If you have been out riding (or driving) to the northwest recently, you will have seen a lot of new roadworks have gone on at the end of the Northwestern Motorway. Among them, a large new roundabout has been built to the north of Westgate, at the new end of the SH16 motorway, where the new SH16, old SH16, the road to Kumeu and Brigham Creek Road all meet.
With CAA having been involved in the construction of the reasonably cycling-friendly new roundabout about a kilometre further west at Old North Road, we were shocked last year to see that the large multi-lane roundabout at Brigham Creek Road had absolutely no pedestrian or cyclist facilities. If you were not a highly confident road cyclist, willing to thrust yourself into a multi-lane roundabout with fast traffic, you literally had nowhere to go.
This led to a series of sometimes somewhat… difficult… discussions between Cycle Action and the NZTA project team – but in the end, NZTA agreed that something had to be done to ensure that the roundabout provides safely for the needs of all users. Subsequently, plans were drawn up for pedestrian/cyclist crossings on all three non-motorway arms of the roundabouts, including shared off-road paths, and streetlighting. This will allow all three cycle routes to be used safely.
As of March, works on installing these features are now ongoing, and, weather permitting, are to be completed at the end of the month. This will be a significant improvement for the safety and amenity of tourist, and general recreational cyclists going to and from Auckland’s north.
