Auckland Transport are currently consulting on adding cycle lanes to Carlton Gore Road. Major infrastructure work requiring road rebuilding has led to an obvious opportunity to add quality cycle lanes. See the full story on the Cycle Action blog here. However in brief, initially a typical rubbish Auckland design was proposed with a narrow painted lane on one side only, and stopping well back from intersections. However thanks to some good work from Cycle Action Auckland a much better design has now been proposed.
The cycle lanes will generally by 1.8m wide, plus a 0.6m buffer. Also parking on the eastbound or downhill side of the road from Grafton Road to George Street will be removed. Overall this is a decent solution for the corridor. High quality, wide and buffered painted lanes can be options for some side streets, just not the main corridors where we need separated cycleways. The design does also show a slow evolution in cycle lane design, so we hope things keep getting better.
Carlton Gore is key east-west connection in the cycle network. Firstly it provides a safe link from the city and Grafton Bridge to the heart of Newmarket, avoiding the awful Khyber Pass Road. It is also a useful cross city link from Parnell towards Mt Eden and Balmoral. Currently Carlton Gore Road feels really unsafe because of the excessive lane widths, high speeds and amount of parking. I used to cycle the corridor a lot when I was a novice cyclist, but often ended up sticking to the footpath or walking this section, as it felt so dangerous. These painted lanes would have made me feel comfortable cycling this corridor, so they are very important.
Unfortunately the cycle lane plans have brought out some classic NIMBYism from the local residents. While most of the street is offices with plenty of off-street parking, or abuts the Domain (which has parking everywhere!) there are a few apartments, including a couple of older ones with minimal off street parking. A few residents have issued a press release calling for the halt to the bike lanes, as reported by Newstalk ZB.
Residents are calling for halt to Auckland Transport’s proposed central city cycle route on Carlton Gore Road, between Grafton and Newmarket.
The designated, buffeted cycle lanes are being considered, as a way of improving access for cyclists, to and around the Auckland Domain.
But in a statement, lobby group Concerned Residents of Carlton Gore Road says the proposals would cut out most of the on-street parking on the road.
The group says the parking is used by residents in historic buildings, who have no off-street parking and no other place to park.
For a start only parking on one side of the street is being removed so will still be a decent amount of parking. There is also plenty of off street parking in the area, notably at a number of commercial sites surrounding the apartments. The residents can surely approach the local businesses and find a carpark, even if only for overnight use. I wonder if Auckland Transport could help broker this to calm the residents concerns. This case will be a big test for Auckland Transport to see if they value cyclists and safety over keeping a small amount of parking.
This situation does once again bring up an interesting question around on street parking. We have seen this before with debates over Minimum Parking Requirements, and Dominion Road bus lane proposals. However there is a feeling by many residents that they are entitled to the on-street parking outside their property, and act if the council has no right to remove it. I feel the entitlement to parking relates to the cities historic auto-dependence. As alternative modes continue to improve we should hopefully start to see this obsession reduce, as reallocation of land from parking is a key part of transforming the city.
Consultation is open for the cycle lanes until May 9 (this Friday). It is essential that the voice of cyclists is heard, not just a few vocal local residents. So if you are a user of this area, or would like to be if it is made safer please write a brief email to Auckland Transport at this address (aaron.hutching (at) aucklandtransport.govt.nz) telling them you support the cycle lanes. A letter with some more detail about the proposal can be found here. The one fix that would be great to see from the proposed design is adding cycle separators to the eastbound lane, and next to intersections to keep cyclists safe and stop cars using the lanes.
Processing...
Is there any entrance off CG Rd into the new Khyber Pass University site?
Regardless would’ve have thought the increase in student use of the area would be an addiotnal demand generator for cycle lanes being prioritised over parking, as this will facilitate movement of students between the Khyber Pass, Symonds St and Park Rd Campuses via Grafton Bridge.
that would be an excellent idea, that block is way too big. Connecting the university to the domain would make it much nice for those studying, living and working there.
All the properties on Carton Grore Road are private with no gaps for pedestiran access. I am sure one could be squeezed in but it probably wouldn’t fit with the commerical building owners plans (unless they could put ground floor retail facing the walkway.
An airbridge over the railway line would also be required which would take a lot to get approved.
There used to be an over rail bridge there
My response to the local residents is that having and living amongst healthy urban vitality, and having easy access to carparking, are mutually exclusive. Either park elsewhere, sell the car, or move out to a nice quiet/dull outer suburb (with a compulsory lawn to mow), and park as many cars as you like where you like.
