Just in time for Halloween, we have a dark and terrifying tale for you. Remember Victoria St and Calliope Road? This Devonport intersection is an often busy and rather tricky one, with a sharp bend, a downhill, and a pedestrian crossing to a school. In 2014, Auckland Transport was tasked with making the dangerous situation safer for everyone and for people on bikes in particular. After considering a roundabout, in May 2017 AT came up with a design featuring raised bike/walk crossings and dedicated bike lanes. Amazing progress! Sure, there were some pro forma grumbles from the Local Board about the cost, but something urgently needs to be done at this intersection …
Bike Auckland
After two deaths on Oteha Valley Road earlier this year, members of neighbourhood bike burb Bike Albany started a petition for urgent safety improvements. The petition drew a powerful chorus of support: 3000 signatures and the backing of the bereaved families, local schools, the local MP, and the Upper Harbour Local Board. Bike Albany founding member Nicholas Carman reports on how the petition came about, how it was delivered to Auckland Transport – and what happens next. On Thursday 6th December, members of Bike Albany presented the petition ‘Demand for a safe cycleway and pedestrian crossings along Oteha Valley Road’ to Andrew Allen (Executive General Manager Service Delivery) and Randhir …
As part of Auckland Transport’s new and highly welcome push for safety, Dairy Flat Highway is getting some serious attention. As well as reduced speeds, new right turn bays, centre median safety barriers, side barriers and intersection upgrades, the plan includes a two-lane roundabout at the notorious intersection of Dairy Flat Highway and the Coatesville-Riverhead Highway. The improvements come not a moment too soon: this stretch of road has seen nine deaths and 55 serious injuries in the last decade, and this intersection in particular saw eight crashes in 2017 alone. However, we have serious concerns that the design of the proposed roundabout will compromise safety for people on bikes. And we have …
After two tragic fatalities on Oteha Valley Road earlier this year, Auckland Transport is proposing to signalise the intersection of Oteha Valley Road and Harrowglen Drive in Northcross, including signal-controlled pedestrian crossings. [See design here] Add your voice before Monday 12 November! Join Bike Auckland in urging AT to lift its game and deliver meaningful safety for people walking and biking on Oteha Valley Road. Click the button to give your feedback along the lines we suggest below. Please redesign this intersection in the light of the 2014 Corridor Management Plan for Oteha Valley Road and a comprehensive plan for walking and cycling safety along this corridor. Please remove the slip lane into …
As if overnight, a bike hub has popped up in the Northcote town centre. Where did it spring from? Well, back in July, Panuku and the Northcote Business Association had a thought: with the Northcote Safe Cycle Route being built right past the door, how could they actively invite more people on bikes to visit the town centre? Panuku, in turn, approached the vigorous volunteers in our local bike burb, Bike Kaipatiki, with a tempting offer. Could Bike Kaipatiki take over an empty shop front and turn it into a pop-up bike hub? Could they ever! BK has run regular bike tune-up stands at local parks and a bike market at …
A brand new walking and cycling bridge is appearing this week across the Northern Motorway at Albany, slotting neatly into place – one third at a time – over a series of night works. This is Tirohanga Whanui (the name means ‘A Panoramic View’), which will join Spencer Rd to Corinthian Drive, and reconnect Albany metro with Pinehill and the East Coast Bays. If you’ve driven up that way lately, you’ll have spotted the parts of the new bridge sitting by the side of the motorway like so many giant pieces of highly artistic Lego. Thanks to our friends at the Northern Corridor Improvements team, we can share these dramatic images of …
We welcome Auckland Transport’s recent media release last week, acknowledging the horrific increase since 2014 in deaths and serious injuries for people using AT’s road network (as laid out in the independent safety report commissioned by the AT board). It’s painful but necessary to have this out in the open, and Greater Auckland covered the topic well in a recent blog post. We especially welcome the proposed response, which is that AT will massively ramp up its spending to create safer roads, joining Minister Genter’s commitment to Vision Zero. I’m keen to hear from you how the extra cycling safety dollars could be used most effectively. While you think about it, I’d like …
A good friend of Bike Auckland got skittled on Onewa Road on Wednesday night. He’s okay – well, he’s alive and recovering. The shock of the incident led to a conversation within our team that we wanted to share with you, below. And then came the tragic news of a car vs bike fatality on Te Atatu Rd on Thursday evening, which made it all the more horribly relevant. We are absolutely heartbroken for everyone involved, and for our Bike Te Atatu whanau who have worked so hard over so many years to try and make changes to prevent exactly this from happening. Every time an Aucklander – a family member, …
How’s this for an early Christmas present for people on the Shore? A major motorway project – the last link of the Western Ring Route – will now bring considerably improved connectivity for people on bikes and on foot, thanks to sustained and substantial work by the Bike Auckland team. In particular, our North Shore infrastructure liaison Steve Southall was an absolute star at the recent Board of Inquiry (BOI) hearing into the SH1/SH18 Northern Corridor Improvements (NCI), whose decision is now complete. Below, Steve explains Bike Auckland’s influence on the outcome, and how the path and the improvements we advocated for will transform the Albany Basin for people who want to …
This is an update on the saddest public transport and biking story in town. I was tempted to call it ‘The life and death of Auckland’s only real park-and-ride for bikes’ with credit to my spiritual mentor, Jane Jacobs, but decided that was a bit dramatic. I live in Devonport where we have a wonderful regular ferry service to downtown. it goes hand in hand with fit-for-purpose parking that has grown in the past decade to 94 bike parking spots. Did I say 94 bike parks! Yes, sirree! This is the very best park’n’ride investment in the whole of Auckland. Until recently, most of the parking was also undercover, well …
Did you see the Herald story today lamenting the lack of park-and-ride space for people driving to Auckland public transport? As an AA member, I had advance notice of this story via a newsletter in my mail; it’s certainly a case to be made, and fair enough for AA to run with it on behalf of their members. Of course, the other side of the park-and-ride story is bike parking for those who cycle to public transport. We often hear from the AA that many of its Auckland members own and enjoy riding bikes, so this would be a natural component of their campaign. Bike-and-ride is not just an efficient way to …
It’s the gateway to Devonport; it’s a busy intersection traversed by people of all ages, on foot, on bikes, and in cars en route to school, work, shops and ferry; and it’s well overdue for fixing. So why is the Victoria Rd and Calliope Rd improvement project suddenly attracting a bit of drama? What’s causing the Local Board to quibble over a major local street improvement that makes things safer for children and families en route to Devonport Primary and St Leo’s Primary or the same people and elderly people crossing Calliope Rd and Victoria Rd to reach the village and the ferry? It couldn’t just be that the design includes a bike lane… could it?? Here’s …
The Bike Kaipatiki team, representing bike folk of the North Shore to the west of the bridge, has been asking Auckland Transport to revisit the traffic-calming design for the Lower Queen St section of the Northcote Safe Cycle Route (NSCR). Along with Bike Auckland, we feel that with SkyPath on track to open in 2018, AT needs to design the NSCR to the highest standards to service the pedestrian and cycle patronage SkyPath will bring – not to mention, the growing number of people biking to and from the Northcote Ferry Terminal. So what better idea than to enlist the support of local Queen St resident, the Hon. Dr Jonathan Coleman, MP? It seemed a …
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