This is a guest post from NCD

Cyclist safety is topical at the moment. That’s good. I like being alive.

In mid-April the Expert Panel charged with reviewing cycling safety was convened. We know they’re going to produce a report with a lot of useful, practical, life-saving recommendations. The more critical point is whether the government and concerned agencies will do anything about it, or file them under “F” (for future? for fugetaboutit?)

Lester Levy has recently given the first inklings that he can be a man of action when it comes to critical bus lanes, so it seems a good time to look around and see if there’s any quick wins for Lester on the cycling front. It’s his lucky day.

I regularly bike from the city to St Heliers to visit my parents (aside: not everyone wearing lycra is making a recreational trip), and so I thought a quick safety audit of the route would be in order.

Exhibit one – Heading East on Tamaki drive, just past the port.

NCD Tamaki Dr 1

Often called a “pinch point”. That’s akin to having a sign for kayakers at the top of Huka Falls warning: “wet point”

Firstly, there’s no need for a car park here. It is serving port workers or Parnell Baths users, or park ’n joggers. None of these are essential.

Secondly, note the way that the car in the photo is over the lane boundary. It’s so narrow even cars are scared of being doored.

Cost of removal? A lick of paint.

This is the busiest cycling road in the country, a national jewel.… and a car park. (And no, I don’t want to ride on your root-infested too-narrow surface-that-would-never-be-tolerated-on-a-road shared path, but thanks).

Exhibit two – Coming into Mission Bay heading West, the cycle lane ever-so gently melds… into a row of parallel car parks.

NCD Tamaki Dr 2

Would the engineer who designed this identify yourself so we can award you for your (ahem) skills.

I’d be interested to know the legal situation of a cyclist who exits the cycle lane to the right, as hundreds of cyclists have to do every day. Is it effectively a lane change, so are they in the wrong if they’re bowled at this point?

Exhibit 3 – The Strand. Hey Hairy Legs, a truck is about to make your “to wax or not?” dilemma redundant.

NCD Tamaki Dr 3

Here’s a good example of the way a long vehicle’s rear end tracks a tighter radius. Looks like the driver is having to get his nose into the next lane just to keep his rear clear.

OK, let’s take a minute to think of Ruth, reasonably new cyclist that she is. Ruth is about to be freaked out by this, and rightly so.

Experienced cyclists know you need to take the lane, but Ruth is likely to try and take the apparently safe option to stay left. If she comes to the parked car just as this load come by…. Collateral damage in the quest to keep our Rockstar economy truckin’ along.

Lester, it doesn’t have to be like this.

Exhibit 4 -Stanley Street. Called a “Street” but really a motorway on-ramp. Here’s a truck picking up speed as although it’s still 50, it’s about to be 100, and there’s a big hill to climb:

NCD Tamaki Dr 4

Room for cyclists? No.

Room for a few parallel parks? Of course.

Now AT will no doubt want to point out that this is NZTA’s patch. Hey NZTA: since when did your brief include providing parking that endangers road users?

Pity the poor tourist staying in town who thinks they might ride a bike along Stanley St to that pretty looking Lower Domain Drive with it’s new cycle lane that AT is so proud of.

Interestingly, Google gives this route as an alternative option. They suggest you take two minutes extra via Parnell and avoid death:

NCD Tamaki Dr 5

Even nicer: a route that’s both direct and safe.

There’s plenty of other sites around Auckland that are just as worthy of being fixed, but this wouldn’t be a bad place to start. We don’t need a consultative process when human life is at stake. It’s not expensive to fix, doesn’t result in much (if any) lost revenue for AT. It speeds traffic flow, as cyclists get out of the way of the lanes

To go back to the title of this post, when you look around Auckland you get the feeling that for AT it is a no-brainer: car parks win.

I hope there’s never another reason to get “AT: removing car parks one death at a time” T-Shirts printed. Be pre-emptive and there doesn’t have to be.