I wonder if this design has been tested elsewhere. It seems suboptimal to me, leaving cyclists exposed to dooring, fishtailing by cars wanting to park, or getting bumped into by cars leaving a park without checking their rearview mirror, as so many aucklanders do.
reading a bit of the followup comments on the original article, it doesn’t seem like they had much choice, so this is probably as close as it’s likely to get to the best outcome for cyclists.
yes the location of the the buffer is interesting. Thought best practice had the buffer in the door zone. I’m like to ride close to the edge of the cycle lane to stay out of door zone. Maybe Max can comment on this if he sees this.
Yes, I agree that it isn’t a top-tier facility up to “metro” / “cycle highway” standards (AT’s highest hierarchy classification). However it is a lot better than classic painted lanes, and the combination of 1.8m next to parking AND the buffer should allow you to stay well out of the door zone without feeling too hassled by passing drivers.
As noted in both articles, it would be great if we could get at least protection / bollards for some key sections into that painted buffer.
Deploy Armadillos – http://www.cyclehoop.com/product/cycle-access-and-facilities/armadillos/
Yes, indeed. In my opinion the two main quality design criteria for a cycle lane are: 1) will cars cross it at any time? and 2) is it physically separated from cars. This doesn’t comply with either, but it’s definitely better than the status quo. I think there’s also a place for narrow protected bus / cycle lanes – if it’s narrow enough, a bus won’t be able to pass cyclists dangerously, making it a good place to cycle. That’d also require training bus drivers.
I thought best design these days was to use the parked cars to create separated cycle ways.
instead of
centre line – cars – buffer – bike – parking – pedestrians
you have
centre line – cars – parking – buffer – bike – pedestrians
and bingo!, for no extra space you have turned this proposal into full separation.
Like in New York, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Protected_bikelane_1st_Av_jeh.jpg
Of course this would never happen in Auckland because land is so much more scarce here than in Manhattan.
Also the same in Copenhagen. Again the surplus of land in Demark is huge, so you can see how they afford buffer zones there.
“Where roadside parking is available cycle tracks run on the inside of the row of parked cars, between parking and the sidewalk, essentially using parked cars as a separation barrier between bicycles and vehicle traffic. As most cars are single occupancy, this also aids to prevent dooring accidents, as the driver exits the car on the opposite side of the cycle track.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_Copenhagen#Cycle_tracks
Whoops Steve D beat me to it.
You’ve forgotten that the Danes, Dutch and Manhattanites don’t have driveways every 10m like we do.
True, but it would still be a good idea even here, I think. You’d have to be very careful with sightlines but on Carlton Gore you could probably do it.
Would it be possible to put both up and down lanes of the cycle way on the same side of the road? It’s not going to work for every road layout, but it might work for Carlton Gore.
Is there a reason why the cycle lane is between the cars and the roadway, not the cars and the kerb? Surely:
traffic lane / parked cars / buffer / cycle lane (like this)
Is better than
traffic lane / buffer / cycle lane / parked cars (the plan in the picture)
Agreed. But they are already proposing to remove fourty (!) car parks for these cycle lanes. With the proposal as you set it out, the design would have had to remove another 10+ car parks overall, near driveways (otherwise the protected lanes would have soon featured in a Herald article about unsafe cycle lanes, with some cyclist being hit by driveway traffic).
AT weren’t keen on removing another 10+ car parks, and CAA wasn’t keen on getting our first car-park protected cycle lane as a rushed and potentially faulty project. This is in fact one of the few areas where I fully agree with Non-motorist’s comments below. This was handled badly by AT in terms of leaving the cycle lane design for the last minute, when the cycle lane project had been discussed in AT since 2011, and the physical works in Carlton Gore re stormwater and road resurfacing had already been going on for quite a while too.
Max,
Removing 40 but stopping short by 10? Cruel joke. Everyone loses.
Do you think the current proposal is really safer than a half-arsed car park protection arrangement? The only fault I saw you raise was visibility — are there technically any other problems? Because I don’t see the visibility problem going away in this design: people in driveways still won’t be expecting cyclists, and might have their sightline blocked by a minivan, SUV or truck; and the cyclist will be busy contending with car doors/merging/hooking already.
The generous buffer is pretty much meaningless unless it’s protected in this situation. But I don’t see how you can get separators/bollards along where it matters most, because parking cars will need unimpeded access. Using the generous buffer will feel a lot like taking the lane — not much of an improvement.
From my uneducated mind, the issue with cycle lanes between the footpath and the parked cars is that cars exiting will have to edge out over the cycle land to be able to see past the park cars.
It wasn’t my choice to stop at another 10 carks more or less. It was AT’s decision.
Re sightlines, my comment mainly referred to the risk of a (particularly right) turn into a driveway. If car parks are kept until right the driveway, that risks (particularly if a van is parked in that spot) that cyclists can’t be seen, and get hit. So I would not have supported such a design for CAA unless the parking was pared back even further. I am much happier with this design than with a half-baked protected cycle lane.
> From my uneducated mind, the issue with cycle lanes between the footpath and the parked cars is that cars exiting
> will have to edge out over the cycle land to be able to see past the park cars.
