A few readers had some insightful comments on a recent post about Auckland Transport’s quite good plans to add safe cycle lanes on Carlton Gore Road. They highlighted how it is necessary to deliver a complete cycle network if we want to improve Auckland’s livability and choice of transport modes.
Goosoid commented that it’s often really, really difficult to use cycle facilities to get where you’re going:
How many people used to drive their car across the harbour from St Marys Bay to Northcote before the bridge was built? Not too many.
Most people will only start cycling when there is a joined up network that allows them to safely travel around. Until then we will be stuck with the usual 2-3% of people who will cycle on substandard infrastructure.
How many people would use SH1 if every few kilometres it stopped being a motorway and became a local street again? That is basically what people cycling are dealing with.
Very helpfully, David Roos illustrated this point with a map comparing the street network in downtown Auckland (left) with the nascent cycle network (right). A very big contrast in accessibility and connectedness:
And remember: most other parts of the city have it much worse. I hope that transport agencies in Auckland and other New Zealand cities are mapping their cycle networks and looking for ways to fill the many, many holes.
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That is a very insightful map, but there’s even more to the story:
* The bulk of the major north-south route there has near-zero exposure to frontage (i.e. origins and destinations), so it is perhaps excessively charitable to include it when considering how useful the network is for getting to places — it’s mostly getting to, not so much places.
* There are almost no decent intersection treatments along any of the routes; not only because the components do not link up, but also because ordinary cross-streets and side-streets are neglected by design. Therefore, all of the routes are of questionable utility in getting anywhere that isn’t directly along a trivially linear path.
* The plans for Carlton Gore Rd are especially not “quite good”; in only a few metres, they switch from protected to unprotected bike lanes — at significant frontage, evaporating at intersections — and they provide no good bike-enabled crossing or turning opportunities. They also fail to link — of all things — the local train station to the catchment around CGR, which again exposes the dearth of meaningful places in this network.
I thought of your grid metaphor when I saw the map as well. I’m trying to imagine a way to illustrate the grid catchments associated with the core cycle infrastructure. For example, GG would look very sparse since there are few places to get on and off it. Reminds me too that we are waiting for that post from you!
One positive, for me anyway, is that when phase 2 of beach road is complete, I’ll be able to ride from my apartment to countdown 100% on shared spaces and bike lanes. Assuming the fort street intersection is bidirectional. I might be the only person in the country able to do that 😛
But at the same time, there is no proper access to to countdown from that side, so it will still probably make more sense to ride on the footpath on the Quay Street side and access from the quiet entrance. And no parking.
/tangent: Does AT have anyone working with Countdown\businesses around this stuff? Their physical location and access arrangements do not make sense – the ~4 parks right by doors entrance could be used to better service pedestrians and cyclists – there are far more of them than people parking.
David, I’m a bit confused by Stage 2. The AT website alludes to a connection to the Fort Street shared space, but the map on the website shows the path only to Britomart Place. Have you seen a map showing the Fort Street connection? As I’m now using Grafton Gully and Fort Street, I have a keen interest on seeing them connected!
The Fort St connection comes in the form of a new crossing at the intersection of Fort, Britomart, Customs/Beach I believe.
Connection will be a bike light such that you can cross legally on the pedestrian phase nothing more. Also the Britomart Place is simply a share path, seems unclear whether that’s anything new or merely a sign allowing you to ride on the already narrow footpath. Considering the space there and number of traffic lanes I’d hope it’s a widened footpath at the very least, still means you’d lose priority over the side streets so really a downgrade.
At the risk of being abused and ridiculed again – I ask my simple question (which has never been answered) – where are the thousands of cyclists? Auckland’s weather and terrain are only suitable for the hardiest cyclists. Cycles may be handy for A to B for those people, but impracticable for family sized functions – i.e moving items, family sized grocery shopping, etc. “How many people used to drive their car across the harbour from St Marys Bay to Northcote before the bridge was built? Not too many.” I humbly suggest that if you built a cycleway across the bridge that after the initial excitement and press photos that only the hardiest cyclists would end up using it on a regular basis. Cycling for the majority, no matter how many lanes and paths you have across the city is simply not practical. And for this reason money spent on this must be done so logically for the real uptake as to emotionally for the vocal minority. I’m sorry if that offends any sensibilities but that is reality.
