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By BarbC, May 20, 2013

Last Thursday Cycle Action was at the Albany Busway Station handing out flyers for our on-line survey to learn how more people can be encouraged to cycle to the Busway. It’s a real buzz watching the empty buses pull in – passengers fill them in a few minutes and buses whisk them up to the Busway, to be replaced immediately by another empty bus. Passengers say the peak hour return trip from the University precinct is hectic, as the the North Star buses can’t cope with the huge demand. I hope AT is working to fix this – but we were hugely impressed by how the slick the operation is at the start of the day.

We used any spare moments to talk to bus drivers – they were all bursting to tell us how they fear sharing bus lanes with cyclists. I told them we feel the same about sharing with buses. All of the bus drivers were well disposed towards cyclists. The simple reality is their buses are very big and drivers have limited visibility to the rear; cyclists are tiny and flighty in comparison.

All of us have stories of bus drivers who don’t treat us with respect. Here’s a rare chance to learn how bus drivers feel. It pays us to do this, as we’re often in the same road pathway - 44km of the 280km of  ’completed‘ Auckland Cycle Network are on bus lanes. We’d love to change this overnight, but our shared use is the best we can do for now. In the meantime we want your ideas on what cyclists can do to improve our safety while sharing bus lanes.

The bus drivers’ describe that  they are careful to locate cyclists as they approach them, so they can pass them safely. They report that cyclists who were on their left on approach, often turn up on their right when the bus stopped at the lights. One woman bus driver reported her fright on Friday in hearing a cyclist’s helmet hit her right hand mirror as he passed the bus to reach the green stop box at the front of the lane.

This story confirms the hazards of our poor cycling infrastructure. We desperately need lead- in lanes to make stop boxes effective, as well as ensuring there are no more narrow bus lanes.  We’ve got a new project underway with AT to start fixing this.  In the meantime we need to share ideas on how we can respond safely to the bulk and lumbering moves of buses and our city’s cycling infrastructure. If we have enough good ideas, we’ll ask AT to help us spread the word to the cycling and bus communities.

PLEASE save your complaints for another time – give us your creative ideas NOW –  this is your chance to make bus lane cycling safer for you and our cycling mates. 

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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 BarbC, December 15, 2012

I was rung on Thursday by AT’s Road Corridor Operations Manager inviting me to meet in the new year as consultation for a paper he will be preparing for the AT Board on the contentious “taxis in bus lanes” trial idea raised by Nikki Kaye and supported by the Chief Operating Officer at Auckland Transport a month ago.

When we first heard about this, I asked Auckland Transport why the trial was important, what was its priority (compared with current programmes and workstreams that have been publicly debated and approved), and what was the anticipated cost of the road markings, new signs and monitoring needed for the trial? I was told these questions could not be answered… yet!

I asked the Road Corridor Ops Manager these same questions on Thursday, but he also seems to be working in a void at this stage. I suggested to him that if he had spare money for bus lane operation and management, he would be better to fund more of the successful bus/cycle workshop pilots supported by NZTA in Auckland last year. Sadly our local transport body hasn’t picked up the ball on this clever initiative.

You have to wonder about the time management skills and commercial acumen being displayed on this topic. If AT is so easily distracted by political flights of fancy like the taxi trial, no wonder they are slow to deliver essential and basic items like a cycling-friendly Code of Practice for road management; a consistent cycle lane maintenance regime across Auckland; secure, covered bike parking at train stations and key destinations (still no bike parking outside the town hall / mayor’s office!) or upgrading traffic lights so they respond to cycles as well as motor vehicles.

Come on guys – we’re a team in this Supercity – remember?

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By BarbC, November 12, 2012

Outrage within the cycling community was triggered late last week by Auckland Transport’s decision to  support a trial to allow taxis to use bus lanes. We owe thanks to the Herald’s transport reporter, Matthew Dearnaley, for his story on the trial in Thursday’s paper. And today, we find we have an ally in Brian Rudman, who is similarly gobsmacked by the idea to open bus lanes to taxis.

The timing of this news is unfortunate, as we are still adjusting to news of major cost savings on the Dominion Rd bus lane upgrade project, which mean that buses and cycles will continue to share a 3m wide lane, despite planned increases in bus volumes to equal the Northern Busway.

Most bus lanes in Auckland are identified as arterial connections in AT’s regional cycle network. For this reason we asked AT on Friday how the trial fits with AT’s public transport and cycling objectives. AT confirmed the Herald’s advice that Nikki Kaye put the issue on the table by requesting the trial for the Taxi Federation. We’re still waiting to hear from AT, Nikki or the Taxi Fed why the trial deserves public funding, when other longstanding PT and cycling priorities have been shelved because of lack of money. So far no reasons have been given to justify the trial occuring at this time.

In the meantime we have flagged these issues to AT and Nikki.

• Because most bus lanes are also included in the Auckland Regional Cycle Network, we are disappointed that NZ Bus and Cycle Action were not consulted before AT decided to support the trial (we accept that putting cyclists into lanes with buses is far from ideal; for now it is a pragmatic solution to the tight funding for PT and cycling).
• Cycle Action has had a longstanding, strong relationship with NZ Bus, and more recently, also works closely also with Ritchies Buses. We recognise that shared use of bus lanes needs careful management by both transport modes. NZ Bus has paid for its drivers to do the NZTA’s Road User Workshops, creating a safer road sharing culture on bus lanes. It is ironic that NZ Bus and Cycle Action were meeting to discuss further co-operation at the time that the New Zealand Herald tried to ring us for comment on the news of the taxi trial.
• Anecdotal evidence from cyclists suggests many taxi drivers do not understand or respect cyclists’ needs. If AT has spare money for taxi initiatives, we suggest road user workshops for taxi drivers would be a more productive investment of public funds.
• We note that the trial will absorb staff resources and incur other costs for new signage, road markings and monitoring. We question this expenditure when we are told regularly by AT staff that funds are very limited / unavailable for initiatives needed to help grow cycling and integrated transport – bike parking at train and bus interchanges, more effective monitoring, and basic maintenance of existing cycling infrastructure, (including cycle lane symbols and greening which enhance the safety of cycle lanes). We understand that money is tight, and understand that this means that priorities will be set in a public process (which is what the RLTP is all about) and ‘nice to have’ items saved for better times.

We wish someone could tell us why this taxi trial is SO important to integrated transport, AND in keeping with safety / efficiency of existing bus lanes users, that it has been allowed to jump the funding queue.

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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'»