In just over a week on December 3rd what will be one of Auckland’s most iconic cycleways will be officially opened. The old Nelson St offramp and the cycleway down Nelson St as far as Victoria St are both nearing completion and for the offramp that means they’re laying down the pink surface that will make it so distinctive. Patrick and I took a quick look at it on Sunday when workers were busy adding some colour to the city. Since then a lot more has been done with pictures today showing some parts pink across the full width.

Nelson St Off-Ramp - Half Pink

It’s certainly both bright and very distinctive. It’ll be interesting to see it from satellite images.

Nelson St Off-Ramp - Half Pink 2

Nelson St Off-Ramp - Half Pink - being laid
A cloud of pink flies through the air

Here’s a pick that our friends at Bike Auckland tweeted today showing one section that has now been fully pinked

The good folks at Bike Auckland are already an evening ride planned for the night of the third to celebrate the opening the cycleway.

Lights, colour, action! Dec 3rd marks the official opening of the Nelson Street bike path opening. Bike Auckland (aka Cycle Action) want to invite all people on two wheels to come up and be the first to see the amazing design and infrastructure collaboration lit up in it’s night time glory.

This is a casual roll up event, we recommend you arrive from around 7.30pm so that you are ready to hit the Upper Queen / Canada St entrance at 8.00pm. Then we can make our way down the steadily widening path to meet the sudden full-scale panorama of harbour and city in time for the sun setting at 8.24pm.

Afterward the night is your own, follow the route down Victoria Street to finish at Rockefella for Champagne & Oysters, or ride a loop back via Pitt Street and join K’rds First Thursday event. We’ll be posting ideas on the page. For those going to Bike Rave, it’s a good excuse for a practice ride.

If you want something to do between work and 7.30, there are a multitude of local places to meet, not the least – grabbing a bite to eat at the infamous Mercury Food Plaza. There are going to be films showing the length of K’Rd and her surrounding streets – make a night of it!

I didn’t take any photos of Victoria St but one thing I can say is I was suprised by how easy the grade was, much better than I had been expecting.

I’m looking forward to this being open.

Share this

27 comments

  1. ‘Iconic’? I think you may have been listening to too much rugby commentary; next you’ll be saying it’s ‘awesome’! It’s a wonderful and much needed addition to the non-sov transport infrastructure, but why pink?

      1. It’s pink because it runs under and near K Rd. Which is an area with a reputation for being fabulous, if you know what I mean.

        I’m sure we can build boring grey cycleways in Glendowie or Westmere or somewhere at some point, but this cycleway, of all potential cycleways in the city, should be fun. It’s going to be highly visible and add a bit of charm to the whole south end of the CBD, darling.

    1. It is pink as the designers claim that the colour works best in deflecting the led lighting fitted into the barrier posts, creating a sort of “glow”.
      The lights also include a feature where they can “follow you” (a cycle rider) along the bridge.

  2. is it in honour of the pink cricket ball about to be used in the first day/night cricket test in Australia do you think?

    1. I think it’s a reference to another important technology that is sadly underutilised in New Zealand – Pink Batts insulation.

    1. Yes, you can. What’s more, if you don’t have a cycle, or that cycle doesn’t have exactly two wheels, you don’t have to wear one of those stupid polystyrene hats (or “helmets”, as they’re laughably known).

      Still, two is the best number of wheels for a cycle, in my opinionated opinion.

  3. Just stirring, but I wonder what the cost of that cycleway will be, per cyclist using it, as compared to, say, a golfer having a round at the Chamberlain golf course.

    1. Since NZTA are paying for the motorway ramp portion, then who cares? it comes out of the NTLF (fuel taxes mainly) so its paid by everyone.And in any case, whatever it costs will be bargain compared to spending on yet another dubious dicking about with a 100m stretch of motorway somewhere else in Auckland for the same money.

      As for the Nelson St portion which is paid for by AT and which does therefore come out of rates.

      Recent Australian Studies have shown that the decongestion AND health benefits of cycleways and walkways like this are 10 times their cost. No doubt we will get similar benefits here.
      And that study included the costs of the accidents and injuries to people cycling and walking, but the over all health benefits to the people doing the walking cycling is 8 times any disbenefits they have due to injury.

      So thats right it’ll have a BCR of 10:1

      Doubt any golf course in Auckland can claim that.

    2. Hmmm. That’s an interesting question that I’ve taken a look at in the past.

      I suspect that cycle infrastructure projects will tend to have low BCRs if implemented in isolation. Intuitively, this makes sense – would having a 500m separated cycleway along a road encourage any new people to cycle if it just dumped them back into traffic afterwards? Doubt it.

      However, if cycleways are delivered as part of a coherent network, they will have higher BCRs in the aggregate. This is due to network effects – cycleways that take you to other cycleways are exponentially more useful than isolated sections. This seems to be confirmed by real-world experience – look at outcomes in Dutch cities – and modelling by New Zealand researchers.

    3. If you take the opportunity cost approach, then you’re not costing anything because there is very little else you can do with a disused motorway off ramp. Cycleway/footpath/sort of public square/park thing is about it. Unlike those golf courses which could easily be copious housing, playing fields, public parks, schools, etc.

      So in this case the cost per user is really just the cost of fixing up the screens and pink, divided by the number of users over the life of those improvements. At $13m over thirty years you’re looking at about $1,200 per day. So whatever that is divided by the number of users. 500 users a day would be a couple bucks each. Offset by the much greater benefits of many of them not driving, of course.

      1. don’t be stupid Nick. The opportunity cost is huge: They could have installed a 18 hole linear mini-golf course here. You know, so all those golfers can putt during their lunchtimes before heading home to Remmers.

  4. Meh. It’s an eyesore. I hate fluro of any kind. At least I don’t have to look it too much. I’ll dust off the old bike and have a ride down to my car before I go home that night.

  5. The reflective value of the pink must be better than the green so cooler on the feet of walkers.
    This another post where the clip of the Copenhagen cyclists in rush hour plus the examples of cars buses trams illustration of previous posts could be slotted in for the Naysayers benefit. Also a referral to the Sadahk Khan information on New York and other US cities changes. We need to invest in modal shift from single occupant cars.
    I hope we can see the cyclists using it like the Copenhagen or Dutch cyclists do before I die.
    I suspect that the Rate/tax cost per cyclist for Aucklands planned cycling infrastructure would be less than the cost per motorist on the holiday highway.

    1. It will be open from the 3rd of December to general public. We / Bike Auckland are just taking the chance to encourage everyone to make it into a great celebration!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *