Last week Auckland Transport finally released the outcome of their consultation to the Northcote Walking and Cycling improvements that started in July last year. All up 5.2km of improvements were proposed starting from Taharoto Rd and going all the way through to the Northcote Ferry Terminal and would also be a very useful route once Skypath is complete. The improvements consist of a mixed bag of shared paths, on road cycle lanes (with varying degrees of protection) and traffic calming.
All up Auckland Transport received 790 pieces of feedback which included one submission containing a petition with 1,400 signatures. By far the biggest issue that was raised was by local residents complaining about the loss of carparks on Queen St. Others also complained that adding cycle lanes would make congestion worse, that AT should first wait for the decision on Skypath, that AT hadn’t done enough research or presented alternative routes, that it would cost too much, that cycling is already safe in the area therefore no changes are needed, using the old chestnut of “there’s not enough cyclists to justify it”.
The feedback report contains a lot more information on the submissions including excepts from many of them. I actually had to stop reading the report due to some of the comments being so absurd I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so in the end I just ended up frustrated. In saying that one of my favourite is one suggesting that parking is needed because school children rely on having parking close to the cinema.
Of course while not a formal submission we also can’t forget local councillor George Wood’s efforts including that we can’t do anything because of a historic concrete road.
Following the feedback AT have made a number of changes with the most major one being a complete redesign of their plans for section 4 on the map above. It means that the will now only remove 14 carparks instead of 150 and in addition a further 10 will be created using angle parking on one of the side roads off Queen St. The redesign sees buffered cycle lanes replaced by a combination of raised tables to slow vehicles and sharrows – painted bike symbols meant to signify that cars and bike share the road.
And here’s what they’ like in the road environment
I’m yet to be convinced these will make the road safe enough that parents would be willing to let their kid rid on the road unsupervised – which I think is how we should judge the success of all cycling projects.
In other parts of the project the changes made are much more minor and include things like having cycle lanes go behind a traffic island for a pedestrian crossing rather than forcing cyclists out and around it, a speed table on Queen St just north of Stafford Rd etc.
My biggest concerns about the project remain
- the area around the Queen St/Onewa Rd/Lake Rd intersection where cyclists are dumped out on to the road or will need to use the footpath
- the other main intersections, for example the intersection of Northcote Rd and Lake Rd (below) – again would you let a child cross those roads
- the quite substantial amounts of shared paths on Lake Rd and Northcote Rd – in some cases there are even shared paths despite being parking protected cycle lanes.
As I said a mixed bag, some parts are ok but others not so much.
However coming back to Queen St it seems even these changes are still getting people upset and that includes Health Minister Jonathan Coleman who lives on the street.
Dr Coleman, who is the MP for Northcote and lives on Queen St, sees no need for the tables on a road he says carries little traffic and is already safe for cyclists.
The leisure cyclist, who also holds the Cabinet’s sports and recreational portfolio, is pleased residents’ parking concerns have been “partially listened to” but disappointed they were not consulted on the speed tables.
“They are suddenly, without any consultation, going to introduce a whole lot of defacing traffic-calming measures, which are just totally unnecessary,” he said.
“Cars will come up to them, brake, then accelerate off them – it’s a nightmare.”
“It’s good for there to be safe cycling, but parts of this – especially the Queen St stuff – are unnecessary because cycling there is already safe.”
I’d suggest that Coleman is only considering the safety of the road from his own perspective as a confidant cyclist and not thinking about how an 8 year old or an 80 year old might feel using the street. It’s also crazy that has Health Minister he’s not pushing for these to be better considering the benefits that encouraging more people to be active provides. It’s odd as he has been a bit more supportive of getting more people cycling in the past but that seems to have been worn away by his neighbours unhappy at not having a free carpark outside their house (even if they have off street parking).
Assuming the likes of Coleman don’t get AT to rethink the project again then it is expected to cost about $4 million and constructionwill start in the middle of next year.