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70 comments

  1. How timely – can I ask all cyclists on another street nearby (Carlton Gore Road) to please write in to Auckland Transport that you want buffered cycle lanes?

    http://caa.org.nz/government/auckland-council/upping-the-game-carlton-gore-road/

    Local residents are complaining that the plan will lose them on-street parking, and are fighting it. Everyone who rides CGR even occasionally should write to AT (see bottom of linked CAA blog article) to make sure this happens. It’s so close. Lets not let it be dialed back once more.

  2. I cycle often out to my sisters in St Heliers. When it comes to Tamaki Drive I cycle on road from the Strand / Quay St intersection, then at the port entrance I jump on the footpath to ride along here until just past Ngapipi Rd intersection. Tamaki Drive is too narrow along here, and even I, a confident ‘take the lane’ rider, can’t be arsed dealing with aggressive traffic along here. Past Ngapipi, the road is lovely and wide and I have no problems with ‘taking the lane’ where necessary.

    1. The problem is that the footpath is already busy as it is with walkers, runners, prams, branches, roots, so really there’s no room for cycles there.

      1. Actually, I ride at rush hour. I don’t meet many walkers or runners, and any I do my horn gets their attention (and without looking they move aside to let me know they’ve heard me). There’s one branch that I have to watch out for but that’s ok. And the footpath was recently (last two years) resealed so you kinda ‘glide’ over the roots. I get to ride at full speed, and bonus, the view is nice.

        However, I do note that the lycra warriors don’t ever use the cycle path.

        1. Let’s unpick that..

          “There’s one branch that I have to watch out for but that’s OK”.. have you never encoutered any of the fishing rods?
          “You kind glide over the roots” ..not everyone has suspension and/or big fat soft tyres
          “I get to ride at full speed” ..which is obviously not 30+ k
          “The lycra warriors don’t ever use the cycle path” ..well they often use the bridge ramps at Judges Bay and Ngapipi

          Look, the path is servicable for occasional sedate cycling, but it’s not exactly world’s best practice is it?

          I’m afraid I switch off when I hear pejorative terms like “lycra warriors”. There’s no conspiracy. Most people when they walk to the bus wear their normal clothes. If they go for a run most people wear running gear. Ditto if you ride your bike: if you’re ride is for exercise, as opposed to (often, as well as) simply getting from A to B, you are unlikely to wear a suit and tie are you?

          So what are you getting at trying to undermine a very well argued point about unecessary car parking?

          I commuted this route for 5 years and gave up on the paths on both sides of the roads to save my back. That car park in the first picture is a candidate for the Worst Car Park in Auckland as far as I’m concerned.

          More generally, cutting car parks in many of our urban and suburban artierals would, for relatively marginal cost, free up under-used space for high quality, segregated cycle lanes.

          If you want to argue the case for all our arterials to continue to be either free car parks or unencumbered four-lane expressways, please go right ahead and explain why that is such a great idea. Otherwise, keep your half-baked anecdotally-derived opinions to yourself.

        2. Let’s unpick your response in turn:

          Fishing rods? Perpetually worried and often visualise scenarios where someone casually leans back with his/her rod, and flicks it out towards the water, the hook catching on my face somewhere. Fortunately, knock on wood, hasn’t happened yet.

          I don’t have suspension, nor big fat tyres! I have a touring bike. But the shared path along here *was* recently resealed, so it’s reasonably smooth surface.

          “Lycra warriors” – I should define; I define such as those who commute back and forth during the working week, wearing full kit lycra, with work gear presumably in the backpacks they usually have on. I don’t mind lycra warriors and in fact enjoy them. Being gay, the legs in lycra just makes my head turn something bad. I really have to watch myself when they pass; the guys are pretty sexy. I sincerely hope those warriors never turn Amsterdamy.

