the eastern block.

Meanwhile, the centre block will remain a more traditional design, with a “u-loop” street environment from Customs Street East, accessing via Commerce and Gore Streets – though even the middle block will see significant improvements, such as much wider footpaths.

Some interesting results that the monitoring and review research found was:

• Significantly lowered vehicle speeds in the shared space zones (the exact level of speed reduction was mentioned, but we have to apologise, as we didn’t note it down…)
• While people still drive TO the shared spaces roughly as much as they used to, motorists just driving THROUGH were reduced by about 25%
• Existing on-street parking was mostly used not by “locals” but instead by people parking there and then going to other parts of the city centre

One item that sadly was not covered all that deeply in the monitoring was cycling – so what are your opinions? Is shared space in the city centre working for people on bikes?

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By Max, May 12, 2012

The Triangle Road cycle lanes have finally been upgraded – and one of the most frustrating experiences for local Auckland cyclists is over!

As many of our readers will know from blog posts on here, articles elsewhere in the cycling world, or from personal experience – riding the Triangle Road cycle lanes in West Auckland during peak hours was a quite aggravating experience.

If you weren’t being endangered by some ruthless driver entering the cycle lane (we heard of at least two such crashes) then you normally found the lane blocked by cars – often dozens of them, stretching for hundreds of meters before the Lincoln Road intersection. Larger signs? Didn’t work against drivers determined to get onto the motorway any way they could. Police enforcement? Not enough staffing resources to make a dent in driver behaviour.

A year or so after the problem really became public, the advocacy work from Cycle Action Auckland and individual users, and the design and construction efforts from Auckland Transport, have now finally born fruit. Since this week the cycle lane is divided off from car traffic by solid rubber kerbs, further emphasised by flexible bollards. Auckland Transport also undertook some road widening and car park relocation (which is why the project ended up longer and more costly than just adding the dividers) to reduce the temptation for drivers to feel that they “needed” to enter the cycle lane.

We are already getting a lot of excitement from cyclists like “It’s heaps better. Cycling up there is almost fun with no cars in your way. Auckland Transport deserves praise.“

It was a long one coming, and an at times frustrating project – but it’s great to know we have a permanent solution which seems to work just as intended. Cyclists now have a free route again, and we have an example project for other locations.

Welcome to what possibly is the first “protected cycle lane” in Auckland.

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By Max, May 11, 2012

The University of Auckland, back in 2010, researched the health benefits from shifting just 5% of NZ’s vehicle kilometres currently travelled by car onto bikes (an eminently achievable goal which is being exceeded in much of the first world, especially Europe and Asia).

As noted, that research is from 2010, but the use of the statistics by a group of health professionals advocating for more cycling funding for Auckland made me look it up again, and the health benefits are, to say it bluntly, staggering.

116 deaths avoided annually in New Zealand among those people who now cycle, or cycle more. 6 deaths avoided annually from reduced air pollution. On the downside, 5 more deaths through cyclist fatalities. However this number already incorporates the effect that extra cyclists increase the “per person” safety of all cyclists – so this is not a “trade-off”, but actually also represents a safety as well as a health improvement.

This research is not, as such, ground-breaking. It follows in the footsteps of well-documented research and statistics from all over the world. The key is that it documents, right here and now, what this would mean for Auckland and New Zealand. The economic benefits of the 117 combined deaths avoided alone is $200 million, and that does not yet include all the other benefits, tangible and intangible, such as reduced congestion, and less need for costly transport infrastructure.

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