With Auckland’s newest high profile cycleway opening on Friday, Auckland Transport have launched a new website to highlight the cycleways that exist or are coming to the central city over the next couple of years along with a PT inspired network map.

AT Central City Cycling Metro Map

‘It’s all go’ for cycling in Auckland

A new transport map is set to become as recognisable to Aucklanders as the Tube map is to Londoners. Auckland’s cycle network map will be a tool to help Aucklanders plan their journeys and illustrates how we’re improving travel choice to the city says Kathryn King, Auckland Transport, Cycling and Walking Manager.

“Today we have launched our campaign with a video clip of people riding on Auckland’s cycleways. The objective is to let Aucklanders know about the city’s fantastic new and proposed cycle routes. Working with the Government and other partners, we are building 52km of new cycleways by the end of 2018.”

“The pink Lightpath has proved hugely popular and we’ve seen big growth in the number of people cycling into the city.

People are switching to cycling as a mode of transport because it provides them certainty of travel time, it saves them money and it’s a great form of exercise,” she says.

“We are opening Quay St Cycleway on 8 July and later in the year we will be opening cycle routes in Mt Roskill and Mangere. In the coming months we will be seeking feedback from the public on a number of cycle projects including improvements on Ian McKinnon Dr, Great North Rd and Karangahape Rd.”

“Local research tells us that, a large number of Aucklanders would commute into the city by bike if there were more protected cycleways. This programme of improvements will be transformational for Auckland’s transport network,” she says.

Auckland Transport, Auckland Council and the Government through NZ Transport Agency are working on a $200 million programme of cycle improvements in Auckland by the end of 2018. Significant funding has come from Urban Cycleways Programme – a partnership between Local and Central Government to accelerate key cycle projects throughout the country.

As part of the campaign they’ve released this clip

I’ve seen some criticise as being not very representative of Auckland with all of the people young, white and fit

In addition, AT have also released a book which looks at what was achieved in Auckland in for cycling in 2015 along with a number of facts and figures about cycling in Auckland.

The Auckland Cycling Account 2015

As mentioned, the cycleway on Quay St opens on Friday following an official ceremony. Finishing touches are still going in but here’s what it looked like on Sunday afternoon. When finished it will be a welcome addition to the city centre.

Quay St buffer before opening

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27 comments

  1. Does anyone know why ‘route D’ doesn’t also extend across to the Grafton Gully route along Victoria and Alten Road? Surely there is enough road width there?

    1. Ponsonby Road must be one of the most-connected roads on that map, with 4 routes joining it. Pity it doesn’t have any cycle protection itself…

  2. Surely they should have also put up SkyPath and SeaPath. The more people know about these project, the more people will get excited about the prospect of biking across the bridge. This would put more pressure onto those pesky NIMBY Northcotes.

    1. With SkyPath still under appeal, putting it on there was probably seen as unduly trying to pre-empt the court case…

      1. Agree, although you would hope ultimately the map just like a road map will include both council and AT cycleways, I couldn’t imagine a road map being produced without the state highways in it!

  3. Thanks Matt.

    What’s the plan for Park Road? It’s an obvious missing link between Grafton Bridge and Carlton Gore Rd. If I’m not mistaken that dotted line connecting the two bypasses Park Rd – which has lots of places people would want to go to (the hospital, medical school, cafes, shops), not to mention being much flatter than the alternative.

    1. I’m waiting to see what comes out of the Eastern area consultation for that gap. The problem with Park Road is that it has too many buses, and I think there’s a move to get buses and bike more separated. But as you point out, it’s a major destination.

      The dotted line would be turn right at the end of Grafton Bridge (assuming the road signal sensor detects the presence of a mere bicycle waiting in the turn right lane), go up one block of Grafton Road (either steep and lined both sides with parked cars, or take the even steeper access road) and then turn in to the end of Carlton Gore Road (which is very up and down until it meets with Park Road).

      1. The other issue is that going from west to east direction on Carlton Gore Road you hit a road block where traffic is allowed to come from east to west at a stop sign controlled intersection with Park Ave, but you are unable to take a vehicle from west to east. If AT are labelling this as a bidirectional cycleway, then is there an exception to allow cyclists to go the wrong way past the one-way section?

        The police station themselves at the intersection of Huntly Ave and Carlton Gore Road to catch vehicles rat-running and coming the wrong way through the intersection I mentioned above and also Huntly Ave has a two metre long “one way” section going north to south only.
        Since cyclists are vehicles under the road code, a surly cop could give a cyclist grief unless they were specifically exempted.

      2. That’s ridiculous, no one would want to cycle that way. Once you get rid of the flush median and parking, there should be room for cycle lanes and bus lanes each way (ideally median).

      1. My thoughts exactly, the reason people are cycling up here is to ACCESS the uni, the medical school, the research laboratories, the hospital, etc etc. Bypassing it just means people will continue to cycle in unsafe conditions. It’s doing something so a line on a map can be drawn and some boxes ticked, but it’s completely ignoring why people are cycling in the area.

        There are thousands of students, thousands of staff members – and very low cycling rates, primarily because cycling around here is pretty awful and AT show no interest in improving it.

        1. True, Queen St itself should also be included in the network. It’s a huge access corridor for retail and entertainment precincts, directly connects Quay St with the western cycleway and K Road, and seems to be the least hilly alignment Nth-Sth through the city centre.

  4. As a thought experiment, imagine that city centre map without the motorway paths of Grafton Gully, Lightpath and the Northwestern, as these expose zero front doors to the network and connect to very few ordinary intersections, let alone cross-routes (many of the other street paths also suffer from this, but nevermind). The remaining network is a terribly impoverished “grid”, with critical missing links mainly on Symonds St/Anzac Ave, Queen St, Park Rd, and Ponsonby Rd. The motorway paths give the illusion that these areas are serviced, but they are really not. Shame.

  5. For a cycle route up the centre of town, a shared space from fort street up to the library via high street would be perfect. Not very steep either.
    If only the paralysis there could be dealt with.

  6. “I’ve seen some criticise as being not very representative of Auckland with all of the people young, white and fit” You just can’t please some people….

  7. Bets on how long it will take for the twittersphere to post a picture of a taxi parked in the cycle lane.

  8. They should include information such as:
    -Location of bike rack
    -bike rental / bike share operator
    -electric bike charging station
    -point of interest

  9. Will the opening of the “Quay St Cycleway” encourage more cyclists to use Tamaki Drive route B, on the road or share with pedestrians on the footpath?

    1. Isn’t Tamaki Drive a shared path? (Excuse my ignorance as somebody who doesn’t live in Auckland so doesn’t know all the details). The main concern would be new riders riding in the parking door zone, making themselves vulnerable like Jane Bishop who was killed there a few years ago.

      At any rate, the use quotation marks around Quay St Cycleway is superfluous.

  10. I love that it’s finally happened, but boy did they have to pick such ugly plants/boxes to put between the cycle way and Quay St??

  11. Alas this route makes sense for a scenic purposes and also to help commuters from the east with a fairly flat grade.

    The question begs to differ is the quality of the design aspects and construction.

    Beach road very expensive and yet no one know where the peds & cyclists are meant to be, the utlisation of this is low due to this clash

    AT has had a few go’s at this now and should be improving, throwing money at Ad campaigns does not detract that the routes that are in demand and would be used they skirt round the issue

    agreed the planter boxes do look terrible perhaps if they wasted half the money on Beach road & grafton gulley (est $20M combined)

    our waterfront route may have got a bit more resource to work with

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