Not practical for the majority, no, or those who like the idea of the additional safety their car provides, but given the fact that congestion is going to amp up over the next couple of decades, it’s in everyone’s interests to make it as easy as possible for the people who can cycle and who want to do so.
And I will give you the same answer Richard which you always chose to ignore, presumably because it can’t infiltrate your closed and limited idea of what investment in transportation and that part of the public realm called streets and roads is for:
The purpose of building cycling amenity is to grow the numbers of people riding because this is agreed at all levels to be a good thing for society on so many levels. Increased numbers of people riding:
-is great for public health
-is great for pollution reduction, local and global
-is great for reduction of energy waste, especially imported fossil fuels
-is great for vehicle traffic reduction
-is great fro road safety for all users
-is great for urban quality
-is great for social cohesion
-is great for human happiness
It is being built not on the ‘predict and provide’ model but on ‘decide and provide’.
Everywhere else in the world where proper on-street and off-road cycling networks have been built the mode share has increased significantly. As in other transport investments what we build with any competence will be used; build it and they will come.
And it does not involve much money in the scheme of what is spent in this sector, especially as it is generally timed with road renewals or other projects.
Thankyou for your patronizing response. Insults aside you are parading the same story over and over that minority pressure groups do to garnish valuable AT funding – ratepayer money. I repeat – only hardy cyclists will ever make cycling a prime daily mode of transport in Auckland. I am concerned that minority pressure groups are taking more than their fair share of funding – which should not be the case. There are more pressing matters that require funding in Auckland than cycle lanes for the few. Bit like the emporer’s new clothes. I ask far and wide and find very few (actually none – other than recreationally on fine days in summer) that would seriously bike to and from work on a daily basis. So by all means continue to campaign to waste valuable road space and money on a form of transport that is not practical for a majority across Auckland. Just telling it as I see it / ask around etc. And that should not incur insults, or attacks on my intelligence – unless you know deep down that your case is weak which I suspect to be the facts of the matter. There will be a peak number of hardy riders and I suspect that will be it.
“I am concerned that minority pressure groups are taking more than their fair share of funding – which should not be the case”.
That’s an interesting comment. AT funds about 50% of Auckland’s roads plus ferries, public transport and footpaths. Current spending on cycling infrastructure is less than AT spends on administration. Nationwide the social cost of motor vehicles accidents is $3.14 Billion and there are around 800 deaths in Auckland from PM 10 related air pollution (mainly from diesel vehicles – at a social cost of around $4 million each). Car use is also 99% correlated to obesity and obesity is correlated to diabetes. Diabetes costs around $1,000,000 per sufferer throughout their lifetime and is predicted to bankrupt our health system.
I’d be interested to know what you think cycling’s fair share of Auckland Transports funding would be? It’s currently $6.05 per capita, the lowest of the four major cities. So the current social cost of motor vehicle accidents is slightly less than $1,000 per capita (not taking into account the cost of infrastructure) and the cost of providing cycling infrastructure in Auckland is currently $6.05 per capita… Seems like a group is getting more than their fair share of funding, but it doesn’t appear to be people riding bicycles.
where did you get that data about PM10 pollution? If true why isn’t this at the front of the port relocation discussion?
“where did you get that data about PM10 pollution? If true why isn’t this at the front of the port relocation discussion”?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/7378267/Air-pollution-killing-hundreds-in-Auckland-report
“A report given to Auckland Council last month said air pollution was responsible for 200 premature deaths a year and exposure to transport emissions had a social cost of $273m. In July last year a council report estimated that air pollution killed 700 Aucklanders annually”.
I think air pollution death estimates are climbing. The latest I saw from the UK estimates that 29,000 are killed annually.
“HAPINZ 2012 calculated the effects associated with particulate pollution (PM10). The total social costs of air pollution from man-made sources in New Zealand (from both premature death and adverse health impacts) are estimated to be $4.28 billion per year or $1,061 per person”.