          I’m not arguing against removing of parking, and in fact I would be strongly supportive! I’m just saying, for me, that stretch of Tamaki Drive, myself, a seasoned commuter cyclist of some 8 years, I find it tiring riding along on the road where I need to take the lane to stay alive. It’s *nice* relief to ride along the shared pathway. I very rarely ever do ride on a shared pathway (it’s way too slow), but when I do, it’s here.

          Agreed on the car in the first picture – very dangerous.

          And lest you get any wrong impressions about me, I am in favour of high quality segregated cycle lanes, and have been for about 4 years now. Just wish AT would act a bit quicker!

        3. Very funny Christopher, especially the part about Amsterdammy. However you make a very good point about shared paths and anyone on a bike moaning as the writer does ‘And no, I don’t want to ride on your root-infested too-narrow surface-that-would-never-be-tolerated-on-a-road shared path’ will never be taken seriously by the non cycling majority of road users.
          I wonder how this arrogant approach to shared spaces will work on the Skypath?

        4. Christopher, that’s a great reply / riposte. TBW’s wheels almost stopped spinning entirely for a minute there 😉

          Anyway it seems we are on the same page really.

          David, I’m not sure what you mean. Most cyclists, myself included, very frequently ride on shared paths, even footpaths from time to time. That’s not to say it’s ideal.

          In the context of this excellent post, which is about freeing up valuable top notch road surface from the curse of freely parked cars to be more productively used as dedicated (or ideally, segregated) cycle lanes, what’s arrogant about demanding that?

          It’s normal in several countries. Happily, it’s even coming, slowly, to several streets in Auckland.

        5. Fishing rods as in, I was cycling along Tamaki Drive on morning and I saw a man standing on the land side of the shared path holding a fishing rod, getting ready to go fishing you would think. As I got closer the sun made a strange mark in the air, it was reflecting off the clear nylon line he was using, the hook was in the water the line ran over the shared path to his rod and on the bike side of the path it was nicely at neck height for a cyclist.

          Real cycle lanes along here needed and can’t come soon enough, I use to take that route twice a week and I think every cyclist on here can imagine the stories that I have.

        6. I find morning rush hour on the Tamaki path is ok, but the ride home in afternoon/evening is a disaster! Aside from the dogs, kids, runners with headphones, prams, scooters and people walking across the path without looking you have to contend with being in the door zone of all the parked cars around Okahu and Mission Bay.

        7. You are probably one of the many courteous people who stick to the pedestrian side of the path, so thanks 🙂 But check out youtube if you dont believe me, there are some good videos of oblivous pedestrians and the hazards caused by all the parking and poorly designed sections.

        8. Yes but it just isn’t unreasonable for walkers etc to feel like that path is their space, everything about it suggests that’s so [except the silly white line]; in particular its width. It just isn’t wide enough for two uses.

          For the numbers and variety of human powered users of this magnificent route there just is an insufficient proportion of the whole right of way reserved for them; TOO MUCH AUTO PRIVILEGE, as usual in Auckland. Fix it now.

  3. So the Stanley st parking, I work in the building to the left. It’s unclear if that is even designated parking, there’s no markings and the council has been known to toe cars parked there. It seams in the last 6 months they have stopped that practice. I believe the intended use is as a merge area for traffic coming out of the businesses there. The foot path is very wide and the vast majority of cyclists use it as it better connects with the domain and grafton further up, myself included. It should be yellow lined. The cars there also make it dangerous trying to leave work in a car as it is fast flowing and extremely busy at peak hours

    1. “…the council has been known to toe cars parked there”.

      Haha awesome – cyclists should also toe them as they ride past 🙂

    2. Council would have likely lost any case for towing vehicles in this area. There are no yellow lines across the kerb which according to the road code, make this legal parking. Popular use of Next Gen gym goers. Simple fix if not intended for parking, some yellow road paint.

    3. Council would have likely lost any case for towing vehicles in this area. There are no yellow lines across the kerb which according to the road code, make this legal parking. Popular use of Next Gen gym goers. Simple fix if not intended for parking, some yellow paint.

