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By admin, June 14, 2013

Cox’s Bay Boardwalk Opening

The Waitemata Board is happy to annouce the public opening for the first of their Greenways projects – the Cox Bay Boardwalk, which was widened during reconstruction so as to allow walkers and cyclists to share it better.

Come to tomorrow’s (Saturday 15th June) opening at 11:30am at Cox’s Bay Reserve. For more details, click here.

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War Memorial Park Greenway Section Open

We have also been remiss in not calling attention to another piece of the Greenways network, this time in the Puketapapa area. Last Friday, Mayor Len Brown and Local Board Chair Richard Barter opened a further section of their growing Greenways network, this one through War Memorial Park.

The changes involved path widening, and replacing some steps leading onto a bridge over a local creek with a cycleable ramp. Read about the project here, and how the routes in Richard’s board area are the envy of many other areas in Auckland.

Also worth mentioning at this time is that CAA has been working with Auckland Transport and the Local Board on a new cycleway that will link War Memorial Park with the Mt Roskill Grammar School cluster and the cycleway bridge over the motorway at Keith Hay Park. This is a project which we understand is goign to happen relatively soon.

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By admin, January 29, 2013

Guest blog by James S.

As someone who lives in the wider Dominion Road area, I was asked by CAA if I wanted to do a guest post on the recently announced changes to the road, and what I thought of them.

If you’re completely new to the Dominion Road plans then they might sound quite good. They will include better bus lanes, more amenities for pedestrians and some back-road cycleways. What’s not to like? But what makes the Dominion Road decision depressing is that if you look closely, in many ways it represents a real loss for cycling and cyclists in Auckland. To explain why I have to delve into the history of the project a bit.

Most of the council’s own documents have been taken down so I’ve linked several times to the Auckland Transport Blog as it commented a lot on the plans as they were being developed.

The History of Dominion Road

In 2004 Dominion Road was designated for a 24 hour passenger (i.e., public) transport route. This designation meant that the council had the legal right to reclaim 1-2 metres of store frontage from shops alongside Dominion Road to create a bus or light rail corridor. It also designated some land around Valley and Balmoral Roads for bus stations that were behind Dominion Road.

In June, 2010 Auckland City Council put forward a plan to use some (though not much) of the designation to upgrade Dominion Road and the three main shopping centres along it. The basic aim of this upgrade was to try and create a high quality bus route that would support intensified development.

Incidentally, however, Auckland City Council also proposed continuous cycle lanes along the route, which would have been physically separated (probably by slightly raising the road) from the bus lanes. As you can see in the diagram at the right, to create space for both a high quality bus route and cycle way, Auckland City Council proposed to remove the on-street carparking on Dominion Road.

This proposal instantly became very controversial because local shop owners felt strongly that removing the on-street carparking would damage their businesses. They were probably wrong about this because studies from overseas and in Auckland NZ have shown that removing parking in exchange for better walking and cycling facilities can actually lead to an increased spend for adjacent shops.

Sadly, locals were supported in their opposition to the proposal by all of the local councilors who were vying for re-election at the time (Cathy Casey and Glenda Fryer, Christine Fletcher) and so Auckland City Council officials were told to rethink. Some time later, the project then got handed over to the newly formed Auckland Transport.

In July, 2011 Auckland Transport came back with a scaled down proposal which retained on-street parking but looked to extend bus lanes around key villages on the route during peak hours only. It also aimed to provide cycle lanes where “room allows.”  In fact, these wouldn’t really have been “cycle lanes” in the sense of being physically separated from the buses, but they would at least have provided a 4.5 metre wide lane for buses and cycles to share.

Unfortunately, however, this proposal was expensive because it could not be done without widening the road. Widening roads cost heaps because you have to relocate services sideways, away from the traffic lane under the footpath (e.g., water pipes, stormwater, electricity cables).

So, in October 2012 Auckland Transport’s Board announced that they had approved an even more scaled-down version of the project which would extend the bus lanes slightly at peak time, retain on-street car parking (off-peak in the bus lanes) and involving some small upgrades for cyclists on side streets, but not on Dominion Road.

So in just two years we went from a proposal for the first high quality, on-road cycle lanes on a major regional arterial in Auckland, to a plan for some very small improvements to current cycling facilities. This is pretty much the same story that has been repeated in Auckland over the last 10 years many times. A major roading project is proposed and carried out which creates some improvements to public transport, some upgrades for pedestrians, and almost nothing for cyclists.

My next blog post is about why I think the upgrades to cycle lanes that are being proposed are of dubious value and why this whole project represents a major lost opportunity.

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By admin, November 6, 2012

You may have heard of the decision to proceed with an $47 million upgrade of Dominion Road. What may not be obvious – especially when reading about how positively various groups reacted – is that this project is actually a significant cutback from an earlier proposal, which was costed at approximately $100 million.

Auckland Transport’s Board decided that due to the high costs (the extra $53 million) involved in relocating the kerbs and underground services, they will now leave widening of most of the corridor’s bus lanes to an unspecified future time.

This is a major disappointment for cycling, and also a concern for public transport, as buses and cyclists will be forced to coexist in a very tight corridor of 3m wide bus lanes – each hindering the other. Buses will also struggle more to get through congestion spots, around cars turning in and out of driveways etc…

You may remember that Cycle Action has in the past fought hard for dedicated cycle facilities – not just shared bus lanes – on Dominion Road. However, the necessary removal of parking was the lightning rod for a lot of fears about the project, especially by local shopkeers who still believe that most of their customers will drive from far away to park outside their shop, not seeing that a cycle friendly city actually benefits local shops (why drive far away to a big shop when you can cycle to your local cafe or dairy?).

Yet despite losing the fight for dedicated cycle lanes, we thought that at the very least, the 4.5m wide bus lanes would create a significant improvement for cyclists on Dominion Road.

Continue reading 'The Dominion Road Decision'»

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By admin, September 26, 2012

Here we have an inspiring video from the Cycle Summit featuring Richard Barter, the chair of the Puketapapa Local Board, describing the “Greenways” project (we blogged about it before, but Richard gives a much better summary of it than we did).

How can one not be uplifted by that message that cyclists CAN have their own protected space – where they can visit friends, do errands, or just ride – all without needing to be on a road? We’re quite a bit away from that in Auckland, but Puketapapa is taking what they have, and making more of it. A great message for all of Auckland – if your Local Board doesn’t have a plan for a network of cycle paths, ask them why!

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By Max, April 29, 2012

Some of us recently had the chance to hear Richard Barter – long-time champion of transport cycling and chair of the Puketapapa Local Board – speak to the Auckland Transport Board.

CAA was delighted that Richard’s Board was making their Greenways project the centrepiece of their submission. Even ahead of discussing Dominion Road, buses and future rail links, the Board sought AT’s support for their plan to connect their greenspaces with high-quality walking and cycling links. See their whole plan below.

Continue reading 'Puketapapa Local Board – Big on walking & cycling'»