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
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 …
UPDATE: Feedback is now closed on this consultation. Thank you for the overwhelming response – together, you submitted more than 400 individual points of view on how important it is to build this route right the first time! AT is now working through the feedback and we await further developments. The background Bike Auckland and our staunch Shore ‘burb buddies Bike Kaipatiki are asking Auckland Transport to urgently lift its game on a key route in Northcote: Queen St, which is the present and future gateway to the ferry terminal, SkyPath, and SeaPath. To paraphrase two of the more than 200 feedback comments submitted so far: it would be such a pity to have the amazing Skypath …
My brother in Wellington wrote to me recently about a weekend train trip to the country with family members, some of whom brought bikes so they could take the scenic route home. The outing wasn’t just fun, but affordable. My brother has a SuperGold Card, and everyone else enjoyed cheap fares designed to encourage more people to use public transport instead of cars for weekend fun. I’m seeing more and more of this multi-modal multi-generational weekend travel around Auckland. Family groups bringing bikes on the ferry to explore Devonport; or taking the train to Onehunga to ride to Ambury Park; or arriving at Britomart ready to ride the waterfront and the Pink Path (or both!). Everyone looks to …
Last week we alerted you to the watered-down plans for the southern end of the Northcote Safe Cycle Route. (Go here for the long read with a great comment thread; or read a quick version here). We urged you to help speak up for a safer treatment here for people on bikes and on foot. Already, dozens of you have written to say in your own words how crucial this issue is, how you experience (or would like to experience) this street, and how important it is that the Shore gets its share of properly safe cycleways. Yesterday’s re-confirmation of SkyPath’s resource consent makes the case even stronger! Simply put: this key gateway to the Shore, used …
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