Richard Barter, our community liaison hero, was lucky enough to travel to the 2017 Velo-City conference – the annual global summit on cycling, which alternates between Europe and the rest of the world. (His visit was part of the CAN Share the Road Campaign funded by NZTA). This year, the conference was held in the Dutch region of Arnhem-Nijmegen. Richard travelled to the Netherlands via Shanghai, and also spent time in Sweden, Denmark and England before returning home via Buenos Aires. Along the way, he observed the ways people move in cities, and arrived home empowered with thought-provoking images and vision-provoking thoughts… To Nijmegen they came: 1,500 planners and cycling advocates from around the planet, with whom over 250 speakers shared their thoughts and …
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Of all the questions I’m asked as Chair of Bike Auckland, top of the list is: ‘When, oh, when will we be able to bike and walk over the Auckland Harbour Bridge?’ This is a hot topic not just for those of us on bikes; it’s a fervent wish of most Aucklanders, and everyone who visits our beautiful city. Let’s be clear: this has been a glaring gap in our transport network ever since the bridge was constructed without the promised walking and cycling facilities. It’s a massive wrong, decades overdue for being put right. This isn’t just a missing tourism opportunity, it’s a missing link: as each part of our …
A couple of years ago during the school holidays, we threw together a list of great places to ride with little kids – beyond the driveway, the neighbourhood park, and the local school courtyard. And every school holidays, like clockwork, that blog post leaps to life again! We’ve just posted an updated list of great places to ride with little kids… but would you believe that original list is our most popular blog post Of. All. Time? That’s right. ‘Where to ride with children’ is bigger than ‘what’s up with Skypath’, more popular than ‘how to fix Tamaki Drive’, and more sought after than even ‘how to get to the pink path’. What this tells us is that Aucklanders’ dearest wish is …
Women in Urbanism Aotearoa is an exciting addition to the urbanist scene. I’ve been privileged to be part of the formation of this new group, which emerged in June with a social gathering to gauge interest. The room was packed with women eager to be part of the wider conversation about gender and cities. Off to a flying start! Women in Urbanism seeks to transform our cities into safe, accessible and equitable urban environments for all people by supporting and amplifying the voices and actions of all self-identifying women and girls. Why is this new group important to Bike Auckland? Because we are both passionate about how people move around, and we strive …
Fancy riding in choreographed style before an admiring audience? This is your chance! Tempo Dance Festival in October will be featuring a bike ballet called PEDAL POWER, and is seeking participants keen to get involved, and happy to rehearse over the coming months. Details below… We’re looking for bicyclists – and unicyclists! – to ride with us for PEDAL POWER, a ‘Bike Ballet’ to be performed as a part of Tempo Dance Festival in October 2017. In a celebration of cycling, and a push to get more Aucklanders riding, PEDAL POWER will be performed at Aotea Square on the 7th of October (with Sunday 8th October as a rain date). …
As anyone who lives on, works in, or visits the North Shore knows, Lake Rd is the only arterial access to the Devonport peninsula. At peak times and on weekends it can grind almost to a halt – if you bike rather than drive, you’ll have noticed this in passing… quite literally. So it’s under a lot of pressure to be as efficient as possible. Auckland Transport is currently investigating three investment approaches to improve the ‘accessibility, reliability, and availability of travel choices to and from the Devonport peninsula’. One option is cheap and quick. Another is long-term and costly. While the third – given a couple of crucial tweaks – is juuuuuust right. Consultation is open until …
For experienced navigators of the city, it can be hard to remember what it was like just starting out. We get used to figuring out how to get from A to B by following the breadcrumbs, or the ant trail of other people on bikes. Once you know the way, it can be almost impossible to return to what the Zen masters call ‘Beginner’s mind’. But with Auckland Transport reviewing its paper bike maps (and looking at map apps for the digitally enhanced among us), it’s ever more crucial to see things with fresh eyes. Enter Neil, a retired school teacher who regularly bikes around his Henderson neighbourhood for exercise. He contacted us the other day with the following good-humoured tale of …