  4. Should vehicles on tamaki drive even be driving in that left hand lane outside of clearway hours?

  5. Every one of these instances depicts the same problem: Parked cars. Parked cars which take up valuable road-width, thereby creating an unsafe pinch-point for other road-users. The “right” to park a vehicle beside, or even encroaching into, a live lane of traffic is a deeply-enshrined aspect of road-user convenience which probably dates back to the horse-and-cart era. But has anyone properly analysed the costs of it in today’s traffic environment? Both in terms of loss-of-traffic-space, as well as cyclist-unsafety? This has to be the most widespread hazard that cyclists face in the urban environment. Approaching and negotiating an area of reduced road-width due to parked cars on a busy or narrow road is a noticeable point-of-stress for cyclists as defensive riding is forced to kick-in. Add to this the propensity for doors to come flying open and the resulting need for cyclists to give parked vehicles an even wider berth, and the level of hazard becomes palpable.

    Interestingly, formally recognized hazards caused by road-works or the positioning of plant and machinery are less of a problem since these are required to consider traffic implications and must provide signage and traffic cones to warn of the pinch-point and even temporary speed limits to slow traffic. Yet casually-parked vehicles can create the same level of hazard with no requirement for any of this.

    It is long-overdue for the assumptions which underpin the use of road-space for temporary (usually free!) storage of vehicles to be reconsidered. Unless carriageways are over a certain width, it is not appropriate.

  6. I don’t understand why there needs to be the median there at Mission Bay – get rid of that and put a cycle lane all the way through to the intersection. I agree with all the other parts of this post – getting rid of the odd dangerous car park would be a good start before moving to proper bicycle lanes.

    1. That flush is argued there as needed for pedestrian crossing device. They have actually looked at continuing that cycle lane, but are having trouble at getting it all the way to the Patteson intersection, due to various space requirements near the intersection…

      The current cycle lane was, if I remember it right, after Jane Bishop’s death. Or possibly after the case of that woman that drove into a full group of high-viz wearing cyclists who had right of way, at Vale Road further east, and left one guy with severe head injuries. Those two incidents sparked off some improvements, but some of them lack consistency, like this one.

  7. The problem in 1 is the kerbside lane is wide enough to encourage people to try and drive on it when they shouldn’t, either wider or narrower would be better. No. 2 is just a gem, imagine if we marked a car lane like that! Not sure I understand your point in 3. There must be hundreds of places where a no stopping shoulder turns into parking. If you ride on a shoulder then you will need to cope with that. Or are you suggesting getting rid of all parking? Stanley St is part of SH16 but I think NZTA have delegated management back to AT. So you can blame them anyway. Even if they are not responsible they should be lobbying for improvements.

    1. I think the problem with number three is that the parking starts right on the inner apex of the curve, the worst place for creating a pinch point.

    2. “imagine if we marked a car lane like that” Actually I am wrong, I think the first iteration of bus lanes on Symonds St had car lanes that ran out fairly abruptly.

    3. ‘The problem in 1 is the kerbside lane is wide enough to encourage people to try and drive on it when they shouldn’t, either wider or narrower would be better.’

      Ah-ha! A chance for AT’s TEs to wheel out their favourite device: The painted median. That might even make them happy to do it?
      So: bike lane-general traffic lane-median-general traffic-bike lane. No parking.

      Alternatively: bikelane-gentraffic-gentraffic-buslane-bikelane
      No median but a buslane into the city…?

      1. Lol. Tempting. A narrow flush median, maybe 600mm only, and then protected cycle lanes. I’ll buy it.

      2. I wouldn’t do a flush median. Just rip out the parking in 1 and the wide kerbside lane would be better for cyclists. But given the high numbers on bikes a bike lane is the obvious. In number 2 you have assumed an engineer did that- there is every chance it was one of the many managers that infested the old Auckland City who did it. Many had no engineering training or experience just the conviction that their own opinion was enough.

