Love your bike? Love to party? We’ve got the event for you: Lightpath Festival 2018. This year’s edition of the festival, our annual celebration of Te Ara I Whiti, kicks off at 5pm on Saturday, 1 December. It will be the bike party of the year: music, food, games, freebies, performance art, a pop-up bike lane, a Lightpath parade, craft beer, free bike trials and more, all on and around the jewel in Auckland’s cycling crown. It’s family-friendly and it’s free. Here’s what to expect: • Join in on your favourite dance numbers with the YMCA Auckland-City Y Gold dance group performing at the main stage at 5:30pm. • Roll or walk …
Bike Auckland
It was all smiles and all kinds of bike styles at the opening of the latest link in the bike network on Friday 30 November. The prize: 800m of brand new smooth wide path at the city end of the Northwestern Cycleway, which crucially cuts out the up-and-over on the Newton Rd viaduct and shaves two and a half minutes off the journey. Officially, this is known as the Ian McKinnon Drive Cycleway – although, as several people noted, it really needs a catchier name, probably one without ‘drive’ in it! (One suggestion we quite liked, via Twitter: given it’s at the top end of Dominion Road and the man …
Next time you ride your treasured treadlie to an event, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a friendly someone at the entrance to take it off your hands, park it securely, keep an eye on it and then hand it back when you’re ready to leave, at no cost to you? Well, now there will be. Bike Auckland is launching a Bike Valet service this weekend at the eBike Expo. Expect to see it at festivals, concerts, sports fixtures, expos and all sorts of other public events this summer and beyond. Bike Valet replaces a service formerly offered by Auckland Transport, which supports the new offering. It can be …
Cities: sometimes they barely inch forward… and other times they proceed by leaps and bounds. And sometimes, when a place is catching up with what its people need, it’s leaning into the future, dragging its heels, and being blown inexorably forward – all at once. Consider this transformational triple-whammy: Searches on Trade Me for e-bikes shot up by 40% in seven days. New fuel tax, spring weather, seeing your friend on one – who knows? It’s happening. And with already roughly 40,000 e-bikes on our streets, the electric vehicle revolution is already here. Enter the shared e-scooters: a whole new species of nimble transport. Neither fully at home on the …
When were you last greeted by cheers, waves and friendly toots from car drivers when out on your bike? For 507 happy souls, that was last Friday evening, at the 2018 edition of Auckland’s Bike Rave. A noisy, glamorous, joyful party on wheels, it was a sunset group ride to celebrate all that is good about cycling in Auckland. And Auckland, it seemed, was happy to celebrate back. At just about every intersection the ravers crossed, drivers and pedestrians made their own cheerful racket in support. Used to all the on-road love? Not really. Enjoy it? You bet! Just as heart warming was the sheer diversity of this year’s ravers. …
Bike Breakfasts are an increasingly popular way for Auckland bicycle peeps to kick off the day. Now there’s an option for winding down the day in just the right way: a leisurely ride to the pub for a craft brew with some chums. If that sounds like you, pencil in 5.30pm on the evening of Thursday, 18 October. That’s the first of Bike Auckland’s new Bikes & Beers events, hosted by Brothers Beer at the City Works Depot. We promise convivial company, great beers, and a bonus: a free bike check thanks to Flying Fix Mobile Bicycle Servicing – which will be on site to minister to your treadlie while you minister …
If you frequently cycle along Tamaki Drive you might already have forgotten what we’ve gained as a result of the new-look Ngapipi Road intersection completed in July, and the Quay Street Cycleway extension which opened just last month. A reminder, then. The Quay Street Cycleway, already one of the city’s most popular routes, was extended by 800 metres towards the east, adding a dedicated bi-directional, protected lane from Plumer Street to just short of The Strand. Further along the waterfront, the Ngapipi Road intersection – until recently one of the country’s top 10 crash black spots, got a $9million safety upgrade. It acquired traffic lights, signalised pedestrian/bike crossings (in anticipation …
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 …