Nonsense@8:12:
Reality appears to be that we know little about the shipping factor.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3244961/
Recent WHO pollution guidelines put the focus for dangerous pollution levels on PM 2.5’s as opposed to the previous PM10s and for both pollutants to look at ensuring lower longer term exposure to PM10s and 2.5s as long term exposure even at low levels does a lot of damage.
‘I repeat – only hardy cyclists will ever make cycling a prime daily mode of transport in Auckland.’
You can repeat anything as much as you like but it doesn’t make it more true, and nor does repetition constitute evidence or argument. You will actually have engage with the arguments of all those, including me, that answered this claim to have any hope of convincing anyone of anything.
In particular I don’t see any answer to Doug’s example of what happened in Sydney:
‘Some people said the same about Sydney a few years ago. It had a small group of “hardy cyclists”. It was too hilly. It was too hot. It rained. After some good work by progressive councils, and the City of Sydney in particular, a lot of new bicycle infrastructure has been built. Some of it is good. Some is average, often because the state roading body has forced some poor compromises on the councils.
Regardless of that the number of people using bikes has exploded. In some areas you now see children riding to school, uni students etc cruising about, and a lot of work commuters. A study found one of the CBD bike lanes now moves as many people per hour as the adjacent motor vehicle lane. That didn’t happen 5 years ago.
The areas with poor infrastructure still have low bicycle mode share, while areas with decent infrastructure have a surprisingly high mode share. Build it, and people will use it.’
As to your carefully nurtured sense of hurt, I can’t help you with that. Except to suggest you put more effort into the issue and less into this idea of yourself as a victim.
Crikey Ricardo we don’t actually have to become triathletes to use a push bike in this city. If I could get across 2-3 km of suburb to the train station via safe accessible bike lanes I’d happily use them.
With a small amount of Googling I found this info about SkyPath’s patronage estimates:
An independent study by Angus & Associates for Auckland Council has provided the estimates for the first year – Tourists: 12,811 – Recreation: 534,227 – Commuter: 134,346 – Total Users: 781,384. And for the 20th year – Tourists: 222,517 – Recreation: 1,438,632 – Commuter: 475,364 – Total Users: 2,136,513.
So it doesn’t look like after “the initial excitement and press photos” it will die down (rather the opposite), and that’s from an independent study.
Build it and they will come.
I couldn’t find the original study document, only the skypath business case reference to it. Do their estimates of patronage include the effect of having to pay a toll?
Most definitely they did include that, and they even estimated it for casual (cash paying) users eg. Tourists and HOP card users separately.
“Do their estimates of patronage include the effect of having to pay a toll?”
Of course it does, no one in their right mind would build a business case for transport infrastructure without considering the demand dampening effect of a toll would they? Or even a business case that doesn’t state whether there would be a toll and what it might be and the effect of that. Except of course if you are NZTA and the transport infrastructure is a motorway.
Yep, dead right, and don’t forget all those PPPs in Australia that have gone spectacularly broke because they overestimated the demand and also underestimated the effect of tolls on that already inflated demand …
We must start work on the holiday highway immediately, before word gets around and citizens come to their senses!
So those are annual figures, break down to a 5 day work week and they are not particularly high compared to other means of transport, bit of a rounding error or percentage.
So what? If everyone of those workday riders drove a car like a large chunk of the car driving road users do, then the traffic snarl-ups that result from all those extra cars on the road would make last Thursday nights traffic snarlup look like a good day.
“where are the thousands of cyclists?”
Waiting for a connected network, not a series of unconnected routes that once you reach the end of you are chucked out on the the road/footpath where many feel unsafe.
The impact of what happens when routes get linked up to become networks is shown well in this post by Peter
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2015/01/05/what-will-happen-as-we-build-our-missing-modes/
It’s a worthwhile question, Ricardo, but if it works elsewhere, you’d think it would work here wouldn’t you?
Apparently we have hills and rain. No where else in the world has that, so rules out cycling here as an option.
I looked around today – having commuted 200km across Auckland doing deliveries – one bedraggled rider the whole day. Weather and terrain will limit it to the hardy – why is something so obvious (look around) and logical so difficult to comprehend?
