As a Pt Chev local, I’m excited about the proposed bike lanes (NB feedback closes 23 April – have your say here). We’re a ‘bikie’ family: we bike to to school, the shops, the library, the dairy, music lessons, local parks, MOTAT, the zoo, to the doctor, the butcher, the baker. We use the NW cycleway for fresh air and to visit cuzzies, and two of us regularly ride to the city and back for work. We also walk, bus, and drive to all of those places, which makes for a pretty rounded perspective on what it’s like to move around the ‘hood in different ways, at different times of day. The first thing you notice is that Pt Chev …
Ross
If we had a dollar for every time we’ve been told that removing traffic lanes and car parking to make way for cycle lanes will kill local businesses, we could just about fund the lanes ourselves. It’s a classic barbecue assertion. And, like any other dodgy assertion, it withers in the face of the data. Where to go for that data? One place is Toronto, which studied the economic impact of a protected cycleway in Bloor Street, a major east-west corridor. The Bloor Street story goes back to late ‘70s, when advocates first started lobbying for bike lanes on the street. It wasn’t until 2016 that a pilot lane was …
As in the poem by Carl Sandburg about fog, it seems safety ‘comes on little cat feet’… After AT’s excoriating safety report, we’re starting to see little local upgrades that make things better for people on bikes and on foot. Here’s a bouquet of safety projects in Papatoetoe that deserve your support. Help us create a positive feedback loop for quick, responsive safety fixes by AT! Firstly, a stretch of protected bike lane and a new bike crossing signal where Station Road, Wyllie Road, and Shirley Road come together near the train station (see project page). Feedback closes Monday 9 July! Click the button below to go to straight to …
Advanced stop boxes: they’re a paint-only, bare minimum kind of bike infrastructure, and not in any way best practice for protecting people on bikes at intersections, which are hot spots for crashes. But at many intersections all over Auckland, they’re literally all we have in the way of any support for (ever so slightly) safer cycling. We use them because we’re there, even if it puts us between a rock (or a bus, or a truck, or an impatient driver) and a hard place. Matt Hancock wrote to us with his experiences of using ASBs, and questions about maintenance and enforcement of the markings. His story, below – and an update …
The Grey Lynn cycleway routes – plus the related safety upgrades, including new crossings and traffic calming – have been paused for review since Christmas, and many readers will be wondering what’s going on. You can keep track of Auckland Transport’s official updates on this page, and you can also sign up for email updates by writing to bruce.thomas@at.govt.nz The review process The main thing to know is that AT has engaged urban design consultants Boffa Miskell to lead a technical review of the Waitemata Safe Routes programme. The review is in two parts – Richmond Road (including the West Lynn shops) and the Old Mill Road, Surrey Crescent and Garnet Road …
Feedback is now open on Auckland Transport’s proposed design for where Great North Rd meets Bond St and Grosvenor St. Our verdict: it’s good – and will be even better with a couple of tweaks. Be sure to have your say by Sunday 3 September! Here’s our quick feedback guide… What we like – this will make the intersection safer for people on bikes. What we’d change – make it easier for people on bikes to turn right, especially to Bond Street, by adding a right turn pocket. Other comments – we think there’s space for a proper bus stop bypass. As the next feature-length item in Auckland’s cycle infrastructure line-up edges closer to release, …
Auckland Transport is seeking feedback on cycling improvements in New Lynn. Feedback is open until Sunday 21 May 2017 – use the big blue button on the project page, or this direct link. This is the first project out of the gate in response to last year’s area-wide consultation, which revealed a huge local demand for safer cycling links in New Lynn and Avondale. The proposed wider cycle network that will (eventually) emerge from that exercise is here: New-Lynn-proposed-network-map [PDF] And this is the section that’s currently funded and being consulted on for construction: The main part of the project is a new cycleway along the berm on Seabrook Ave between Willerton and Margan Ave, which …
Consultation is now open on proposed walking and biking improvements from Pt Chevalier to Westmere, specially from the Pt Chev shops to the Garnet Rd shops via Pt Chevalier Rd and Meola Rd. Auckland Transport plans to deliver this project by the end of 2018. Feedback is open till Sunday 23 April 2017 (direct link to feedback form here; but we recommend you check the detailed plans on the project page first, and read our thoughts below). Also, there will be two public info sessions: Saturday 8 April, 10am – 2.30pm at the Pt Chevalier Library Wednesday 12 April, 5 – 8pm at Nomad Restaurant @ the Pt Chev shops. This is an exciting extension of the inner …
