I made my way to town this morning for the official opening of the Grafton Gully and Beach Rd cycleways. Perhaps because we’re only two weeks out from the election the government pulled out the big guns with John Key turning up to cut the ribbon along with Len Brown and Barb Cuthbert from Cycle Action Auckland. The ceremony itself took place under the Wellesley St underpass which was presumably a precaution from the rain that threatened but which thankfully didn’t eventuate.
There were four speakers who spoke about the project, Ernst Zöllner – the regional director for Northland and Auckland, John Key, Len Brown and Barbara Cuthbert from Cycle Action Auckland. I managed to get a recording of most of them so rather than repeat what they said they are below.
Ernst Zöllner
I missed recording the start of his speech but it was about how the Grafton Gully project came up very highly on all of the NZTA’s criteria.
John Key
There were quite a few interesting comments from the Prime Minister. He said the NZTA were ahead of the politicians on cycling issued and have driven them to do more for cycling. He talked about the Dutch experience and how they haven’t always been such a cycling friendly place and the big one I thought was him stating his support for Skypath
Len Brown
Like Ernst I just missed the start of Len’s speech however he started by talking about how views on transport in Auckland were changing rapidly and referenced the recent poll and was talking about how a huge percentage of people now want investment prioritised around PT and active modes.
Barbara Cuthbert
Speeches over and it was time to cut the ribbon to officially open the route.
and a quick photo op ride along the cycleway.
It was then time for us to get our bikes and have a go. Of course being a cycling event a ton of people turned up with their bikes and the bike racks for guests were overflowing.
I’ll do a separate post looking at the cycleway itself including photos and video.
Processing...
Seem to be having some problem with the Audio, just trying to fix it now
Audio fixed
I hope all the good feelings this gives NZTA directors ensures that cycle-projects are more likely in future.
Great project, fairly cheap too.
Gonna check it out tomorrow morning, might take a camera…
Good to see the politicians starting to move into this century. Important that our institutions, MoT, NZTA, and AT lead them with quality advice. Politicians of all kinds will always have various agendas so it is doubly vital that the paid experts are on point, up to the minute, and sophisticated with their analysis.
quite reasonable comments from John Key, was Gerry there? if he heard that he would have been fuming
someone should have set up Key’s (or his office’s) seat height better, it does how him up for a non-cyclist
No, I don’t think Gerry was around.
I’m sure the reason that Key was there and not Gerry is because Gerry wouldn’t have been able to get on the bike and ride for the photo op.
To give Key credit, Key can see which way the wind is blowing here, even if Brownlee and Joyce (or some Northcote Point Residents) can’t.
Even though Key admitted he was pretty sceptical of the NZ Cycleway idea 6 years ago and he actually admitted that some people do now like, commute daily using cycles and these have a part to play.
Its not all about weekend warriors anymore.
But as Barbara said, and way more diplomatically than I would have, now that AT and NZTA have raised the bar for themselves – and us, with the Grafton Gully and Beach Road type cycling facilities.
This is what will become the “norm” and will now be expected by default from now on, So they had better now plan accordingly with their follow on projects.
And of course with Nelson St coming along soon, and then Tamaki to GI starting next year, this momentum of demand for quality cycleways that link up will only build and build.
So NZTA and AT need to “build, build, build”.
More reasons why should now get on with adding on-street bike lanes too; turns out they make the streets better for drivers as well, that’s they improve travel times:
http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2014/09/when-adding-bike-lanes-actually-reduces-traffic-delays/379623/
Interesting, but doesn’t really apply to NZ. We don’t have many roads with the space to put in exclusive turn pockets like in the US.
So it sounds like we’ll be getting skypath sooner rather than later from what Key said,
“I know the Mayor has been working pretty hard on a pretty exciting initiative about getting the skypath over the harbour bridge, and we’ve got to work our way through it and I understand they’re working away on it but at teanhaf we can open that up and let cycleways from here over through to the north shore and across the bridge you are going to get a huge number of families that are going to say that’s alright I’m going to take my son it’ll be a lot of fun, pretty exciting for the kids, probably be an icecream at the other end, but it’d be a really fun family thing to do, and so I do think we can be a bit progressive about what we’re trying to achieve there and see if we can rush some of these things along so we’ll have a bit of a look at that one too and definitely in a position to make those decisions”
I’ll be taking the kids down grafton tomorrow.
In Key’s own words: Show me the money. Until the Government and Key pledges funds to the Skypath project his words are hollow. We need actions, not rhetoric, from those with the power to do. But looking forward to riding here soon, looks stunning!
For the crumbs of transport spending that has created this bike lane Key is getting some warmth here and possibly credit?? I have watched this election build up and little that has come from his mouth can be declared reliable so why now, why on this occasion does anyone believe him?.
This was a photo op for a PM whose government has steadfastly spent tax payer money on 1950’s traffic solutions, namely motorways, motorways and more motorways (witnessed by countless posts in Transport Blog) and whose energies in this area has made me question just who in this government has investments in what companies that have benefitted from this corporate welfare. Frankly he should booed out of the place and been pelted with rotten vegetables!
The bike lanes opening is superb timing just 2 weeks out from the general election where it gives Key the appearance of being a visionary who greatness has given Auckland a wonderful gift of opportunity. Sure the small section of bike lane is nice, massively overdue but ruined by shameless duplicitous politicians who are clamoring for votes and the fact that after 6 years of John Key this is all there is to speak of in Auckland!
Agreed its a tiny patch of sunlight in a grey sky of road based spend up policies.
But as much as anything this now officially anoints SkyPath with the “JK” “seal of approval” – which means little to me (or you I suspect), but it does mean all those C&R (or whatever they call themselves now) and National politicians, of all electorate, mind and belt sizes, will now have to finally “drink the kool aid”, suck up the vomit they’ve spouted on to FB and Twitter etc, and actually understand that yep, SkyPath is now coming whether they (or their electorate bases) agree with it.
Personally I’d much prefer that all the politicians kept out of such decision making and each project was compared on their relative merits without the “market is always right” or “we know whats best for you and the country” approach we have had, but history tells us alas, it has not been so for 100’s of years and will likely continue to be so for longer than you or I will be on this planet.
And the stupid thing with SkyPath in particular, is all those North Shore residents and business that oppose the SkyPath and cycling improvements will be mostly the better for having it.
And it will be seen by future generations of those residents as a wonderful outcome and should have been done from the get go when the bridge was first built. And how 60 years of progress was lost as a result.
So, yes, sometimes you do have to make the patient take the medicine, no matter how much they object to doing so.
Lastly, Six years is a long time to have only this much to show for the time. But as Max said, NZTA had this all ready to go some time ago, but drop in VKT caused their income to drop and resulted in a delay on this project.
We can probably blame some of the delay on the RoNS though, which is a National Government invention.
I can comfortably say that Key opening this and making noises about SkyPath has not changed my (or anyone elses) voting intentions one iota.
I think we need a better Minister of Transport and I don’t see one in the current Government any time soon. So the real hope lies elsewhere.