Delivering what? opprobrium to every non car driving road user whether warranted or not?
Anyway, hard to expect to see cyclists if all you do is drive on the motorway.
That can’t be true. There’s no way one cyclist could ride two abreast or run the quantity of red lights and stop signs required to provide enough anecdotal evidence to label them “arrogant, law breaking scofflaws”… At least one of these stories has to be false.
Judging cycling by one person’s observations on the worst weather day of the year so far. Hooray for anecdata!
This idea that only the hardiest people can brave the outdoors in a subtropical maritime climate reminds me of the equally silly idea that Auckland’s linear isthmus geography supposedly makes it unsuitable for public transport. It’s so obviously untrue, but people keep repeating it.
You show a continual lack of doing your own homework, and its becoming tiresome to do it for you.
Look here: page 12 https://at.govt.nz/media/1043964/Item-11-2-Monthly-Indicators-Report.pdf
AT cycling counts, shows AM peak cycling up over 5.6% year on year since Feb last year. And is above the Statement of Intent.
Total cycling trips recorded is thousands a day on what is a miserable at best, being really charitable spend.
And this is from a miserable set of cycling counters that by AT’s own admission don’t even represent the places where people cycle or capture even more than a few % of the trips taken on a daily basis.
From the Household Travel Survey data, the estimates for Auckland of all cycling trips across the city are more like ~50,000 trips a day. Not bad for a city with next to no connected cycling infrastructure. By comparison, Christchurch has about the same number of cycle trips too, i.e. better provision of cycling infrastructure has resulted in a four-fold increase in cycling per capita.
“At the risk of being abused and ridiculed again – I ask my simple question (which has never been answered) – where are the thousands of cyclists?”
Ricardo, several people have just written detailed, factual, and respectful responses to your question. And, for that matter, this post directly answers your question, in both text and graphical format. It would be nice if you could drop the persecution complex and thank them for answering your question.
It might not be practical for everybody to cycle exclusively (though I’ve been living without a car for 15 years, and somehow I manage to get shopping etc done), but it’s eminently practical for a majority of people to cycle for many of their journeys (with all the benefits that Patrick describes), instead of using a car for every journey whether or not it’s the most suitable tool for the job. What we need is infrastructure that welcomes people rather than putting obstacles in their way.
The idea that Auckland’s weather and terrain are somehow insurmountable obstacles is laughable. By those standards, nobody should be cycling in the Netherlands (cold, wet; flat but fierce head winds) or Stockholm (cold, wet AND hilly).
Excellent point on exclusively. If you draw the logical conclusion of only using a single type of vehicle for every trip no matter what you’d be driving a large truck for the time you need to move house.
In our household we have one car, manage a large shop each week via car and do inbetween top ups on foot or by cycle. In fact the car stays in the garage for most of the week. We have active children and would take them further afield on bike if it wasn’t for the barriers formed by some major and kid unfriendly roads between us and most of the bike paths on this map.
“At the risk of being abused and ridiculed again”
You don’t get ‘abused’, your comments are just critiqued and exposed. Of course, you most likely think any disagreement is abuse.
Ridiculous statements get the ridicule they deserve; you persist in this belief that Auckland’s weather and terrain is somehow unique in all the world. If that’s not a ridiculous statement……….
“Ridiculous statements’….carry on, I only say it as I see it, but thanks for the ridicule.
“Auckland’s weather and terrain are only suitable for the hardiest cyclists.”
Replace Auckland with Sydney. Both have very similar annual rainfall totals. Both are a bit up and down.
Some people said the same about Sydney a few years ago. It had a small group of “hardy cyclists”. It was too hilly. It was too hot. It rained. After some good work by progressive councils, and the City of Sydney in particular, a lot of new bicycle infrastructure has been built. Some of it is good. Some is average, often because the state roading body has forced some poor compromises on the councils.
Regardless of that the number of people using bikes has exploded. In some areas you now see children riding to school, uni students etc cruising about, and a lot of work commuters. A study found one of the CBD bike lanes now moves as many people per hour as the adjacent motor vehicle lane. That didn’t happen 5 years ago.
