Like bees to a honey pot they come – to the new pump track in Grey Lynn Park! After school and all weekend long, kids of all ages and sizes, round and round, and up and down, a perpetual motion machine on wheels. The mayor himself gave it a go – in a suit, no less – when opening the Grey Lynn Greenway. We also have it on authority that sometimes, long after bedtime, you can hear dads on bikes out there whooping it up in the dark. The track was the brainchild of two Grey Lynn dads: Paul Wacker, a business coach, and Scott Kuegler, an adventure guide, who are both raising …
Bike Auckland
This winter has been extremely wet in Auckland – but the good news is that this hasn’t had much of an impact on the number of people cycling! Despite rain levels in Auckland being 150% (!) above normal, the September numbers on the 27 automatic counters around the city were substantially higher than the same month last year. At 14 regional count sites: 1.764 million cycle trips were recorded for the year of October 2016 to September 2017, an increase of 6.1% on the previous 12 months. 128,665 cycle trips were recorded in September 2017, an increase of 8.0% when compared to September 2016. At 13 city centre count sites: 1.774 million cycle trips were …
This is an update on the saddest public transport and biking story in town. I was tempted to call it ‘The life and death of Auckland’s only real park-and-ride for bikes’ with credit to my spiritual mentor, Jane Jacobs, but decided that was a bit dramatic. I live in Devonport where we have a wonderful regular ferry service to downtown. it goes hand in hand with fit-for-purpose parking that has grown in the past decade to 94 bike parking spots. Did I say 94 bike parks! Yes, sirree! This is the very best park’n’ride investment in the whole of Auckland. Until recently, most of the parking was also undercover, well …
Congratulations to the big crowd who arrived on bikes to celebrate the ribbon cutting for the Waterview Shared Path. What a momentous day for NZ’s most ground-breaking cycling project! It was great to see the Albert-Eden Local Board’s Margi Watson in wide-smile mode and on the podium. She has been an impressive spokesperson and leader for years for the Waterview/Owairaka/ New Windsor communities confronted by the Waterview Road of National Significance (RoNS) project; an outstanding role model for any local board member serving an apprenticeship for a local board role. (You can read Margi’s excellent speech here). How we got here As I wrote yesterday’s blog post on the East …
We’re a pretty tight team in Bike Auckland; a close collaboration of talents and interests. I’m very lucky to be at the centre of the team, orchestrating our work. Since the arrival of our inspirational contract staff, Communications Manager, Jolisa Gracewood, and Events/Partnerships Manager, Olivia Lynch, I feel I am either sitting in the audience, applauding Jolisa’s and Olivia’s creativity and achievements, or on a significant event like our recent AGM taking centre- stage to conduct the proceedings. My years of work as a RMA planning consultant have taught me to value mediation and negotiation. They’re useful in our Bike Auckland work as sometimes we’re faced with opportunities to work …
After the Waterview Shared Path is officially opened to the public Friday 6 October, Bike Auckland is organising a cruisy evening ride – so you can be (among) the first to ride the new path! This is the best kind of Friding ever. Meet up on the Northwestern Cycleway after work, at 5:30pm. The ride should take about half an hour, even with exciting stops and starts at the sights along the way, including the three new bridges. Facebook event here (or just roll up on the evening)!
…at least, they do in this current consultation by Auckland Transport, which focuses on making it much easier and safer to ride between the surrounding areas of Stonefields, St John and Point England to Glen Innes. A veritable octopus of protected cycleways radiate from the town centre and train station, bringing the area to life for regular bike access. This is one of the last projects in the 2015-2018 Urban Cycleways Programme. After some high level ‘what would you love to see’ public consultations, and discussions with key stakeholders like the local board and ourselves, this is the first public view of the proposed routes and cycleway layouts to be built. …
All are welcome to the Bike Auckland AGM on Thursday 28 September 2017, in the gorgeous freshly refurbished Ellen Melville Hall on Freyberg Place (between O’Connell and High Street). The order of business, as with each AGM: what we’ve achieved in the last year, what we plan for the next year and of course, the (re)election of officers. Thursday 28 September 2017 Ellen Melville Hall, Freyberg Place Programme: 6:00-6:45pm There’s a special pre-event reception for Bike Auckland Members/VIP guests, with drinks & nibbles, downstairs in the Kathryn Yates room. This is your chance to mingle with each other and the core crew before we get down to business. (Not a …
Bikes and kids go together like, well, kids and bikes. Every kid who rides knows the feeling of mastery it gives you; and every adult knows that part of the fun of riding a bike is that it makes you feel like a kid again. And what we all share is a sense of joyful simplicity. At its best, riding a bike is as close as you can get to the way you fly in dreams. So we were overjoyed to be contacted by 12 year old Vita with a video she’d put together about exactly that (with a little help from her dad). Watch for a moment and savour …
Longer days, warmer weather, holidays galore – October is the perfect time to break out your bikes. And BIKETOBER gives you the perfect excuse… dozens of ’em, in fact! Brought to you by Bike Auckland, BIKETOBER is an annual celebration of community on wheels. We’ve put the call out for bike fun all over Auckland in October, and gathered it into one handy calendar. The result: a bunch of great reasons to get your bike out and go for it, all month long! Local rides & tours• fix-it days • bike ballet • have-a-go events • free coffee stops • beers on bikes • learn to ride • bike breakfast • more! There’s something for everyone. …
As you will probably have read in our Tamaki Drive jubilation blog, a lot of big decisions are currently being made on cycleways in the Orakei area. Hot on the (w)heels of the decision that Tamaki Drive between Solent Street and Ngapipi Road would get a proper, protected two-way cycleway on the north side, AT have now opened consultation on two other items, both closing 8th October. The last section of Stage 4 of the route from Glen Innes to Tamaki Drive (see blog post here), and The new Ngapipi Bridge (which, despite the name, is the outlet bridge on Tamaki Drive just west of Ngapipi). Please consider giving feedback …
As you will probably have read in our Tamaki Drive jubilation blog, a lot of big decisions are currently being made on cycleways in the Orakei area. Hot on the (w)heels of the decision that Tamaki Drive between Solent Street and Ngapipi Road would get a proper, protected two-way cycleway on the north side, AT have now opened consultation on two other items, both closing 8th October. The last section of Stage 4 of the route from Glen Innes to Tamaki Drive, and The new Ngapipi Bridge (which, despite the name, is the outlet bridge on Tamaki Drive just west of Ngapipi) – see blog post on that here. Please …
With advance voting now open, we’re delighted to launch VOTE BIKE 2017 – a one-stop shop to help you compare party and candidate policies around cycling. Click the big pink button to get started! Questions? Check out the FAQ – and see below for a quick overview of what we did, and why. WHY VOTE BIKE? Cycling policy probably isn’t the only thing on your mind this election. But, even as the major parties approach consensus on bike-friendly cities as a Good Thing, there are still big differences in how they plan to get there… and how fast. And those differences may affect your party vote, as well as your candidate vote. …
The last cycleway gap north of Nelson Street is about to be closed, and Lightpath will finally have a proper connection to the waterfront! After much discussion of possible routes, Auckland Transport has settled on a tidy zig-zag: up the west side of Market Place (hooking into the future Westhaven route), then along the north side of Customs Street West, before going up the west side of Lower Hobson Street (where it connects with the Quay Street Cycleway). As always, Bike Auckland will be providing detailed feedback to AT – and we strongly encourage you to add your support using the easy online form. Some locals may not like that Market …
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