Comments (3)

By BarbC, May 25, 2013

We’ve been going great guns with our on-line survey about cycling to the Northern Busway Stations.

Since blogging about the survey last week, we’ve done 3  morning stints joining the early birds arriving at 5.30am at the Albany, Constellation and Smales Bus Stations. We started by arriving for the 6.00am buses, and staying until 9.00am. It was a bit bleak at first – but soon each of the stations was alive with fast buses arriving and departing, thousands of people arriving to the clean, well lit stations, some buying coffee before being whisked away to town and smaller numbers waiting for suburban- bound buses.  Albany, Constellation and Smales Stations all have booths selling hot coffee which you can take on the bus, which seems civilised.

We’ve handed out nearly 3,000 flyers for the survey, and in the process, met people keen to talk about how the bus feeders could be improved. Our overall impression is of a pretty slick service which is connecting the Shore to the Central City very well. Our response rate is good - 420 responses to the survey so far – and we’ve learnt lots about how the feeder buses and cycling could be made more attractive. We’re reporting the results officially to Auckland Transport on Monday. After that we’ll be able to share the results with you.

The survey will be live ’til mid next week. We’d love to hit the 500 mark for survey responses. You could help  - the survey takes only 1 minute, and is really easy to answer. 

If you know anyone living on the North Shore, north of Takapuna, please get them to fill it in. We’re keen to hear from everyone – cyclists and non-cyclists – who use the Busway now, or may at any time in the future. 

Comments (8)

By admin, May 22, 2013

For those who are curious, but haven’t been out that way recently, here are a few photos of the Grafton Gully Cycleway’s first stage (between Grafton Road, at the Business School, and Alten Road / Stanley Street).

Works to come also include cycleway changes to the Alten Road signals at the bottom. And of course, there’s 4 other stages to complete the whole route, plus AT’s Beach Road work… in the short run, Stage 1 especially may be much more popular with pedestrians than cyclists, so we have been keen to ensure it is wide enough for both.

NZTA in cooperation with CAA have in recent months also put a lot of thought into how to make the gradients as smooth as possible to ease your climb up the gully. We won’t be able to avoid steeper bits totally, but it gives us some confidence that the future rise from the sea-level to the Northwestern Cycleway at Ian McKinnon Drive will be over a much greater length than if one went the currently preferred* route of Anzac Avenue and Symonds Street. So hopefully, this will also make the ride up the hill overall less of a struggle.

*Well, preferred from a gradient point of view. Lots of people, especially those new to cycling, prefer not to ride in the heavy bus traffic on that route… – which is kinda the point of the whole Grafton Gully route!

Its exciting to see progress, but the coolest stuff is still to come, as we near Grafton Bridge and the top over the next year…

Comments (2)

By admin, May 13, 2013

From Bevan Woodward, SkyPath Trust

Council supports SkyPath:
Last week Council’s Strategy & Finance Committee voted to support Len Brown’s recommendation for Council staff to advance their work on SkyPath’s funding and delivery arrangements. This will then come back to Council for their consideration which if positive would enable SkyPath to be implemented.

Cost savings identified:
Beca Infrastructure have further analysed the bridge strengthening works required for SkyPath and, through an innovative solution, have significantly reduced the complexity and costs of this work. NZTA will now consider their financial contribution to these strengthening works.

The updated cost estimate (before NZTA’s contribution) is $30.5 million, this includes the landings at each end, special night lighting, security measures, observation decks and a contingency of $4 million.

Updated business case:
Auckland Transport has worked with Ernst & Young to update their business case. The low use/low growth patronage scenario now shows an overall surplus of circa $10 million. We are awaiting their figures for the high use/high growth patronage scenario.

Working with key stakeholders:
We have been in dialogue with the various stakeholder groups as we work on the detail of SkyPath’s landings at each end, see:
http://www.skypath.org.nz/project-status/consultation/

We have reviewed the Northcote Residents Association, St Marys Bay Association and Westhaven Marina Users Association’s submissions to Council which outlined why they are opposed to SkyPath. We believe that each of their concerns are addressed or can be resolved to enable SkyPath to proceed.

“SeaPath” to connect SkyPath to Takapuna:
Northcote Residents Association were keen for us to provide a seamless connection through to Takapuna so that there would be far fewer people using the streets of Northcote Point. Hence we developed “SeaPath” which is now with NZTA and Auckland Transport to develop, see:
http://www.skypath.org.nz/the-seapath/

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or feedback.

Comments (10)

By admin, May 10, 2013

Hello all riding on the Northwestern Cycleway – and between Pt Chevalier and Waterview on the “spur cycleway” along Great North Road.

Due to construction in the centre area of the Pt Chevalier Interchange, the footpath / cycleway there (shown in red at the right) will be closed until 2017. This means that the walk/cycleway through Unitec may get busier.

There have been some complaints in the past about cyclists riding past pedestrians in this area at unsafe (or simply startling) speeds. It would be good if everyone could look out for each other. Smiles work too.

To help, CAA has in recent months asked for a variety of safety measures in the area, running from fixing a variety of broken streetlights to adding additional signage and warning markings on roads and cycleways. Recently AT and the Well-Connected Alliance on our request also installed temporary “flexi-post” markers to get drivers to slow down / stay a bit further away from the narrowest part of the shared path along Great North Road.

[All images from the Well-Connected Alliance's Waterview Construction Newsletter]

Comments (0)

By admin, May 9, 2013

Hi all – we have slowed down on the blog a bit recently. Mostly because we are flat out with various things. So we thought we would give you a quick roundup of what’s going on:

Grafton Gully Cycleway – construction of Stage 1 is well advanced (see photo, state 2 weeks ago), and ongoing design on other sections focuses on minimising the gradients.

Regional Cycle Network – CAA and AT are discussing how and where to start retrofitting “completed” sections that are not up to spec, and how to get additional funding for this work. CAA and AT are also discussing priorities for new build. Your input will be sought in the coming months.

CAA Internals – we recently had a very productive committee meet to discuss our strategic priorities – and how to better articulate them to members and public.

SH16 Input – CAA is feeding into various cycle-related NZTA designs of the big Northwestern Motorway works started and coming over the next couple years. Next up is more input into the future layout at St Lukes Interchange.

Bike parking – we have been working with AT to ensure more quality (secure and under-cover) bike parking at ferry terminals, including the new terminals at Beachhaven and Hobsonville, new train stations such as Panmure and new bus interchanges coming for the new bus network.

Unitary Plan – CAA is prepping feedback on this. Bad: We want less sprawl than proposed. Good: Cycle parking rules, greater emphasis on cycling and cycleable settlement.

Great South Road (Takanini Interchange) – CAA and AT had further discussions about the shared path proposed for the eastern side of GSR. CAA isn’t fully happy with the quality proposed due to some high-volume driveways, but acknowledges that the AT engineers are doing their best within a constrained budget.

Whangaparaoa Road Upgrade – AT has advised us that the previously awful-for-cycling design has been significantly improved, but now has to be re-lodged for funding application, as the costs have also increased accordingly. Well, quality rarely comes cheap.

Upcoming public meeting – after a hiatus of “public” meetings for the last couple months, we will once again have a meeting with an interesting speaker confirmed, coming up in June. Watch this space – it’s a controversial topic (NOT helmets, though )