Auckland Transport launches a colourful new campaign today, to keep people up to date with – and enthused about! – the steadily expanding bike network. The campaign brings a cheery, positive, and ambitious perspective to the current 3-year programme of unprecedented investment, and makes the case for bike-friendliness as a basic, essential part of the Auckland way of life.
As AT’s Walking and Cycling manager Kathryn King says in the accompanying booklet, the Auckland Cycling Account, the idea is to ‘bring the network to life and demonstrate the role cycling has to play in making our city a better place to live.’
The website and the booklet both feature nice infographics, encapsulating some of the big changes of the last few years. You’ll see some of them around town as posters and billboards…
There’s a colourful map of how the central city network will fit together… (with an interactive version on the web):
And then there’s this cute video, in which bikes bring a rainbow of possibilities to the city, and the only emissions are good vibes.
Altogether, you get the sense of a very different mood around the bike life – indeed, that’s the campaign hashtag, #AKLbikelife – and lots of positive talk of ‘meeting the demand’ for cycling infrastructure. And you can sign up for updates and win prizes, which is always nice.
By way of contrast, here’s a flashback to how AT was telling the story only three years ago…
… yep, perfectly nice – but we’ve come such a long way and we’re glad of the change. And now that the new mood is established, let’s get on with the transformations – on the streets, in our neighborhoods, in the design guides (bring on the Greenways and the area treatments) and the legislation (side-street priority and slower speed zones!) – so Aucklanders of all ages can jump on their bikes and puff colourfully around the city without even thinking twice.