        1. I know that engineers were involved, because I (later on) worked with the same on other projects on the route, advising CAA’s position on further projects… however, I will give you that they weren’t (and some still aren’t) big cyclists…

        2. Should we give these engineers the “cycle for a day” training like they do for bus drivers to wake their ideas up.

  8. It’s not just cyclists, but drivers too are put under risk just for the sake of a few carparks that have little purpose.
    1,2 and 4 could easily be fixed tomorrow.

  9. The first stretch of Tamaki Drive by the port (photo 1) is a bizarre mess, seemingly 2.5 lanes wide. If cars are parked there then down to 1.8 lanes. Quick and easy fix is separated lanes where the parking is, middle lane becomes a parking lane with Clearway (Preferably bus or T3) at peak. High demand for parking here generally on weekends, and second traffic lane only ever required at peak.
    Cost would be tiny as could be done with paint and separators.

    1. There are quite a few 1/2 lanes around the show. NNR through Eden Terrace, GNR just past Ponsonby. I’m guessing they are designed and built to make the traffic model look good.

  10. Alternatively they remove one of the lanes from the first stretch of Tamaki drive and have one lane in each direction, with the third lane being a reversible lane to add extra capacity at peak time in the respective direction. If this was done there’d be no loss of carparks but there would be enough room for two cycle lanes.. This could be done simply with cats eyes that change colour based on the time of day.

    1. But what are the carparks for? On this most wonderful stretch of our urban coast; just to block the view of the sea? Wouldn’t it be better to remove them, give more space for walkers, runners, and idlers on the existing paths, safety for cyclists and the opportunity to market this flat and lovely ride to all our visitors as high quality and non-deadly, and clear the view through the Pohutukawas to Rangitoto for the car-bound? After all there are still a lot of parking spaces along this road for access for people who can’t walk or ride.

      1. I don’t disagree with you at all, it would be great to have more space there, perhaps even some grass beside the footpath (it is a bit of asphalt overload), but goodluck trying to get a lane of parking removed.

      2. Its a clearway. Arguing to remove those carparks is also arguing to take that part of Tamaki Dr down to one lane each way at peak times.

        1. No, it isn’t. As you can see in the photo, it is almost 5m wide. Seems you could have a permanent lane AND a cycle lane there easily.

  11. Great post, thanks. We really need to make it clear that decisions at AT are putting peoples lives at risk. If it were a private sector enterprise, OSH would have nailed them to a cross long ago. How is this appalling level of high-risk-by-design tolerated? Indeed, if you read the laws under which local bodies operate, I’m pretty sure roads built to this standard clearly don’t comply. Would love to launch a test case.

    1. “If it were a private sector enterprise, OSH would have nailed them to a cross long ago.”

      You mean like our government has ruthlessly stamped out forestry worker deaths?

      1. Touché.
        I wouldn’t defend the forestry industry, but there is this: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/9608204/Firm-pays-135K-after-forestry-death

        Including this little piece “Nearly half the 162 assessments done had resulted in enforcement action, and WorkSafe had to shut down 15 operations because of serious, imminent danger to workers.”

        I wonder how Auckland’s roads would fare if 162 popular cycling routes were assessed under the NZ H&S criteria of [Likelyhood of accident x probable severity of accident]…

  12. It’s not really much of a quick win at all, because it doesnt really resolve any issues.

    Remove one pinch point, then the next carpark becomes a pinch point. Ok, so lets remove all the car parks along there… that will slow the cars down… then the bridges become/remain pinch points so lets widen them, then the mid-block pedestrian crossings become pinch points, so they have to go. It goes on and on. Lets remove all the pinch points and make the road wider. Hell, lets put in a motorway along there, because it’s safer….

    If/when this happens, I better not hear any complaints from the blog about how the cars are moving so fast along there and why it is so dangerous.

