After a long planning history in which the proposal went through many different shapes, the walking and cycling works on Ian McKinnon Drive finally began last Monday. The Auckland Transport project will add various walking and cycle facilities (large parts of them off-road, the remainder on-road but pleasantly wide at 1.8m) to this road once designed for motorway-style driving. Together with a proposed reduction of the local speed limit, and slightly narrower car lanes, Cycle Action Auckland is keen to soon see the whole road – and the flyover ramps – become much more friendly for cyclists. This will make it much more pleasant to get from the Dominion Road area into the city, or onto the future cycleway route down Grafton Gully.Features will also include a new signalised crossing for pedestrians and cyclists across Ian McKinnon Drive at Piwakawaka Road, so that cyclists who prefer not to ride on-road in the steep last section up to Upper Queen Street can switch to the existing off-road path on the eastern side. All works are intended to be finished before the Rugby World Cup.
Cycle Action was allowed a generous amount of input into this project, and we are very pleased with some of the intended new features – such as raised traffic islands that will protect riders from cars cutting across the merge zone of two cycle lanes (island shown in purple on the concept plan example). This level of facility is what we are increasingly seeing rolled out around our city, showing that cyclists don’t only have a place on our roads, but that we can even treat them with the same care and quality we provide to other road users.