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It’s also worrying as speed reductions are the ONE thing that actually counts as a “silver bullet” in terms of reducing traffic crashes AND the severity of crashes once they occur. Speed reductions on a local, mostly residential street like Queen Street will benefit everyone’s safety, including pedestrians, children and, yes DRIVERS etc…
So disappointing that a health minister doesn’t get that 10-20 km/h more impact speed can make the difference between a few days in hospital and death.
I said it on twitter- Coleman’s position against active transport should be looked on like the health minister promoting smoking. Absolutely disgraceful.
I’m also not convinced by the speed bump/bypass/sharrow set-up. What’s needed is people with the cojones to just get on and build a best practice facility. Once Skypath is built and running my suspicion is that there will soon be calks to go back and redo some proper separated cycleways.
If I was a resident (and assuming I had offstreet parking) I think I would be much happier to remove some parking rather than have to go over 8 raised platforms. Even at slow speed they are annoying
It’s so typical of NZ/Auckland that we’re creating more unsafe infrastructure.
Queen Street looks like a good place to implement something like shown here: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2015/05/30/nederland-re-cycle-and-e-cycle/
About those speed tables, I would also be concerned. These things make a street a lot more dangerous. What are the give way rules at one of these? Are they going to have a give way sign on one side? Or do small cars have to give way to SUVs?
And other than that it’s the same again. “We can do cycle lanes but not on crossroads because cars need all the space there.” Where are the pedestrian or cycle crossings on that roundabout?
Ah, Jonathan Coleman, fresh from declaring that trans people are “nutty”. He’s a piece of garbage even by Nat standards.
I suspect Jonathan doesn’t want the SkyPath passing through his fiefdom either. I’m guessing its because it might bring Proles his way! However always a man of the people you can see him standing on a traffic island on Onewa Rd waving at the traffic come election time, big goofy grin, sycophants surrounding him. a seriously bile inducing phenomenon I promise!.
And two more pedestrians died in the last 24hrs in Auckland, we need 30kph speed were pedestrians cyclist and cars mix country wide, rail transport was always segregated same should go for cars and trucks at anything over 25 to 30kph.
Tables are interesting things. Cars stop in the cycle lane prior to the table to let opposing traffic through and again after exiting drive into the cycle lane to manoeuvre away from any approaching traffic. This intersperses slow moving vehicular traffic into the cycleway, which will be filled with relatively fast moving cyclists – accentuated on down hill sections.
Its like putting an additional intersection on the road. It might well slow down car traffic, but increase the risk of collision.
A speed hump across the entire road, including cycle lane would be better.
I believe that cyclists won’t be too happy about that idea because heaps of cyclists wanted gaps in the speed bumps in wellington so they could ride faster.
There is no cycle lane. I find when riding that speed humps generally work pretty well as motorists don’t pass unless you are going very slowly.
So do I, speed humps slow down car traffic to the speed of cyclists.
The problem with these tables is that they are liable to slow down traffic to slower average speeds than cyclists and require traffic to be stationary (or moving at very low speeds) at the extreme left hand side of the road. In the same space cyclists will be moving at full speed towards the cycle lanes to the left of these tables.
So what’s the issue? Cyclists will have to slow down to stay behind cars that they are behind approaching speed bumos, motorists will have to slow down inbetween speed bumps to remain behind cyclists. Motorists and cyclists will never be parallel.
The table design is a parallel channel that allows a cyclist free passage to pass on the left without reducing speed. The table restriction to a central single car passage means a car will normally proceed slowly down the centre of the road and gradually move to the left. Thus the table normally allows cyclists at pace to pass the slow moving car traffic.
However if there is approaching traffic a car will swerve quickly to the left on exiting the table. In these less normal cases there is no opportunity for the cyclist to pass the car. The cyclist must make the decision as to whether it is safe to pass the car based on seeing if there is approaching traffic beyond the car, from a position behind the car having the car obstructing their view.
Compare the situation with the speed table with the situation with just speed bumps, as you see elsewhere in this area.
With the speed bumps, cars just slow down for the speed bumps to then speed up again. As a cyclist you can probably ride faster over those bumps, especially if you stand up. No overtaking involved. And for cars, no need to go into the path of oncoming traffic.
One issue is indeed putting the cars on collision course with ongoing traffic. This just causes frustration for drivers having to wait, and potentially leads to aggression if two cars end up blocking each other. And there will be the occasional head-on collision if someone misjudges oncoming traffic.
What also makes these speed tables dangerous for cyclists is that they invite cyclists to overtake cars (on the left) while the latter are driving through the central passage. If there is opposing traffic, the car will then have to swerve left to avoid it, potentially hitting the cyclist.
All in all it’s a lot of accidents waiting to happen.
Narrow the traffic lane down to 6 to 6.4m wide using parking bays. Plant trees in the build outs for vertical drag. Boom. Nice street.
I know this is a little late, but has anyone considered moving the carparks to the middle of the road I.e parallel parking or 45 degree angle parking.
This might mean there could be just enough space for cyclelanes. Even if it is sharrows, it still reduces the risk of dooring I suppose
So this a huge downgrading in the provision of facilities on Queen Street, which some NIMBYs want to downgrade further. Is there anything we can do to change back to better plans/protect what we still have left?
Matt L, “…make the road safe enough that parents would be willing to let their kid rid on the road unsupervised – which I think is how we should judge the success of all cycling projects.” Really? Somewhat unrealistic/idealistic. It’s a road, not a playground. How about adding some real-world considerations, like the number of people who will benefit, and the cost of project In fact, let’s take those two factors, and make an equation out of them with a result. Let’s call that a cost per person, which equals the total cost divided by the number of expected users. In this case, approximately $8,000 per user. Good use of ratepayer money? I think not.
Now perhaps I’ve over-simplified that somewhat, and I’m sure I’ll get lots of heated responses to it. So let’s apply another test. Is this $4 million project the best use of ratepayer funds? When other local projects like the Northcote Shopping Centre upgrade ($1.6m) are “put on hold” or watered down, which would benefit a lot more people, it doesn’t appear to be now, does it? Or when the Council intends on selling $660m of public assets such as reserve land and community buildings, which again benefit a much larger section of the population, does it still seem reasonable to spend $4m on this?
I don’t even think this $4m spend is the best use of funds for cycling facilities in Auckland, especially the Queen St section where there have been no reported accidents between cars and cycles in recent times. Now I know what you’re going to say, that if it was safer then 80 year olds and small children will suddenly come flooding out of their houses and start cycling everywhere!! Absolute rubbish. I know some 80 year olds, and some children. The children are happy to ride around the park, and the 80 year olds are happy walking or driving.
Last point, is the constant comment about NIMBYism. What the fanatical “everyone has the right to be able to cycle everywhere without interference from cars or pedestrians” lobby needs to understand, is that most people don’t object to cycling, they just object to the cycling supporters having no appreciation of or regard for the significant negative impact that these cycling projects can have on the everyday life of the vast majority of the local population. It seems like most of the vocal cycling supporters would be better suited to steam-rollers.
“Somewhat unrealistic/idealistic.” That’s a perfectly normal way to build cycling infrastructure in a lot of other places in the world. Children have as much right to use our streets, even if they can’t drive a car, and they should for instance be able to ride to school. There is still a difference between children playing on the street and children cycling somewhere.
But I would indeed expect the Queen St section is already quite safe if there’s not a lot of traffic there. Could be just a shared 30kph zone.
And the last point: consider the two sentences below:
#1 “everyone has the right to be able to cycle everywhere without interference from cars or pedestrians”
#2 “everyone has the right to be able to drive their car everywhere without interference from bicycles or pedestrians”
I don’t get why so many people think #1 is wrong, while they accept #2 as an absolute truth. I can assure you, people riding their bike on your street have a lot less negative impact than people driving their car on your street.
Nigel,
How can I break this to you gently? I don’t know, so here goes nothing: you’re wrong.
>> “Somewhat unrealistic/idealistic. It’s a road, not a playground.”
