It’s been a while now since a large part of Ian McKinnon Drive was changed from a “faux-motorway” into a more walking & cycling friendly road. Some time after the initial construction works in 2011, Cycle Action was contracted by Auckland Transport to undertake a user audit of the completed scheme.
We raised a variety of issues, some significant, some minor, and asked AT to look at fixing them. Some of these have since been done, others will hopefully occur later this year, as we have just had confirmed. The two most important ones to note were:
Heading southbound into the big interchange, there is a long section where cyclists are “out in the open” between the through lane and a sweeping left turn lane – a remnant of the “let em go fast” speedway design that gave us the interchange in the first place, some decades ago.
- Auckland Transport have now confirmed that they will extend the traffic island (where the ramp physically splits off from the road, tip shown in photo at right) further northwards, and will change some road markings. This will reduce the length of the exposed section where cars can suddenly cross the cycle lane.
- We were concerned with the speed limit of 70 km/h on Ian McKinnon Drive. This has since been dropped to 60 km/h. Not quite as low as we had wanted, but there’s some truth in the decision they made, which is that the road still “feels fast”, and that a 50 km/h speed limit would not be likely to be obeyed by many. All the more reason, then, to keep pushing for further improvement of the walking and cycling facilities here, such as uphill from Newton Road bridge to Upper Queen Street.
There were also a variety of further minor issues, such as markings or signage that were not yet installed, or that we asked them to tweak. So how do you feel is Ian McKinnon and the northern part of Dominion Road working for you nowadays?