    Ok, you want to increase safety for cyclists, then grade-seperate the whole thing and put walls up and widen the road. OH NO YOU CANT DO THAT! So you don’t really want safety? Ok, so we step back and just remove all the parking. OH NO NOW THE CARS ARE TRAVELLING TO FAST! and ON NO WHERE AM I GOING TO PARK?! IM GOING TO COUNCILLOR BREWER ABOUT THIS!!! Ok, so you want to slow down cars that was caused by “quick wins” and there are lots of angry, vocal residents who must also be considered. Ok, lets put in some speed bumps. NO THAT WILL RUIN BUS SUSPENSION!(and poor customer experience) This is the reality of local goverment, the squeaky wheel gets the oil and all that. Ok so we can’t widen the road, we can’t put in a motorway, we can’t narrow the road, we can’t remove parks, we must remove parks, we should put in speed bumps, we can’t put in speed bumps….it goes on and on and on. The poor traffic engineers, just decide to do nothing, because it is usually the cheapest and least worst option. Not to mention avoid dealing with the Orakei Local Board LOL. For them, there is no right answer, there is always compromise between cost,efficiency and safety. And someone ALWAYS loses out.

    If I recall correctly, this blog posted an amusing video animation about an engineer justifying why the road outside a person’s house is being widened.You are raising a similar line of thought to the engineer here.

    It is great that you post hard statisical evidence about trends here and internationally. It is also great when you point out the glaring inconsistency between government transport spending policies. It is also helpful for the blog to raise these opinions on issues on the road network and raise suggestions. But I dislike when inconsistent and contradictory comments are made about different issues. You want to improve safety, then you suggest stuff that may not actually improve safety at all. This is a problem when suggestions come from members of the public who don’t deal with these issues on a daily basis. They often don’t see the whole picture. Yes, lots of cyclists along there, so they do have this issue on a daily basis, but is removing one car park enough?

    P.S. That Cycle Lane To Oblivion is HILARIOUS!

    1. Ari the point of the discussion about removing car parks is to show that there is room for separated cycle lanes, so it isn’t simply saying remove parking but also further enhancing the whole route.

      It’s funny when we write high altitude posts about the value of say cyclelanes or buslanes, people complain that we haven’t shown where exactly these can fit; now there is a detailed post with actual examples of misused road space [in our view] and you complain that we should stick to the theory…. I think we need to keep looking at these issues from every angle.

    2. Ari, in the situations in this post, removing 6 to 12 car parks would make a significant difference to that place. Yes, there would still be other dangerous spots, but to turn Auckland into a safe city for active modes, we have to build the house one brick at a time (or have Janette Sadik-Khan’s ticket to NZ turned into a one-way 😉 ).

    3. I think Ari’s point is taking out cars in ones and twos will just lead to accident migration and we have seen that occur through crash studies in the past. The question is do you treat the route or not? On Tamaki Drive I would have thought the answer is yes. There are huge numbers of cyclists along there because it is flat. Most of the cars that drive along dont really need to park on the road, they are often just taking visitors for a look. The exception being through the shopping centres where the parking is needed. Pic 1 is probably just commuters and should be removed. Pic 2 is just a bad layout that wouldn’t have got past managers who had experience, pic 4 is a state highway so why is there parking? I have no idea where 3 is but the question is parking on the route or bus lane. That is a political call, engineers can design either (usually).

      1. Yes engineers can design any kind of street treatment. And of course you are right about it being a political decision, all decisions are, but we all know that technicians influence the political debate a great deal, especially when they advise that change would be ‘difficult’ or ‘impossible’, or ‘dangerous’, or ‘expensive’, or ‘not we usually do’, or ‘may upset important people’ or any number of other ways they find to maintain the world of autodependency that so many (I know Max, not all) seem to be so much more comfortable with.