Correct. But in a cycle lane with a buffer, cyclists can ride closer to the traffic lane, further out, so (compared to a “standard” painted lane) the solution is better. And compared to a cycle lane behind the parking – well, there cars would BLOCK the cycle lane when edging out and then waiting to enter traffic. It’s never just black and white.
Harvey,
> From my uneducated mind, the issue with cycle lanes between the footpath and the parked cars is that cars exiting will have to edge out over the cycle land to be able to see past the park cars.
Yes, this is a problem, but can be solved in a number of ways. One way is to install a turning bay in the parking lane, so cars pulling out can complete their manoeuvre in two stages: once into a clearly visible turning bay (essentially becoming a parallel parked car), then again to merge into the travel lane with the aid of rear-view visibility. Another way is to align the parking so that the driver has a wider sightline out, and to reduce the design speed of the road so that it is safer. Yet another possibility is linking up the rear access lanes into a shared party driveways for the row of buildings from 81-111 Carlton Gore Road, to reduce the number of driveways fronting on the street — this could at least be halved if every other lot shared ingress/egress.
There are a variety of proper solutions, of course, which don’t involve cars parking within a cycle lane — ask a traffic engineer.
Max,
> It wasn’t my choice to stop at another 10 carks more or less. It was AT’s decision.
No one said it was; but I’d note it is CAA’s decision to back this plan, with what influence and credibility it has.
> Re sightlines, my comment mainly referred to the risk of a (particularly right) turn into a driveway. If car parks are kept until right the driveway, that risks (particularly if a van is parked in that spot) that cyclists can’t be seen, and get hit. So I would not have supported such a design for CAA unless the parking was pared back even further. I am much happier with this design than with a half-baked protected cycle lane.
So an alternative is suggested that might cost 4 or 5 parking spaces, instead of 10+ spaces. And this is not acceptable, even to the local cycling advocacy group? Is it opposite day?
> But in a cycle lane with a buffer, cyclists can ride closer to the traffic lane, further out, so (compared to a “standard” painted lane) the solution is better.
Insofar as Auckland motorists respect paint. Try the 8-to-80 test. I’m not so confident it’ll pass as often as a parking protected lane.
> And compared to a cycle lane behind the parking – well, there cars would BLOCK the cycle lane when edging out and then waiting to enter traffic.
Again, there are ways to deal with this. This is not particularly innovative, other cities have been happily at it for decades.
> It’s never just black and white.
There are standards of decency, of acceptability, of respect for people in public space, of better and worse. No need to characterise the nuanced opinions given by others into some extreme polarity.
The new design is a bit rubbish too, frankly, as is the way the project has unfolded.
Question: what do you get when put car parking inside a bike lane? Answer: just car parking. As the saying goes, you can’t be half pregnant. Besides the door zone problem, there’s obvious contention with merging and hooking. I just don’t buy CAA’s excuse that putting the bike lane on the inside of car parking would be more risky due to invisibility of cyclists for cars in driveways — because that problem also affects this design, but in addition to the parking conflict and obstructed sightlines. This is geometrically nearly as bad as the Mt Albert “cycle lanes”, only with a different dressing.
While some on-street parking could be preserved by swapping with the bike lane, the wider area already has plenty of off-street parking both in office and public garages. Has AT done an audit? Could the residents not use them? (They’re only about as far away from affected houses as a bus stop, in case that comes up.)
The cycle lanes look half decent where they go in a straight line along the park, with no car parking contention or built frontage. However, they seem to leave you without any assistance at intersections, which is the other half of the problem for city cycling infrastructure on streets. No turning bays, stopping or passing areas, bike signals etc. There’s some kind of token kerbed island going into one approach, but what about the other five intersections (about a dozen approaches)?
While these are painted and buffered lanes, given they were resurfacing the road and not just re-marking it, you’d think they could have done a little bit more. Raised bike paths, for instance, would help with both driveways and intersections. While it’s nice that they took the opportunity to do any work at all for cycling, it’s a missed opportunity — imagine if they’d had a thorough area cycling plan ready to go, with designated links to the nearby train stations, uni development, shops, hospital, etc., such that this project might be the first part of it. That might help orient priorities better, and residents might have had a chance to buy into a shared vision too.
The whole thing looks like a typically disappointing and hasty afterthought. Oh well.
I knew I could trust on you to say that. The whole comment is typically negative. Oh well.
Max,
Your view on the matters raised would be interesting, even if you disagree. Your sustained personal commentary on my character is platitudinous at best.
Your character? I refer to your actions (such as they are “actions”). You believe that the world is black and white, and deem it the best way to say so loudly. I consider that attitude useless for improving things.
You’d never have achieved what CAA did here. You’d have demanded A, and gotten Zip. But you’d still have your purity. You are welcome to it.