August is Heart of the City’s Restaurant month… which means it’s time for Dinner by Bike, presented by Bike Auckland: a progressive three-course dinner on wheels that lets you discover Auckland’s streets and flavours from a fresh perspective. Book a slot and BYO bike to enjoy a leisurely 10km round-trip tour of the city with stops for entrée, main, dessert, and a nightcap, in the company of a convivial group of bike-minded people. There are two tours on each of the first two Tuesdays in August: Tuesday 1 August, tours at 5.45pm and 6.45pm Tuesday 8 August, tours at 5.45pm and 6.45pm What’s on the menu this year? Each guided tour begins at City Works Depot on the corner of Nelson …
I adore travelling on public transport with my bike, and chatting with fellow travellers – almost every trip sends me home with a head full of stories. On Thursday night, returning home from Bike Auckland’s committee meeting, I parked my bike amongst the others on the ferry’s stern deck and looked around for someone to chat to. I was immediately attracted to a man wearing a high-vis rain jacket with a cute little badge… I simply had to know more! What sort of pilot was he? Glen Stanton, the owner of the badge, explained he was the volunteer pilot of an electric tricycle-rickshaw owned by the Aria Retirement Home in Brown’s Bay. Twice a week, …
The days are short and the weeks feel shorter – and suddenly it’s almost closing time for feedback on Local Board Plans. Feedback closes 4pm Friday 30 June – make sure you have your say! Q. Why is this important? Because your Local Board is one of 21 hyper-local bodies with significant place-making power. Via your Local Board, you can transform the streets you live, walk, and bike on – from little things like better bike parking, or ramps instead of hard curbs, to area-wide issues like safer speeds and Vision Zero and greenways through parks. The Local Board Plan will cover the next three years… and you can get a lot done in three years! Your board …
We’re keen to get your feedback on the new bike parking plan for Devonport’s Ferry Terminal. Read the info below, and give us your comments by Sunday 25th June! The Devonport Ferry Terminal has been bursting with the noise of jackhammers breaking out concrete. Behind the gleaming white screens erected to block off the work areas, serious work is underway on the second stage of the revamp of the rental spaces. At present, the terminal has a range of bike parking, with the most popular facilities on each side of the terminal building. They have ‘sail’ covers which give some protection from the weather and salt spray. On the north side …
Please help us achieve traffic speeds that put New Zealanders’ safety first – make a quick submission by 5pm Friday, June 16! In this guest post, Bevan Woodward of Skypath Trust explains the catch in the proposed speed-limit setting rule, and how to fix it… NZTA is updating the speed-limit setting rule… but it is unwilling to put New Zealanders’ safety first. This is a missed opportunity to make our roads safer, more liveable, more vibrant and more efficient. Instead NZTA continues to require that speed limits be ‘safe and appropriate’. This initially sounds good – who doesn’t want safe streets? And it’s appropriate for traffic to go more slowly on streets where we live, shop, and …
Longtime Bike Auckland supporter Richard Ashurst has been keeping an eye on changes in Singapore’s bike culture over the last few years, and shares his observations with us… Every few years, I join my partner in visiting her family back in Singapore. It’s is an interesting little country, and after several visits I’m starting to notice how it’s changing over time, particularly with regards to bikes – which, although still a tiny share of the transport system, have doubled in mode share over the last three years. Like New Zealand, Singapore has a history as a British colony, so they drive on the left side of the road and the country speaks English (or sometimes ‘Singlish’). That’s about …
Te Ara ki Uta ki Tai, our Great Eastern Cycleway from Glen Innes to Tamaki Drive, continues to snake its way towards the city. In the last week, Auckland Transport has narrowed down the options for the final section: Stage 4, which will connect the Orakei train station to Tamaki Drive. Three options have been selected for further investigation. The big question is: how will they connect to AT’s proposed but dangerous south-side Tamaki Drive Cycleway from Ngapipi to town – and how could they work with Bike Auckland’s much talked about north-side alternative? With feedback on Tamaki Drive closing on 18 June, we think the case is now even stronger for a safe, logical, connected two-way cycleway along the …
We didn’t make nearly enough of a fuss of Duncan Laidlaw when he topped the charts this February in the Auckland division of the Aoteaora Bike Challenge, for greatest distance covered by a bloke… a whopping 3002km in 28 days! Duncan’s a stalwart member of local group Bike Kaipatiki, helps out at the Roskill Bike Kitchen and various repair cafes, organizes our monthly Bike Breakfast meet-up, and is generally a very good egg. We threw a few questions his way to figure out what makes his biking brain tick. What got you biking in Auckland? About 10 years ago I attended a Go By Bike Day breakfast at the Viaduct, and gave biking to work a go. I was a bit laddish, …
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