The areas with poor infrastructure still have low bicycle mode share, while areas with decent infrastructure have a surprisingly high mode share. Build it, and people will use it.
“Cycling is not practical for the majority.”
You’re absolutely right. That leaves the minority for whom it is practical. The goal of planning policy should be to make that minority bigger, for the reasons that Patrick mentioned.
If the minority is now 2 per cent, that’s an awful lot of room for growth when safe cycling on a connected network becomes possible.
“Where are the cyclists?” Same place they’ve been since the Harbour bridge was built in 1959; bullied off the road by inconsiderate people in cars.
“Bullied off the road”….is not a rational contribution.
“Bullied off the road”….is not a rational contribution.
Hmm… I’d say you haven’t read “roads were not made for cars” by Carlton Reid, nor are you commonly a person on a bike who competes for space with armoured, multi-tonne vehicles travelling at speeds that, if they hit you, have a 70-90% chance of fatally injuring you.
There’s an interesting study that’s just come out of the UK documenting “near miss” incidents with people on bikes and how those “near misses” make them feel. I’d say that being bullied off the road is exactly why a significant number of people don’t ride in Auckland. It’s certainly a common reason why a significant number of the people I talk to say they don’t ride in the city. http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/mar/24/cycling-near-miss-close-pass-road-rage
hmmm… you look at the number of cyclists, while there is no infrastructure to support them.
Do we also look at a bare patch of land and count how many people are squatting in order to consider the need for housing?
Provide the infrastructure and cyclists will use it, guaranteed.
Let’s compare it with the Netherlands. It might not be as hilly as Auckland but it definitely rains just as much. Yet the modal share is higher by quite a margin… People do their shopping and moving of big items by bicycle as well… Why is it possible here, and not in Auckland? Might it just be of decades of car-reliant culture?
Another analogy. How many cars would there be driving in the city if all roads between intersections were paved, but all intersections were left as the swampy bogs like they were 170 years ago?
From what I’ve read, we could in a few years time have a decent cycle network for a couple of 100 million. That’s I think only a few percent of the total budget. Even if we are conservative and estimate it would cater for 10% of the movements, it would still be a very good value for money I think.
Right now everyone is just forced to drive his car all the time, and then when I read articles like this I’m not surprised: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10856953
Living in Papakura I am envious of the progress and the treatment you centralizes are getting. Two things come to mind, with this great unconnectedness that one of Phils prophecies will come and that is the cars of people coming in to Auckland to the ends of the cycle paths will destroy the reason why we need them. Secondly I still don’t get why contractors who are redoing streets and intersections aren’t being contracted to future proof them. And I still feel that out here we are being left out. Where’s our connections to our train stations and local shops.
Unfortunately Peter, the elected officials out your way are also a bit behind the times.
Haven’t they built a cycle lane along Great South road? I have no idea where that lane goes to. Papakura is flat, has plenty of space for cycle lanes, and they’re cheaper to build than roads, so yes, it would be nice if a bit of thought went into cycling for Papakura.
For all that, I doubt Papakura is ever going to get as much attention as the central city for reasons of population density though they have just spent a good wodge on motorway interchanges there…
There is a cycle lane that runs from somewhere near the takanini interchange to Selwyn Oaks in Papakura. But every time you actually need the space it disappears; traffic lights,slip lanes and roundabouts. It forces traffic from two lanes at lights into one lane on straights so every one hates you for forcing them to slow down. No Copenhagen design roundabouts you get left to fend for yourself, it is a nightmare to ride.
Yeah, the cycle lane did seem to sort of vanish. A shame. There is some _very_ good cycling land around Papakura, if only it felt safe.
Motorway interchanges which destroy central city amenity and are packed with SOVs driving in from auto centric suburbs. As a city centre resident I’d happily have had the money spent on motorways in Papakura, or better yet completing a city wide cycle network with vast amounts to spare.
One of the huge issues is the equity one. One one hand building in and around the city centre makes sense because that’s likely to be where the most demand and therefore most benefits are however that’s also a sure fire way to piss off people living elsewhere who also want improvements. The opposite approach – and the one most like what we’re taking now – is to spread the budgets out across the region but that leads to only slow changes with a small project here or there but no substantial network and therefore not much uptake for decades. It’s a hard thing to balance.