Max’s frustration at your comments comes from the HUGE amount of his (unpaid) time that he puts into working on submissions for CAA. Often to teh detriment of his own health. He does that for no reason other than he passionately believes that cycling will make Auckland a better place for Aucklanders.
If Auckland ever does become the cycle city that people like you and I want, one of the heroes of that change will be Max.
If you would like to help take some of the burden away from people like Max (and me) and contribute to making Auckland more cycle friendly, please make contact with Cycle Action Auckland. We are always looking for people to become involved and spread the load that is taken on by a small group of people. You dont need any qualifications, just some time to devote to improving cycling.
Thanks, goosoid – but I guess the lesson I need to learn is to not take things personally. But then, what incentive would I have to work for free on something stressful? Catch-22
I have no issues with criticism. In fact, pushing the boundaries is important – CAA has to move on, and up the game as well, not only Auckland Transport. My requests to Auckland Transport now are significantly more “onerous” than they were just a few years ago.
But the key difference (and issue) I have with some people in the cycle community is that they do not see the benefits of incrementalism, and much worse, that they deride them as actively negative. That is the kind of stance that can never know anything but “us” and “they” (with them of course being those who can actually build cycle facilities – Council and NZTA) because what “they” build is never good enough. “They” get pretty fed up with that attitude, and I can understand them, especially when I get lumped into “they” myself.
Well, enough navel-gazing. Carlton Gore Road is one of the odd projects that I personally will actually be riding on a lot, and I am looking forward to it.
That’s a good point. Incremental actions can be very powerful; I have come round to the ‘softly softly catchy monkey’ approach more and more. Each success builds real momentum for the next. And, mostly, can’t see any other way.
goosoid and Patrick R,
Max accuses me of having a black-and-white view of the politics of cycling, but somehow anyone who suggests alternative ways of achieving increments of progress is suddenly cast as a revolutionary? Get real.
To demand that Carlton Gore Rd have a minimally decent cycleway (i.e. without, say, cars parking inside the lane itself) is not revolutionary. It is the essence of incrementalism: Carlton Gore Road, as one street, might then constitute one increment of development. Larger increments might be to service the whole neighbourhood, the suburb, the city frindge, the isthmus, and so on. The key is that each unit of development be functionally complete in accordance with its scope and purpose: e.g. a cycle lane should be a cycle lane, not a car parking lane.
To start compromising at such a small scale, on such essential features, is a recipe for failure. Unacceptable.
goosoid,
> Max’s frustration at your comments comes from the HUGE amount of his (unpaid) time that he puts into working on submissions for CAA. Often to teh detriment of his own health. He does that for no reason other than he passionately believes that cycling will make Auckland a better place for Aucklanders.
That may be, but the implication is that Aucklanders are collectively suffering for the lack of progress too, including by dying prematurely. It is therefore more important to be critical, to aim higher, to demand better, than to accommodate the sensitivities of one passionate martyr.
> If Auckland ever does become the cycle city that people like you and I want, one of the heroes of that change will be Max.
I wish him the best.
> If you would like to help take some of the burden away from people like Max (and me) and contribute to making Auckland more cycle friendly, please make contact with Cycle Action Auckland.
>We are always looking for people to become involved and spread the load that is taken on by a small group of people. You dont need any qualifications, just some time to devote to improving cycling.
Only since you ask… I was interested once, which is why I first made contact with CAA (online). However, the more I learned of the organisation, its collective attitude, direction and values — not any particular individual — the less interested I became. However, I also grant that it is not worth “competing” against CAA in any organised way, and I hope that one day it can be the cycling advocacy group Auckland needs; I’ll leave it be. (I do not plan to continue this line of discussion here or now, but am happy to get in touch with you elsewhere.)
Wait, are local residents worried about 2 hour pay and display parking from outside their building??
I believe some local residents have resident’s permits which allow them to park in those spots permanently without further payment.
Why? I’m a resident of Auckland too. Where do you apply?
I have no idea how it works or happened. It must have been some very localised thing?
Very localised. I use to have one for an apartment in Emily Place (80 year old apartment with no carparks). There was a waiting list and only applied to certain apartments. The cost was minimal ($155 sounds right) and is specifically tied to a car (attached sticker with license plate noted). From memory, they allocated 3 permits for every 2 car spaces though this might have been specific to the area as there was no pay and display, just permit parks.
I’m not being entirely serious.
The parks downtown are historical and are actually tied to the property (Courtville has a similar arrangement). But you can’t get the residents’ parks by living in one of the newer buildings in the area. Again it comes back to what you have actually bought. If a car park isn’t included you don’t have a carpark guaranteed.
You are only entitled to a resident’s permit if you live in a property without off-street parking and no on-street parking that is not otherwise priced or time-limited.