St Lukes Rd is getting its promised bike lane buffers at the moment, and the response has been instant and positive. ‘Upgrade to substandard St Lukes bike lane starts‘ was the headline in local papers. The rubber bumpers and hit posts will run on both sides of the road, from just below the motorway interchange, to just after the garden centre. It stops just short of the railway bridge for now, as there is no money at the moment to widen the bridge (but future bridge widening will take bike safety into account). There’ll be some ‘fresh kermit’ greening of the lanes, too… now those yellow dashed lines are superfluous! As well as general enthusiasm, there …
Auckland Transport is proposing to add protection to the bike lanes on St Lukes Road between the motorway interchange and the intersection with New North Road. This is a great leap forward which Bike Auckland, the Local Board, and AT’s new Walking & Cycling team, have long worked for. The project is being funded from a new minor safety improvement fund for cycling (a total pool of $1 million p.a.) and hopefully, the buffers will go in before the Waterview Tunnel opens around April. Consultation is now open – see the project page with the link for feedback. Closes this Friday! The quick version? We absolutely support this project. For anyone who knows St Lukes Rd – or has seen …
Cycleway consultations are coming thick and fast at the moment, and no wonder, because the ‘must be built by mid 2018‘ deadline for the Urban Cycleway Programme is getting closer and closer! The initial key route for the Eastern inner suburbs runs through the eastern part of Parnell, starting at the intersection with Parnell Road, and then running along St Stephen’s Ave, down Gladstone Road past the Rose Gardens, reaching the Quay Street Cycleway via a short section of The Strand. Here’s the project page, and here’s the link for feedback (closes 23 December 2016). And here’s the route up for discussion… This cycleway is intended to serve a number of functions – …
Mt Albert Town Centre urgently needs your help, to rescue it from a people-unfriendly design that’s been sprung on everyone at the last minute. As our mates from Generation Zero put it in a recent mailout: just when we all thought we were ending the year on a high note, “Auckland Transport did something dumb and now we need you to stand up for bike lanes yet again.” Here’s the quick link because time is short: hop over here, click the blue button to ‘HAVE YOUR SAY ONLINE’ and support Option 3 now. Feedback closes Friday 16 December! For the full background, see our previous post, with FAQs about crucial aspects of the design. Here’s the …
What is this, Groundhog Day?? Auckland Transport is suddenly backpedalling on a plan for new bike lanes that were meant to form part of a long-awaited town centre upgrade and a key link in the planned cycle network. Worse: this U-turn uses a new ‘preferred option’ from AT that runs contrary to the original public response, the preferences of the Local Board and the local MP, and AT’s own plans for the cycling network. Not to mention the goal of a 30% increase in urban cycling numbers after 2018. Plus, it’s being rushed through quickly, in the weeks just before Christmas! The quick version: AT is proposing to remove the new cycle lanes from Mt Albert town centre in …
When new bike lanes come to town – like the current Inner West Safe Routes proposal – we like to dig deep into the infrastructure implications. And we nudge you to support the proposals in principle, as a path to a better, more bikeable city. But to truly understand how transformative a proposal is, there’s nothing like hearing firsthand from the people whose lives it will change. Bike Auckland member (and co-inventor of Friding) Greg Wood lives in Westmere with his young family. His Facebook post this morning sums it up better than we could, so we’re sharing it here unedited… in the hope it will inspire you to add your support before midnight tonight! …
Of the four new routes currently being consulted on in Grey Lynn, the Surrey Cres-Old Mill Rd-Garnet Rd one is the longest and one of the most interesting. It runs directly past two primary schools, lots of houses, and small groups of corner shops – the latter often marking ‘ghost stops’ along the old tram line: friendly neighbourhood places to buy tobacco and a newspaper in the morning, or pick up your shopping on the way home from work. It’s nice to think of those shops as pins on the map for the idea of a city organized around public transport and local community… biding time and holding space until it comes back into fashion. At first …
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