Another bridge is about to be opened for traffic late February – NZTA have almost finished constructing the new Richardson Road bridge between New Windsor / Owairaka. The bridge leads over the future Waterview Motorway.
And it will have wide (3.5m) shared paths on each side, with the western side also having a direct off-road link down to the Waterview Cycleway going west and east. Cycle Action originally saw the plans for the bridge proposing cycle lanes, and narrow(er) footpaths. We felt that that close to one of our premier cycleways, Auckland could do better! So we instead suggested that the footpaths be widened out and changed to shared paths instead (note to those who prefer to ride on-road – the flush median will help ensure you aren’t crowded out).
We are very happy that our suggestions were taken up – we suspect that the photo also shown at the bottom right (of a shared bridge path in Europe) may have played a role in that. We had shown it around the project team and the local decisionmakers when we suggested the shared path change, showing how things can work
As a result, the “tendrils” branching off this off-road cycling network “trunk” will now reach another couple hundred meters further into the surrounding areas, encouraging people to take up urban cycling.
Well done, NZTA and Council / AT.