And if you live in one of the specific few buildings that the rule applies to: all built before parking minimums were first introduced, and mostly heritage buildings.
But the main point is – a resident’s parking permit just means you don’t have to pay for the on-street parking that there is, or obey the time limits. It very specifically doesn’t guarantee that there will be an on-street space available for you. There’s a couple of dozen dedicated permits for historic arrangements, but unless you already have one of those permits you’re never going to have an assigned on-street space.
There are no parking minimums in Auckland Central and never have been.
I don’t know what you mean by “Auckland Central”, but if you’re talking about the CBD (formally the “Central Area” in the district plan), it’s only been free of parking minimums since about 1996.
Carlton Gore Road isn’t even part of that “Central Area” anyway. The current zoning is mostly Business Mixed Use, which AFAICT requires 1 space for 1 bedroom units, and 2 spaces for 2 or more bedrooms. I admit I haven’t dug through every historic District Scheme and bylaw for the past century to get the details. But I’d be amazed if the land along Carlton Gore hadn’t had parking requirements, and/or a ban on residential use, since at least 1961, and probably for a while before (from p2-3 of this MRCagney report ).
The criteria for the parking permits, for what it’s worth, is if you don’t have offstreet parking, and you’re in a detached house, a building built before 1920, or any building in a historic area (p10-11 of the inherited ACC residential parking policy).
Which is probably pretty much every building in Auckland without off-street parking, except for those built in the CBD after parking minimums were dropped.
The blow back from residents over on-street parking will only get worse as the Unitary plan limits for on-site parking kick in. The planners felt on-site parking should be required so rather than dropping the rule they put in a rule preventing parking over a maximum. Kind of like saying we once had a law that you couldn’t dance in the street so we got rid of it and brought in a law saying you must dance in the street!
Which is more than a little weird. The main negative effects from off-street parking are caused by the vehicle crossing – that’s the thing that removes an on-street space, raises safety issues, makes the whole place uglier, and so on.
Once you’ve already got a single off-street space, though, there’s not a lot of negative external effects caused by having a second, as long as the vehicle crossing isn’t widened. The only real negative is the potential for extra traffic – but that would justify a parking maximum everywhere in the city, not just in certain parts.
‘Compulsory if not prohibited’ rules are really bizarre. I like the dancing analogy. The Unitary Plan actually has a rule where the minimum and maximum parking requirements are the same, prohibited to have more parking and prohibited to have less, as if that is the perfect amount of parking no matter what the individual circumstances.
I don’t really agree with parking minimums or maximums but parking maximums are set at a level where they are usually not binding so are much less distorting.
If this proposal is the best AT can come up with for a cycle lane then they’re just confirming the perception that, as an institution, they’re really not fit for purpose. It’s an unsafe hash of 1980s road building that, unsurprisingly, continues to defer to the demands of motorists. As for the residents of these ‘historic’ buildings, they seem to forget that the buildings they choose to inhabit weren’t designed with the idea that you have to have your car parked under your nose. If these residents, who incidentally are reasonably well-served by PT, really want to lie with their cars, then they should move to those parts of the city – the suburbs – that cater for their particular needs. In any case, IIRC, there are about three publicly accessible multi-storey car parks around the Kingdon Street end and acres of empty space currently used for car parking around the Park Road end of Carlton Gore Road.
My response would be “So you didn’t buy an apartment with parking, ha.”. Then walk off.
If they wanted an apartment with parking, they should have bought one with parking.
If the historical apartment owners (I assume 73 CGR) need parking, they can get it a 77 CGR which is operated by Wilson’s. There is also lots of free short term (and I assume overnight) parking in the domain. Or they could use the abundance of public transport available from Park Road.
Exactly, the title they hold for their properties will be very clear as to what they own and what they don’t.
In the comments of the CAA blog, there’s an extended discussion with a resident on the whole matter. I and several others argued the same (and argued that her fears of not being able to sell the apartment were baseless). If you want to add your comment, please be respectful, even if you may not agree with her perspective!
I saw that. She will definitely be able to sell her apartment but she may not get what she thinks it is worth as it appears she factored in the price of the permit parking. I also note that she said her apartment is a earthquake risk, putting further pressure on the price. I do feel sorry for her on a personal level (mcuh like I do with those who lose money due to buying a leaking building) but that’s how it works in the real world. Some wine, some lose and she never had ownership of the permit park so she cant claim it.
‘Some wine, some lose’
So true!
This may be covered in the Cycle Action blog, but why not have protected cycle way on the downhill side where there is no parking. There appears to be no reason not to put them in, other than cost, and would be a great way to get drivers (and the public) accustomed to the “new normal” ( yes I know I am dreaming).
I have put in my email of support for cycle lanes from the perspective of the pedestrian, this will make it safer for us to.