Matt,
Indeed, it does provoke people at first. The situation is more nuanced, of course. I think people can relate to the following argument when it is elaborated.
1) The city centre is everyone’s city centre, not yet another parochial suburb. Of all the spatial subdivisions, of all the centres in a sprawling city, it is the most important to the greatest number of people across the region. In a prioritized allocation situation, this common place would be the least inequitable one to focus on first when developing for cycling.
2) The city centre has more than a dense agglomeration of people; not coincidentally, it is also endowed by history with a superior street grid and mixed land use to build upon — making it cheaper and easier to realize returns on investment.
3) Given that thinly-spread regional assets actually depend on fine-grained local infrastructure to unlock their potential, but not vice versa, the case for building local networks first is easy to make. Where to begin? The city centre.
4) The same argument applies next to the isthmus region, and so on, outwards.
You gotta lobby your local board, loud, long, and frequently, its probably too late for the upcoming budgets, but they’re the gatekeepers to AT in your ward.
If the local board don’t want something in their area its unlikely for AT to build it [ynless its a motorway]. and the converse – if the board do want something they’ll lobby AT to get it.
Orakei Board got the Boardwalk built at their insistence and funding and sheer doggedness and they fully support the NZTA cycleways along the GI to Tamaki Drive beside the railway.
So of course AT is able to be made to come on board and provide the other stuff NZTA is not providing to make the cycleway work.
Hi Peter – I’ve put together a follow-up post looking at the cycle map for the entire region. Central Auckland’s slightly ahead on separated cycleways – i.e. it’s one of the few places that has any – but quite frankly the map looks equally abysmal everywhere.
That being said, it’s great that advocates and potential users, like you, are distributed throughout the region!
Are you using the official map from Auckland Transport, or do you have a real cycle map? As anyone using the official map may be in for a few bad surprises. I can share some of my experiences on the North Shore:
For instance riding from Smales farm to Milford: it seems you can go along Shakespeare Road. Look closely at the Brook Street intersection. The cycle path ends at the hospital entrance, and effectively is a dead end. You’d have to do some odd manoeuvres to go onto the shared path on the other side. And the shared path is narrow, around 2 meters I think.
Riding along Glenfield Road: Note the missing blue line opposite of the mall. Following the road code when riding north means merging into a narrow two-lane pinch point. Let’s just call that a very bad idea.
And what’s with those blue streets? I guess some of those are just there to make it look like a network. If you’re in Birkenhead you may ride on Mokoia Road until you reach the bypass, but after that is strictly very brave souls only.
But sometimes it’s also better than it looks on the map: to ride from Birkenhead to Takapuna, you can go via Birkenhead Ave, City View Rd, Tilden Place, More St, and Sylvia Rd and then via the golf course on to Northcote Rd. Then follow the blue lines. Once you’re off Birkenhead Ave you’re not in heavy traffic any more.
Note how tricky crossing SH1 is. At least on Northcote Rd you can ride on the footpath, but Wairau Rd north bound has only a very narrow footpath along a fence (opposite of that green line, which is also a footpath). And you can totally forget about Tristram Avenue.
Vote for people like Callum Penrose, who joins the pro-car lobby with the losers Brewer and Quax, and that’s what you get. Conversely, the Waitemata ward has a lot of pro-PT residents.
I don’t think this sort of rhetoric is necessary or appropriate. Much better to talk positive solutions.
Ah ‘rhetoric’, from the Oxford dictionary: “The art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing.”
Pointing out that one gets what one votes for seems to me to be entirely positive. We need more of it. Transport is a highly politicised area. It is by influencing the decision makers (politicians) that one gets what one wants.
It’s certainly true that we get what we vote for (or what we can twist our elected representatives’ arms for). However, I don’t think it’s helpful to respond to someone who’s on-side and asking for change by saying “that’s what you get”. Again, this is about style, not substance.
Orakei Local Board (OLB) seems to have made progress *despite* having “Flip-Flop” Brewer as ward councillor and the local board and Brewer being thick as thieves as they both have the same political stripe.
