We’ve rolled our midwinter June-July round-up into one bulletin, because winter is traditionally a slow time of year for road projects, with shorter days and gluggy conditions. But there’s been no slowdown in the number of people on bikes! Even in the depths of winter, Aucklanders are flocking to cycling as everyday transport, with year on year ridership up 8.9% in June. As always, the strongest growth is on weekdays, and on protected and connected bike routes. Proof positive that 1) if you build it, they will come, and 2) we won’t melt. Now, on with the updates… SKYPATH 2.0 With the project now in the hands of the NZ Transport …
Bike Auckland
This powerful guest post by Emma McInnes of Women in Urbanism delves into a difficult topic: the lingering trauma from even a minor bike crash. Like previous first-person posts on the subject, we hope it strikes a chord – and inspires an even louder call for safer streets. My first bike crash in central Auckland happened on Symonds Street. I was biking downhill towards the university. A driver coming out of a side road, turning left, didn’t look right, and ran over top of me. I was literally peeled off the road by a stranger, who carried me to the footpath to get me out of the traffic. I remember being too scared to …
May was a month that brought one big story, a whole lot of handy little local links, and some twiddling of thumbs as we wait for solid updates on key projects to make biking better around the city. Read on to find out which projects have moved ahead, which are about to leap back to life, and which we’re still giving a very hard stare… MAKING PROGRESS… Skypath 2.0 The big story of May was the NZ Transport Agency’s announcement of its preferred design for the Auckland Harbour Bridge shared path. This fulfils a promise by the government to take on and fund the project, giving certainty at last. …
April was a short month, with a lovely string of public holidays – so while it offered bonus opportunities to get out and ride, it can be forgiven for not delivering a whole lot of progress on the ground. And we hope we can be forgiven for taking a break and waiting a couple more weeks to let more news trickle in. Which it has, so let’s start with the best bits… WORK UNDER WAY Eastern Busway (AMETI) The one bike project to break ground in April isn’t just for bikes, as the name suggests. Auckland Transport’s huge plan to streamline public transport along 8km from Botany to Panmure – with …
This guest post was created by and with one of our readers, David Hopkins, who lives locally and leads guided rides. If you’re keen to offer support for this great idea, feel free to drop him a line. Wouldn’t it be handy to be able to walk to the shops, a cafe, train station or frequent bus service? Or to cycle, scoot or otherwise actively get to these services without having to be in a vehicle or interact with busy traffic? To feel safer and more independent in a wheelchair or mobility scooter, or with kids, or a bunch of friends, young or old? What if this walk/cycle/scoot was on …
We know Aucklanders who travel using a mixture of bikes, ferries, trains and buses have been starving for good secure, undercover bike racks at public transport terminals and stations since AT was formed, nearly 10 years ago. We share your suffering and frustration! It’s annoying that all along, the barrier has been money – quality bike parking simply didn’t rate for the AT people allocating budgets. This blind spot has become ever more glaring as we all celebrate Aucklanders flocking to the public transport network. Bikes are the key to a healthy, versatile, efficient and well-used public transport network – something the Dutch know well, given half of their train journeys begin with …
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