CAA has asked for that stretch to be protected cycle lane in our feedback. They’re reviewing that. Feel free to ask for it, indeed!
Short sighted nimby-ism at that. Vehicles travel along CG Rd either at a race car, or a snails pace, it’s truly a horrendous road. This kind of proposal (albeit not the best solution, but better than none) surely would be an improvement?
Re speeds – with the traffic lanes going down so much in width (from ~ 5.2m to ~3.2m) I’d hope that traffic speeds will slow a bit, and be much more predictable.
I always laugh when I hear people who think they own the public road outside their house and that they have some right to that space without paying anything for it. I think this is a lot better than it could have been. Baby steps. Just think, at this rate, in a hundred years or so, we may have cycle lanes everywhere!
If only that was a joke. It has been almost 100 years since the CRl was first proposed as the Morningside Deviation and the government still hasnt committed to it. That despite the fact our longest serving mayor (Robbie) was elected twice on the promise to make it happen.
Progress in Auckland makes glaciers look like Olympic sprinters.
I understand as a cyclist that this solution is not optimal; door zones suck.
But seriously; we are going from a road with no cycle facilities at all to a plan for simple painted lanes, to a plan for 1.8m buffered lanes on both sides, one of which can easily become fully separated in the future. This is so much better than what is in now or what we would expect from AT, can we not call it a win?
Bear in mind that with the width granted and normal width handle bars one can ride completely outside of the door zone and still not have any part of their bike out of the cycle lane and still have the buffer in place.
As Patrick always says; best is the worst enemy of better.
Well I have to say this is clearly the right route for quality cyclelanes as Khyber Pass must equally clearly get fulltime buslanes. Interestingly this is probably the kind of solution that we will have to come to all across Auckland because we do not have wide Boulevards like so many American cities that can accommodate every mode on each route. Choosing pairs to each of these missing amenities where possible is a good work-round. But this can be very hard to do as our topography is also unlike many American cities in that Auckland is not on a flat plain and set out with a Jeffersonian grid. Of course this is being tried in Dominion Rd too, but less successfully than here I fear.
Good work CAA.
Very good point. Interestingly, Carlton Gore Road has recently been lifted from “nothing here” category in the Auckland Cycle Network plan to “cycle connector” (mid-level of the hierarchy). Khyber Pass is still a cycle connector too, but as you say, it is unlikely (at least for the next 10-20 years) to see more than better bus lanes with cyclists allowed.
The dual pair issue is very much a problem for CAA in how to respond (as also seen by the hate people have for the Dom Road parallel routes). In recent year or so, the various strategic plans I have seen coming out of AT for corridors are about 50:50 – half push cycling to parallel routes, half integrate it.
The difference is that Dominion Rd has places cyclists might want to go to. Carlton Gore and Khyber Pass are (sadly and currently) only routes to other places
Also, with Carlton Gore/Khyber, the common route is from one corner of the rectangle to the opposite corner, so it’s 6 of one/half a dozen of the other from a distance point of view. Not so with Dom Rd.
Another difference being that Dominion Rd is about 4 times as long as Khyber Pass Rd, putting it in an entirely different scale. Dominion Rd ought to be understood as a chain of neighbourhoods, however — like a series of Khyber Passes laid end to end. In that case, leveraging the internal street grid flanking sections of Dominion Rd would be quite appropriate, just as with Carlton Gore. It’s too bad AT’s parallel routes provide neither this dense street grid at a neighbourhood scale, nor a good arterial at a regional scale.
Surely a better solution is to have one larger cycle lane going both ways on one side, a lane of cars each way and a raised divider between the two?
That’s actually not a bad idea, could have 4.2m and the buffer zone…..
Trouble with both lanes on one side is the intersections at each end of the road, and needing to cross traffic.
No worries with the proposed design, I think its good and will be a good model for elsewhere.
Glad there is no parking on the riskier, faster, downhill side. For compromise, its acceptable uphill, where speed is slow and there is more time to react.
Large bi-directional cycle lane, buffer/median, car lane, car lane, car parking (if necessary), i.e., http://streetmix.net/-/131715, is the best layout for cycling infrastructure i’ve ever come across.
The BIG problem with two narrow cycle lanes on either side of the road is that that design is only good for single commuters. 2 people casually riding somewhere don’t want to ride single file, they want to ride side-by-side so that they can chat (i know from experience). A single large lane is also more flexible for overtaking, eliminates the dooring problem, and also eliminates the problem with vehicles crossing into the cycle lane to turn as they would have to treat it like a footpath and turn around it.
NOOST-ies. Not On Our Street.
NICKERs. Not Instead of Car KERbs.
GNOMES. Go NOwhere MEchanically Self-powered.