Brewer is a Flip-Flop because of his recent change of stance over the Port Expansion – something he voted for 5 minutes ago he now opposes.,
And that is merely the latest example of his supporting whatever way he thinks the winds are blowing.
However, I suspect a lot of the groundwork OLB have used to deliver the cycling and walking projects it has to date, were in fact put in train by the old “Eastern Bays Community Board” (ECB) – pre-Supercity, chaired and lead by the very able, but sadly, since departed Brian Slater. And quite a few of the current OLB members were on the old ECB so probably they brought along all the knowledge and contacts they had built up and use it to lobby AT and AC for funds.
Having said that the OLB still can’t the Meadowbank local Community Centre fixed up despite it falling into a serious state of disrepair.
And all this despite the incredibly effective Brewer and the OLB’s often quoted “fact” that:
“OLB ratepayers contribute more in total rate dollars to the council and yet receive the lowest proportion of the rates spend of all wards.”.
However I hear other local boards make the same claim too. They can’t all be right.
Cycling makes up about 2% of urban transport, which given the conditions is reasonably high. This will increase with the infrastructure that is already in place and in planning. The work that’s being done in Mangere right now is incredibly exciting and a testing ground for the rest of Auckland.
Will we get to 5% before 2020? Probably. To 20% before 2030? Possibly. We’re in for a lot of improvement.
Point is, that all depends on what we build. We can have 5% and more, if we make the conditions right for such a possibility…. hence the post.
How is the Mangere work progressing? Still funded and still going ahead or delayed and defunded as per usual for cycle projects such that a slip lane can be built somewhere?
Good question! Is anyone familiar with the area able to comment?
Remind me, how many (few) interchange upgrades would it take to pay for Auckland to get the entire Metro-level cycle network built?
That’s the sort of choice that should have been included in the LTP “consultation”.
TimR: <1
(less than one interchange upgrade is all it would cost to give AKL a pretty decent network to be getting on with)
AT would argue map on right incomplete as bus / transit lanes omitted
And they would be wrong. Being tailgated by a 14 tonne bus does not define a cycle-lane.
Omits the young, the elderly, the inexperienced, the less brave. It is a social justice issue.
They also draw bus lanes that operate 2 hrs a day at peak as being completed sections of the cycle network such as khyber pass et al.
There are lots of quiet streets too, and yes, bus lanes, but I included places I’d cycle with someone I care about – infrastructure worth the name. I ride all sorts of roads, but the thought of riding with buses has not once crossed my mind.
Yes, that was the piece that I thought was missing in this discussion – not every street needs specific cycling infrastructure. If you get the traffic speeds/volumes down then you have a perfectly rideable street as it is – most streets in The Netherlands don’t have separate cycleways, just the busier ones. So Akld will also have plenty of these “bike-friendly streets” around the place (perhaps not as many in that downtown map, except for the shared streets and quieter lanes). What’s often missing is the means to connect some of these valuable links up, e.g. nice local streets that have to cross a busy road with no easy crossing facilities, or culs de sac with no connecting pathway between them. So these little “pinchpoint/gap” treatments can be just as cost-effective as rolling out miles of cycleways. Good route/destination signage can also help people realise where these streets take you.
GlenK,
This is why I refer to “bike-enabled streets”, and avoid specifying a treatment in detail (except as examples). It shifts the emphasis to the overall objective and a meaningfully testable condition — does a street work for bike use or not, and does it fit into a larger network conducive of bike travel? Otherwise it’s easy to get shortchanged by scoring infrastructure baubles, as Auckland has traditionally done. The basic principle of conflict reduction in space and time, whilst maintaining first-class exposure to frontage and cross-routes, is the key, regardless of how it’s implemented in various contexts.
Indeed – many if not most of Auckland’s streets are already bike-enabled, for everyone except for very small children. Either because the traffic is slowed to under 50km/h, or so wide that cars can pass with more than enough room, or there is so little traffic it’s not a worry. (It’d be better if there were more in the “slow” category than the “wide” category, but it works either way). Even more streets are bike-enabled if you tactically choose to ignore the laws against riding on the footpath or using pedestrian crossing phases (which are practically never enforced, anyway).