For Aucklanders, Vancouver’s extensive network of cycleways is an object of wistful admiration. Question is, how did Vancouver get such a network, and what lessons does it offer those who lust for one here? There is, after all, much in common between the two cities: they’re built around harbours which serve as trade gateways and they are both economic centres for their respective national economies. They’re both magnets for immigrants. Their populations both obsess about house prices. And, as Darren Davis, Auckland Council’s Transport & Land Use Integration Manager, points out, they’re both New World cities, with western settlement dating back only as far as the 19th century. Dale Bracewell, …
A WhatsApp message from my friend Brendan: “I’ve moved into my new apartment in Vancouver. Come for a visit, bring your bike.” Why, yes. Vancouver had long been on the must-visit list. A charming harbour city with progressive politics, good coffee, loads of genial Canadians, and a reputation as a poster child for cycling infrastructure. Escaping winter in Auckland for two weeks of summer in Vancouver was an easy choice. I knew Brendan from my time as a corporate animal in Hong Kong. Both fitness obsessives, we met in a swim squad and became running and cycling buddies. There were early-morning road rides, tons of them, grinding our way up …
The $67 billion global cycling industry has ubiquitous brands such as Taiwan’s Giant, which employs 11,000 people and has annual revenues circa $2.6 billion. But it also has plenty of entrepreneurs making waves at a local level. One such is Kiwi Emma Jonsson, a one-woman hive of energy whose mission it is to introduce New Zealanders to the practical and stylish cycling accessories Europeans have enjoyed for years. Emma sells retail through The Urban Cyclist website and to the trade through Velocity Distribution. The distribution business started first, five years ago, when Emma returned to New Zealand from a trip to Copenhagen with her Danish partner, Sebastian. She discovered there …
Bike Auckland’s technical staff (our unpaid volunteers with specialist expertise) regularly support pedestrian improvements that Auckland Transport puts up for public feedback – new refuge islands, zebra crossings, traffic calming. We keep an eye on Auckland Transport’s Have your say page, and when we see something worth supporting for people on foot, we say so in the name of Bike AKL – even if it has no (direct) bike benefits. But normally we don’t raise it with you, our readers and friends. With some exceptions! Read on for how you can help… In this case, Auckland Transport has been proposing pedestrian improvements in Mt Roskil (project page here – scroll down …
Updated: we’ve launched a petition to gather public support for bikeways on Dominion Road along with light rail. It’s the smartest way to protect the hundreds of people who already bike along this iconic street, and the best way to future-proof our city and leverage this once-in-a-generation investment, by allowing thousands more people to bike safely to and along our flattest, most direct, and most delicious boulevard. If you share our vision for safe cycling on Dominion Road, please add your name to the petition – then share the link and pass on the good news! Light Rail (LRT) across the isthmus and to the airport is a hot topic, and Bike …
We have long said that there are a few (maybe quite a few!) people within Auckland Transport who would love to do a lot more to make walking and cycling safer – and all they really need is senior leadership backing them… and providing funding. We’ve also long known many passionate individuals and local groups who are keen to achieve the same things in their neighbourhoods. This blog is about what happens when those people in AT meet those people in the community, at a time when safety is finally given priority for available funding. A place full of people, opportunity, and… too much car traffic The (Western) Victoria Quarter is …
After dark at Motat on the last day of May, they came – people on bikes, the bike-curious, and two teams of top comedians, all ready for the inaugural big bike debate. The crowd mingled and warmed up over drinks and nibbles in the high-concept Idea Collective Hall, with what some readers might recognize as the framework of the old tactile dome repurposed as the bar for the evening. As MC Wallace Chapman said admiringly, the joint was really working an 80s night club vibe. Then it was time to take our seats at tables for the main event. Wallace expertly primed the crowd, greeting us with ‘Give it up …
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