Why do the cycle lanes need to take up 3.6m (without the buffer) or a massive 4.2m with the buffers? Surely the obvious solution is one shared cycle lane/footpath of 4m – parking – traffic lane – parking. Yes this gets rid of one footpath but retains the parking on both sides and you do not need a buffer as the kerb provides this. If Cyclists and pedestrians are happy to live together they can both transit safely and the Nimby residents have nothing to complain about.
Cyclists and pedestrians don’t actually mix particularly well. Far safer than cars mixing with anything, but it’s still awkward and slow for cyclists, and intimidating for pedestrians. Shared paths are generally a bad idea unless there’s very, very few pedestrians, and even then only in places people are just walking along, rather than on city streets where people are often stopping or changing course.
Shared paths are also potentially less safe when there’s a lot of driveways, since drivers (understandably, if not ideally) don’t look for anything moving much faster than walking pace on what looks to them like an ordinary footpath.
I agree – no to shared footpaths. To unsafe for pedestrians.
Those footpaths get very busy at lunchtime with packs of people going for lunch. Last thing you want is a cyclist weaving through them at high speed – most would probably still use the road liek they do around mission bays shared footpaths. Get everyone there own lane – god knows the road is wide enough!
But if the path was 4m wide it would leave plenty of room for cyclists and pedestrians to share. Also by not painting a separated line it would make it less likely that cyclists would go fast as they would not feel they had a segregated lane.
I think sometimes a compromise has to be sought and a shared path would stop the Nimby complaints about lack of parking.
> it would make it less likely that cyclists would go fast
That was one of my criticisms of your idea. The segregated lane allows cyclists to go a decent speed without interfering with pedestrians. It’s the same reason we almost always have separate footpaths and traffic lanes – so cars can go faster than walking pace without being (even more of) a danger to pedestrians.
> I think sometimes a compromise has to be sought
I’m all in favour of incrementalism, but if what’s being proposed is no better than what’s there now, or even worse than what’s there now, it’s a waste.
I don’t see what the problem is. Shared paths have been proven to work in other places and it is a better alternative to cycling the busy Khyber Pass Road. I suppose if you wanted to cycle fast which is probably only downhill then you can always use the road.
Of course it would be better to have separate cycle and pedestrian paths but then you have problems from the residents. If we are to see more inner city dwellings and we do this by getting rid of parking minimums then on street parking is going to become a bigger issue for residents. Shared cycle and pedestrian paths are an answer that can accommodate everyone’s needs and 4m should be enough width to do this in a safe for everyone environment.
> Shared paths have been proven to work in other places
Most of Auckland’s other shared paths are either disasters (e.g. Tamaki Drive, Symonds Street overbridge), or have very minimal pedestrian traffic that’s going in a straight line (Northwestern and Southwestern Cycleways), or have ended up as de facto segregation (Green Lane, which has both a shared path and a footpath, separated by a berm). The only real exception I can think of is Quay Street, which is more of a recreational route, would be a good 6 metres wide, and still has markings that hint at segregation, even if it’s not formal any more.
> I suppose if you wanted to cycle fast which is probably only downhill then you can always use the road.
Yes, except the road would now be worse for cycling, since the lanes wouldn’t be wide enough for cars to get past safely. And when cars can’t get past safely, they just pass unsafely.
> If we are to see more inner city dwellings and we do this by getting rid of parking minimums then on street parking is going to become a bigger issue for residents
Once you get beyond low density suburban housing, on-street parking becomes a question of how you manage it, not how you can provide enough for everyone. This is pretty simple geometry, really. Once you’ve got more than one unit for every ~6m of street frontage, it’s no longer physically possible for every house to have one car parked on the street. People who want to park a car long-term are going to need to get houses that have parking spaces, or pay for commercial off-street parking, or accept that sometimes they won’t get a park right outside.
In the long run, I hope places like Carlton Gore Road will urbanise enough that the majority don’t feel the need for a car at all. Then maybe the NIMBYs will be complaining about all the cars cluttering the place up 🙂
This is what they should be looking at http://streetmix.net/-/131748
with one 1600mm footpath?
No, sorry, it might not be clear in the link. It is a 4m wide shared path for cyclists and pedestrians. That should be plenty of room and then there is enough room for the car parking. This way cyclists get a safe cycleway and residents can not complain. All that is lost is one footpath.
“all that is lost is one footpath” What the…
What are you on?
What do you mean Sailor Boy?
What drugs have you taken for the ideal allocation of space on an urban street to be 16m for cars and 4m on one side only for pedestrians and cyclists.?
I answered more extensively on the CAA blog why that is a horrible idea. Responding to the fear that some car parks are being removed for good cycling by shafting BOTH pedestrians and cyclists would be in sync with Auckland’s history, tho. Meh, I am feeling cynical today… but despite such proposals, I think this will turn out well for Auckland.
A shared path on a downhill route. What could possibly go wrong?