The problem is that these bike-enabled streets are not well connected, and the “network” breaks down the moment you try to bike further than you could get by just walking. There’s no easy way to get along or across main arterial roads, and very few options to travel between different areas of the city.
But if you’re not willing to ride on a quiet little suburban street sharing with the occasional car doing 30km/h, you’re never going to be able to ride a bike for transport anywhere in any city in the world, past or plausible future.
“if you’re not willing to ride on a quiet little suburban street sharing with the occasional car doing 30km/h”
And evidence from overseas shows that a wide range of people are very willing to cycle on these kinds of streets.
Bryce P often points out that the number of people cycling in Orewa on the streets there is high. This is because the streets were designed as narrow and with the intention that people would drive at 30km/h – so they do.
On the slightly larger street near me (Roberts Ave/Norwood Road) I have often seen cars racing down there at over 80km/h, in a quiet residential area. And not young people but older drivers who clearly have families.
I live on a dead end street that is about 500m long and is off a slightly larger but still low vehicle numbers. However, both streets seem to be treated as drag strips by the majority of drivers. There is no consideration for the fact there is a school at the corner or that lots of kids from nearby schools (including Belmont Intermediate – rated the best cycling school in NZ) are walking and cycling.
The fact is that most people driving in Auckland will not voluntarily slow down as they consider themselves entitled to drive as fast as possible at all times. And then when something happens it is just an “accident”. We have to redesign streets so that people feel they can’t go faster than 30km/h.
Plus the Police will oppose lower speed limits until you can show that the cars are actually travelling at that speed. Fantastic way to protect the lives of our children but apparently that isn’t the Police focus.
Changing trends in urban movement globally in OECD nations can be summarised as occurring simultaneously in three ways away from the dominant private vehicle mode (which is often is still dominant, but the growth is everywhere else):
-to Transit
-to virtual
-to proximity
You will note that the last two changes are not transportation ones directly, except they are in outcome, and that proximity is really another way of saying walking and cycling. Cycling to a local amenity (or a transit station) instead of driving to a further one, or living right among dense attractions and cycling or walking predominantly, esp. in city centres, or sub-centres.
Planning is simply preparing for the future, a place that is always somewhat different from the present, and cities, which are concentrations of human activity and therefore often exhibit change faster than elsewhere, require a certain nibble footedness in order to keep up. How do we best do this? We need to keep a clear eye on the marginal user, what are these people doing? This is where the signs of what the next shape our cities must take in order to be ready and able to function well in the months and years ahead.
The Trend, your friend, the Trend.
Most rush hour traffic is single occupant cars, not families. There lies the potential for cyclists. The weather and terrain is far better than many other cities, i.e. no ice, theres only about 5 days a year when I get really soaked, and my 2 speed bike keeps up with 95% of other bikes while also managing all the hills
Yes this is also my experience. People forget that a lot of cycle trips are a short distance locally and you can follow ridge lines. e.g. ponsonby rd, Krd is easy cycling. There are many other places in Auckland that are similar.
can you do a melbourne cycle map please? i’m interested to know how many cycle lanes there are here
A similar scenario could also ask the same question would we ask motorists to tolerate this”.
Next time a bike rider gets to destination and cant find a bike rack, they should just leave their bike on road. After all, they will only be a few minutes and there is no legal parks around.
No, leave it sideways across the footpath or a driveway. That seems to be acceptable for car drivers so surely is OK.
> On the slightly larger street near me (Roberts Ave/Norwood Road) I have often seen cars racing down there at over 80km/h, in a quiet residential area. And not young people but older drivers who clearly have families.
Very much so – it’s design, not some sort of mythical “Aucklanders are culturally aggressive drivers” thing. My street in Kingsland is 6.5m kerb to kerb with almost overhanging trees, so people drive 30km/h. A minute later, on the absurdly wide Bond Street, the same cars will be doing 70km/h. Same speed limit.
That was in answer to http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2015/03/28/would-we-ask-motorists-to-tolerate-this/#comment-162331