Triangle Road – now open for cyclists (again)!

The Triangle Road cycle lanes have finally been upgraded – and one of the most frustrating experiences for local Auckland cyclists is over!

As many of our readers will know from blog posts on here, articles elsewhere in the cycling world, or from personal experience – riding the Triangle Road cycle lanes in West Auckland during peak hours was a quite aggravating experience.

If you weren’t being endangered by some ruthless driver entering the cycle lane (we heard of at least two such crashes) then you normally found the lane blocked by cars – often dozens of them, stretching for hundreds of meters before the Lincoln Road intersection. Larger signs? Didn’t work against drivers determined to get onto the motorway any way they could. Police enforcement? Not enough staffing resources to make a dent in driver behaviour.

A year or so after the problem really became public, the advocacy work from Cycle Action Auckland and individual users, and the design and construction efforts from Auckland Transport, have now finally born fruit. Since this week the cycle lane is divided off from car traffic by solid rubber kerbs, further emphasised by flexible bollards. Auckland Transport also undertook some road widening and car park relocation (which is why the project ended up longer and more costly than just adding the dividers) to reduce the temptation for drivers to feel that they “needed” to enter the cycle lane.

We are already getting a lot of excitement from cyclists like “It’s heaps better. Cycling up there is almost fun with no cars in your way. Auckland Transport deserves praise.

It was a long one coming, and an at times frustrating project – but it’s great to know we have a permanent solution which seems to work just as intended. Cyclists now have a free route again, and we have an example project for other locations.

Welcome to what possibly is the first “protected cycle lane” in Auckland.

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