Apparently this was in one of the papers over the weekend. I cant find it online though – does anyone have a link?
It was in the Sunday Star Times, a large number of their articles never make it on line. Usual approach, hero photo of some cafe that is sure to close when no one can drive there anymore, bunch of residents all saying they’ll move out if they can’t park on the street, ‘young families not been able to park outside to bring the groceries in’.
Looks like the Residents are putting up a good fight. I see that ‘Liz’ who is posting on the CAA did a letter to the Editor saying the bike lanes should go on Kyber Pass, not CGR.
Latest update from Auckland Transport:
Auckland Transport recently shared designs for a new pedestrian crossing point and cycle lanes on Carlton Gore Road. The proposed changes seek to improve safety, connectivity and accessibility on this busy commercial and residential street.
A wide range of feedback has been received and so we are holding an open day to give opportunity for the community to engage directly with the project team. This will also be a chance for us to share an updated design that responds to submissions and the results of our own safety audit. Attendees will be able to provide written feedback at the event and this will be considered when Auckland Transport makes its decision.
Come along any time between 12pm and 6pm on Wednesday 28 May, to the Spiritualist Alliance church, 120 Carlton Gore Road. We hope you can attend.
If you have any questions or comments for the project team, please contact Aaron Hutching on 09 447 4576 or email aaron.hutching@aucklandtransport.govt.nz.
“I see that ‘Liz’ who is posting on the CAA did a letter to the Editor saying the bike lanes should go on Kyber Pass, not CGR.”
The old “Please do it somewhere else, not here” (also known as the “We like it, but not here”). And of course, nothing would ever be done on Khyber Pass, because there’s no road works happening there, because there’s bus lanes already, because there’s much more car traffic etc… so cyclists would lose out again.
Thankfully, AT are not moving the route. They may be trying to find some extra parking for the 10 or so locals affected, but I have talked to the stakeholder manager yesterday, and the route remains very much on CGR.
As far as I can tell, CGR is finished (the top part at least) and we now have a 6 lane motorway quality 2 lane suburban street.
When is the decision being made re the rest of the white/green paint being sprayed?
Hi , so driving through CG early this morning and the “peloton” of cyclists were coming down the road – Oh, and were they using the cycle lane – Made just for them? – Hell No!!
The cycle lane coming down the road from Park Rd is not open yet for some reason.
OK Matthew thanks for that, but do you really think a bunch of guys, say (10+) riders are really going to commit to the cycle lane, even it was open?, they are simply not going to be able to maintain their ‘group status’ within that small thin narrow strip they have to use. I mean do ‘cycle groups’ if that’s what they’re called use the lanes created for them along Beach Rd?
What I’m suggesting is that obviously AT haven’t thought about these groups of riders.
And finally how would one ‘police’ this (if it were to be policed) if say for example the group were not in the (still closed) lane and had an accident with a motor vehicle – who would be responsible, the vehicle?, it doesn’t have a choice of picking either the road (proper) OR the cycleway.
Are you suggesting there should be something in the road code that allows you to hit a cyclist not using a bike lane when one is provided and not be to blame for doing so?
No I’m not suggesting any kind of accident involving anyone, I’m suggesting cyclists sticking to designated cycle-lanes that AT have made for them, with them specifically in-mind: what I’m trying to understand and promote comment about is AT produce lanes for cyclists (and to no fault of their own) they choose clearly not to use them. There almost appears to be many or undefined rules of where one can ride a bike as opposed to AT ideals of creating cycle lanes that will clearly not be used by cycling groups – nothing about accidents but more-so double standards perhaps.
There is no law prohibiting riding a bike on a road, even if a cycleway or protected cycleway is provided.
There is a law about cars/trucks parking on footpaths and cycle lanes and my observation is that would happen far more often on Carlton Gore Road than those cyclists legally using the road.
fair-call ) I just hope it works, I travel home there every night in rush-hour traffic, and I agree with one of the comments of cars going towards town (up CG) crossing over the (seemingly) smaller domain-side (down CG) portion of the road. I’m not sure if AT have made it overall safer for everyone
Cyclelanes are for people riding bikes as opposed to road racers in pelotons. To be fair the lycra set don’t lobby for cycle lanes and some even oppose them, they see themselves as ‘vehicles’. But i can’t speak for them having never touched a piece of lycra in my life.
I did however ride Carlton Gore yesterday and it was fine. Messy at the ends as it is isolated, and well used by motorists i have to say, the cyclelanes, that is. But was a good bit of civility on my ride from Ponsonby to Remuera and back for a meeting. More please.
Cheers Patrick – I’m buying a bike next week – I figure it’s a good time to purchase one just before winter ‘ends’. I’ll be ‘testing this piece of road out’ too from Parnell to Mt Eden (hardly a ride?) unfortunately I won’t/refuse to invest in the ‘black-stuff’