        Meh, this is not surprising, the only surprising thing I’ve learnt is how touchy TEs are when their work is criticised!

        Oh and how little ambition they seem to have in their work. After all as Keynes observed:

        ‘The conventional view is there for those who do not wish to think’.

        1. A few facts about engineering might help explain. Firstly innovative traffic designs usually result in someone getting hurt or killed. Anyone who works long enough knows where they made a mistake and maybe have even looked up the names of those they could have better protected. This leads to conservatism and a desire to see evidence before changing. Second roads are limited real estate and are marked out in accordance with the polictical desires of those in charge at the time they were marked. eg.You might hate flush medians but the politicians of the 90’s loved them and many still do. There were very few cycle lanes in the 80’s because there were few cyclists then. When fashions change we dont remark everything immediately. (and fashion is the right word. Everyone thinks there cohort are right and the others were all wrong ). Finally all engineers are different just as I cant claim all photographers are evil because one is stalking Lorde.

        2. At least in Christchurch, there were more cyclists in the 1980s than today – the commuter rate was about 10%. Especially school children – when I cycled to school in the 80s the roads were full of kids.

          The flood of cars into the country as a result of cheap Japanese cars killed all that because the roads became so much busier. That is why we now need separated infrastructure and we need to remove parking to create the space for it.

        3. Haha, like I said; touchy.

          Oh and innovative? Hardly, still waiting for competent, let alone innovative!

        4. “innovation” could be an interesting word to put a spin on picture 2….

    4. Ari, how does removing one pinch point simply move the problem further down the road? Tamaki Drive is full of pinch points removing one doesn’t move it further down the road, it just means that you can cycle further before you experience one because there are fewer there. All of these situations shown are instances of road width being used for purposes that clearly are not optimal use of the space; this isn’t an argument to widen, or to increase speed, rather it is an argument to reallocate existing space to improve safety for vulnerable users. Cheap effective and with the only downside being a loss of some pretty useless parking.

  13. I’m afraid that “one death at a time” will be exactly how this occurs. Another death will happen, completely preventable, and it will be as a result of decisions made by Auckland Transport management to leave things as they are.

    They will be responsible. (But not accountable.)

    1. unfortunately Orakei Local Board only wants cycle lanes if the seawall is extended 5 or so metres at vast expense. Would never support removing any parks or traffic lanes even temporarily. Board also desperate for roundabout at Ngapipi intersection, despite these bing rubbish for cyclists (well NZ designed ones anyway).

      1. Well no one has ever claimed politicians act rationally or with wisdom but it is their right to choose, and face the consequences if they choose wrong.

        1. Well they could heed the advice of experts on cycling regarding danger, or the local population could stand up and say that they would prefer cycle lanes to parking. Politicians are meant to act in the public interest.

        2. Of course it is just possible that the population of that area dont much care for cyclists and the community board is representing their view perfectly.

  14. The challenge for AT is to take some quick n cheap action remove a few car parks or wait years and spend zillions on building an unnecessary new sea wall to add a bike lane but retain parking everywhere.

  15. Lets put light rail down Tamaki Drive.

    Then the cyclists will really have something to complain about.

    1. Lloyd – the oodles of cyclists in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Copenhagen etc don’t seem to have problems with the oodles of trams/light rail there, so why should Auckland’s have reason to complain?

      1. Melbourne’s light rail streets are mostly slow and relaxed. And many of them have cycle lanes that actually take you where you want to go.

        Yes, please.

  16. One thing I loath is mixing cyclists with pedestrians – a typical pedestrian will not expect a cyclist to be so quick right next to them, and accidents often happen. One thing I saw in Sydney was cyclists had a dedicated lane in major arterials, even to the point of having separated traffic lights – for new developments, this would be my preference as you can contain them to 1 side of the road and separate them from footpaths with a psychological barrier like a curb, and you might be surprised at how little extra room it may take up as a footpath might only need to be as wide as 1 lane on the cycleway.

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