I joined the early morning commuter bike crush on the Devonport ferry yesterday morning to ride to Dominion Rd for an appointment with Lachlan Forsyth (Campbell Live), his camera man John, Randhir Karma and Mark Hannan (Auckland Transport) to film an item about collaboration to fix pinch points on our main cycling routes. I’m working with Randhir and Mark on a number of projects- they are both genuinely committed to help Cycle Action change Auckland for cycling.

While riding up Symonds St and along Dominion Rd to our meeting place at the Valley Rd intersection, I noted how free fellow commuters in cars were to use their horns if other drivers or I (on my bike caused) a couple of seconds delay in their race to work. It was a reality check for me on the stress and impatience hemmed up behind some of those steering wheels. I was therefore well informed for my interview to ask motorists to give other road users a break, as a key to improved safe road sharing.

(The programme will screen this coming week – we’ll give you an update nearer the time.)
I was reminded of drivers’ stress and impatience this morning as I read the article posted on our Facebook yesterday, (thanks Caron) about Sydney’s success in the last 2 years to relieve congestion by achieving an 82% increase in cycling. Part of the success has been to reduce driver agro towards other road users including people cycling.

The increased funding for cycling improvements in Auckland is nowhere near as high as Sydney’s. This means we have to be more collaborative and creative in making the best of our lower budget. I’m wondering if I should be talking to the AA about providing free yoga lessons for motorists, so they know to pause for a breath for a couple of seconds, to give other road users a break and safe space on the road is an option. Any other ideas?

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5 Responses to “Take a breath and give us a break”

1. Julie says:

   July 1, 2012 at 12:08 pm

   I have just returned from Hols in Broome WA, a local told me that most folk there use cycles to get around – and they do, beacuse we saw heaps of them. Mind you Broome is all flat, and is a small place, and has shared bike/peds paths everywhere. Good mindset though.
   Another local comment was ‘Auckland is pretty hilly isn’t it”. My reply was “Yes, but modern bikes have gears, and its not hard”.
   My question, now back home, is: Why aren’t all our footpaths shared spaces – they are wide enough!
2. Max says:

   July 1, 2012 at 8:35 pm

   Hi Julie – yeah, the “Auckland is hilly” comment! I always answer that if that was what was holding us back, then there should be lots of cyclists around most of Manukau, much of which is pretty flat! No – hills have some influence, but we should never accept them as a cop-out for the need to improve our infrastructure and our driving culture.

   As for shared paths, we agree – everything 3m or wider should be shared paths, except maybe if it’s on Queen Street or Broadway.
3. Alan says:

   July 2, 2012 at 2:32 pm

   Great choice of a location that illustrates a pinch point. Its horrible their, buses and cars jostling for position neither playing to much attention to the speed limit and wilfully confusing it with the higher one on Ian Mckinnon, and all trying to beat the orange light. Accident waiting to happen.

   Personally I’d love to hear few more la cucaracha horns around that might cheer motorists up a bit. In all seriousness I think the best way to help stressed out drivers is to get them out of there cars and do so by providing viable alternatives. Or maybe so research and advertising on the stress levels and higher blood pressure caused by letting commuter traffic get the better of you.
4. Paul says:

   July 2, 2012 at 2:42 pm

   I must be a sick puppy as I am generally looking for hills on my daily cycle commutes … As for shared paths – not good if you cycle at any speed. You must admit your average pedestrian walks like alot of motorists drive (and as for people backing out of driveways at high speed …)
   No – I’m happy sticking to the back streets on my bike providing ther ain’t too many motorists doing a high speed sneak through there trying to get ahead of the game
5. Max says:

   July 6, 2012 at 4:35 pm

   Paul – shared paths aren’t alike. It really depends on how many driveways you have, how wide they are, and how many pedestrians are around. Some work quite well, even for faster cyclists, as long as they are willing to slow down SOMEtimes. Others, of course, are totally useless for commute-type trips, and others are outright dangerous (though AT is rarely building something like that today). So it remains horses for courses.