It’s great that the Grafton Gully and Beach Rd cycleways are now complete and officially opening on Saturday. While Beach Rd may not be perfect, it represents a huge step forward for Auckland and one I think many people will want to see replicated in a lot of places elsewhere, and fast. Despite not even being officially open or having the Grafton Gully connection open yet it does seem like it’s already getting some good use.

Grafton Gully Cycleway sneak peak
A sneak peak at the Grafton Gully cycleway from Auckland Transports Twitter feed.

However we still have a lot of work to do if we want to even come close to the level of cycling infrastructure the cities we look to as examples have, cities like Copenhagen or Amsterdam. What’s more they aren’t standing still either and are continuing to not only further develop their networks to make cycling even easier. This video from Streetfilms highlights some of the improvements that have happened in Copenhagen in the last few years.

In particularly like the greenwave lights and they are something that could be quite useful on Beach Rd (and at many other intersections).

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29 comments

  1. In general, it would be worth embedding / affixing solar-powered LED guide lights into the concrete shared path between the Beach Road cycleway and the Grafton Gully cycleway. Such a product is available from a company in Christchurch; retails for around $35.00 per unit. My neighbour installed them either side of his long driveway a few months ago. They’re extremely durable and the lights go all night, even when its been cloudy / raining all day.

    1. The cool blue ones installed a while back on the whole length of Onepoto Cycleway (all 140m of it …!!!) are almost all gone now. They’re irresistible, apparently.

  2. Great start, good work. Only way to catch up with overseas cities with better design and infrastructure is to start.

    However, am looking forward to some actual connections from this ‘highway’ to likely destinations like the School of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, and all the accommodation in Whitaker Pl. And not just one, when it comes to Active mode connection more is very definitely more.

    1. I’m looking forward to that as well, learning quarter access should be a priority for this route otherwise cyclists still have to play Symonds Street roulette with the buses and cars.

      Hopefully transport planning starts to address the disjuncture between where planners think cyclists should go and the destinations that cyclists actually need to reach.

    2. Patrick,

      >> However, am looking forward to some actual connections from this ‘highway’ to likely destinations like the School of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, and all the accommodation in Whitaker Pl. And not just one, when it comes to Active mode connection more is very definitely more.

      Y’know, if Symonds St were amended to accommodate bike use instead…

      It’d have to be separated from what ought to be a dedicated transit right of way, of course, which I assert is feasible.

      It would intersect with Karangahape Rd and transitively connect to Ponsonby and Grafton, and even Beach Rd via Alten and Anzac. Something like a civilised street grid there.

      1. Well, further stretches should come across from Beach through Symonds across to Mt Eden and Dominion, and Up Khyber, by the Hospital along K to Great North. All completely doable in a medium short time-frame.

        The pessimist in me says this was just a reaction to a tragic death and the outrage that followed. The optimist in me is inspired and excited.

        1. This was unrelated to the death at the Strand intersection, and has been in planning for years. Where the recent deaths have occurs remains as is, with absolutely no changes. Stanley Street itself, could quite easily have protected cycle lanes on the eastern side, where at present there’s parking, despite there being vast numbers of off street parking in the area.

          I don’t expect much else from AT, they were basically forced into doing this because of the Grafton Gully cycleway, otherwise they appear pretty disinterested in doing anything else in the city.

  3. If only it was possible to have a cycle path beside the motorway between Northcote and Takapuna, please advocate for the Seapath

  4. Hey Matt, the new cycle way is awesome and I look forward to seeing more of this kind of work around Auckland.

    The issue that has held us back for years is the low ridership levels. This makes it hard to secure the money needed to fast-track these initiatives.

    I commented on another post the other day about this issue and what I think needs to be done to solve the problem: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2014/09/03/beach-road-cycleway-completed/

    Scrap the stupid helmet requirement and you will see a much faster ROI as cycling numbers increase.

    After WW2, the Netherlands had major problems with car vs cyclist fatalities. In one year they had around 3000 cyclist deaths and about 1000 of those were children! Despite serious concerns for safety, did they make the entire population wear helmets? No, because that is a rubbish solution – instead they invested in areas that work (infrastructure, education) and the rest is history.

    Cycling in NZ is just as safe as walking. If we can remove unnecessary obstacles and increase ridership levels we can close the cycling infrastructure gap between NZ and the international community much more rapidly.

    1. That is incorrect, or at least unfounded. What is your source? I keep hearing that factiod but never heard the source.

      According to ministry of transport figures (which admittedly are probably based on ropey estimates of exposure level) cycling is four times more dangerous per kilometre than walking and twelve times more dangerous per minute.

