Cycling advocacy is a roller-coaster business of ups and downs. And one for which you need persistence, persistence, persistence. Below, just lightly edited, is what we recently wrote to Auckland Transport on a particular safety issue:
We are writing to follow up on a safety concern raised by Cycle Action Auckland as early as 2006 [by our former chair Bevan Woodward], and most recently reviewed in 2012 in a report by [a consultant] for Auckland Transport.
This relates to the presence of several pedestrian refuges that create pinch points on one of the routes of the Auckland Regional Cycle Network, being Meola Road (see attached files).
As early as in our letter of 2006, Cycle Action Auckland identified three locations on this route as severe safety hazards, as motorists often do not respect cyclist safety when passing through the narrowings created by these pedestrian crossing refuges. The existence of this safety hazard was agreed to in the 2012 consultant report for Auckland Transport.
However, it now being early 2013 with no change on the ground after more than 6 years, we need to raise the following two key issues:
– The [consultant] report notes that more substantial changes were not likely to be merited, because the route is not on the cycle network. This is a key flaw in the whole assessment, as this route has been part of the Regional Cycle Network for a long time, and is also included in the coming Auckland Cycle Network (as a “cycle connector” level route). Therefore, the “do nothing / do a little bit” recommendations included the [consultant] report are in our opinion strongly flawed, and we ask Auckland Transport to revisit them, correctly taking into account the importance and designation of the route, which is a key connector between the suburbs of Grey Lynn and Point Chevalier.
– Following on from this, we would like to know what changes are being proposed to improve these identified safety hazards for cyclists on this route. We note that we consider the [consultant] report recommendations as insufficient, as they are not expected to resolve either the narrowness of the pinch points, or the motor vehicle speeding issues creating the safety hazards.
We will raise this matter in our regular meetings with AT staff, but as agreed for such concerns, we have hereby lodged this matter with you so the improvement project is finally proceeded with after such long delay.
Thank you very much
Cycle Action Auckland
If you want to support this safety issue finally getting dealt with, why don’t you add your voice to Auckland Transport by calling them / writing them about it?