      That being said, I think the data is so poor that you cannot make any reasonable claims either way.

      1. http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/read-the-journal/all-issues/2010-2019/2012/vol-125-no-1349/article-clarke

        Look at Table 3.

        My claims that cycling is exactly as safe as walking seems inaccurate.

        The helmet law came in 1994. Up until 1997 the difference in risk between the two modes was not very different.

        Since then we see walking become safer per hours travelled compared to cycling. According to these figures between 2006-2009 the ratio was 2.44 (cycling/walking).

        If you look at this in the context of cycling fatalities/million km travelled though it does not seem that cycling is especially dangerous.
        An AUT study debunked the ‘cycling is too dangerous’ myth by comparing ACC claims: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11195752

        1. Ok that data is mortality, I.e deaths. Nonfatal injury is a much better measure of safety because deaths while walking or cycling are so few that small differences can result in huge shifts of a incident/ exposure ratio. That paper should have estimated the statistical significance of the difference. My guess is the n’s are so low that the results aren’t discernible from pure chance. The data I was referring to was the injury rate, not the death rate.

          If that data is significant, at best all you could say is that cycling is about as *deadly* as walking, which is to say neither are especially deadly. Dangerous/injurious is a separate matter.

        2. And neither are as bad as being at home or working around home. 605,000 active claims right now, according to ACC. And 371 fatal claims (household related) in previous 12 months).

        3. I would say they are probably worse. People spend a lot of time at home, across the population I would say perhaps a thousand times the exposure level for being at home.

    2. You’re never going to fix low ridership levels until there is a lot more than the odd cycleway dotted around. It would be like wondering why no one ever drives a car if there were only a handful of unconnected roads in Auckland.

  5. New cycleway in Grafton Gully looks great – a welcome upgrade on previous efforts.

    One question though – are there any plans to improve access to the cycleway from the east? I realise this may require an underpass or bridge over the motorway spaghetti, but this would encourage greater use of the cycleway as those coming from the East or South would not have to climb the big hill to get to Little Queen Street.

    Any ideas on how an eastern entrance to the cycleway could be achieved?

    1. AT is planning a walking / cycling bridge from Nicholls Lane over Stanley Street as part of the Parnell Train Station. CAA and the Local Board have been pushing for a Greenway from there through the old unused rail tunnel to Newmarket. The bridge is a bit of a controversial one though – should we remove signalised at grade crossings for ped bridges in a city edge location?

      There are also plans (well, have been plans for a decade) to finally add a walk/cycle link over the motorway at Wellesley Street East. That would likely be on the northern side (no off-ramps) – and CAA ensured that when a NZTA recently re-zoned some land to the east of the motorway, that enough gap was left to fit a future bridge in. But then that bridge has been sought for and “been on the card” since the original motorway through the Gully was built, and still isn’t there, or even in a funding program. It was noted (in a rather grandiose format) in the City Centre Masterplan – and of course Wellesley Street East is to become the key west-east mid-town cycle axis. So that’s probably when it will happen. I.e. whenever we find some funds..

      1. Now that the train station has been canned (who knows until when) I’m guessing any proposed changes across to the East have also been canned?

      2. Max I get the debate, but Alten Rd- Nicholls Lane is one place that I reckon a well designed and funded ped/cycle bypass [which is what it is] is probably a good idea.

        One reason I think it could work is that on the Alten Rd side the destination and source of most users is already at the necessary elevation, but only of course if the new cycle lane went to the point on Alten Rd opposite Churchill St.

        The other side is more problematic and perhaps would only work as part of a new development on the gas station site… And of of course we need the Parnell Station to connect this route through to Parnell too…

        1. Oh, I am not necessarily opposed – agree that the western-side gradients could play big role in making it sensible. Just so easy to get wrong (Wellesley / Princes bridge anyone?).

    1. It’s a shared path. Can’t keep pedestrians out anyway, they’re worse than those lan-splitting, car-dodging motorists 😉

      Lower parts of the path – where the uni is – have been made much wider than usual shared paths as there are expected to be lots of peds on it.

      The Beach Road section of course is cycle-only. Trade-off, I guess. You have to stop for signals, but at least no peds in your lane (much).

      1. Any cycleway has to be regarded as pedestrian access as cyclists can dismount and walk (faulty bike). This option, however, is seldom used by cyclists when on a pedestrian only area ie. footpath

    2. It’s a shared path the whole way, so for use by peds and people on bikes. Except Beach Rd which is partly shared and partly cycles only.

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