It’s public space, not necessarily a road. We happen to have put a road upon it. We can collectively decide to change that.
Not that anyone is proposing to remove the road, mind you.
That’s because a road can also be a playground. If you don’t think so, you’d better hurry to your time machine and tell the kids — now all grown up — of Denmark or Netherlands what an illegitimate childhood they’re about to experience and in turn provide for their next generation.
But as I trust you’re not some child-hating grump, I hope you’ll believe that we’re not all car-hating crooks. The initial proposed design for Queen St — weak as it was — allowed for cars to drive along it, park in some sections, and generally get to where drivers wanted to go. The new design, a second-order piss-take of decent infrastructure, allows for even more car access.
Given that car access is retained, that means any improvements made to the street are to the direct benefit of people operating cars too. To state the obvious: a slower, safer, more pleasant traffic environment is good for everyone on or near the damn road. So your little calculation on the back of an envelope is not only oversimplified but simply wrong. Useless. Nonsense. Hogwash and bollocks. A waste of bits.
>> “I don’t even think this $4m spend is the best use of funds for cycling facilities in Auckland, especially the Queen St section where there have been no reported accidents between cars and cycles in recent times.”
What a strange principle, that improved infrastructure (even of the half-baked variety) can only be justifiable where there is a trail of blood and gore. Strange and risible.
Moreover, restricting yourself to only accidents involving cycles is fallacious. Suppose, hypothetically, there was a road suffering a significant rate of collisions between cars, or cars and vans, or cars and buses. Then suppose it had no protected cycle infrastructure, rather mixing bicycles into the same crash-prone traffic stream as cars, vans and buses. Do you think people would be keen to ride their bicycles there?
Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a dearth of reported cycles, let alone accidents involving cycles, on such a street. We get what we build for.
>> “Now I know what you’re going to say, that if it was safer then 80 year olds and small children will suddenly come flooding out of their houses and start cycling everywhere!!”
Brace yourself, Nigel, you’re in for a ripper:
If it was safer then 80 year olds and small children will suddenly come flooding out of their houses and start cycling everywhere!!
>> “I know some 80 year olds, and some children.”
Don’t we all?
>> “The children are happy to ride around the park”
It stands to reason that if children are willing to come flooding out of their houses and start cycling around parks that are safe, they will do so on streets that are safe. The difference being that on streets, they might enjoy more mobility, freedom, empowerment and access to their neighbourhood and society.
>> “and the 80 year olds are happy walking or driving.”
No, they are not. Really.
And that’s forgetting that more younger people are opting for a car-free life today, many of whom will continue to live without personal automobiles as they age. The seniors of the future will want better, more diverse travel options, including walking and cycling.
>> “the significant negative impact that these cycling projects can have on the everyday life of the vast majority of the local population”
I’m at a loss, Nigel. What negative impact is there? Do streets become too safe? Does air quality improve to dangerously high levels? Does noise pollution fall to intolerably comfortable measures? Will children become too happy and healthy? What is it, Nigel? Throw me a bone.
>> “It seems like most of the vocal cycling supporters would be better suited to steam-rollers.”
A bicycle suits me fine. But you can keep driving, if that’s your thing. See, that’s the point, no cars are banned from being operated on the street (storage is another thing). It’s about giving more people more options to get to more places. That’s all.
My major disappointment is that this work is clearly silo-ed inside AT, the Lake Rd/Northcote Rd roundabout needed a comprehensive multi-modal review rather than the somewhat tepid solution presented.
This roundabout causes considerable delay for bus passengers in particular due to the dominance of Lake Rd traffic in the AM peak. Traffic on Ocean View Rd and Hillcrest Ave back up due to the need to give way to this steady stream of vehicles. I have seen three buses backed up on Hillcrest (two 920 and a 922), these buses are often heavily laden and the cumulative delay must be significant. It can take 14-15 minutes for a bus to clear Hillcrest after turning out of Sylvia and this situation has existed for at least the last 10 years.
Roundabouts work well if the traffic entering is balanced on all legs and this one is OK off-peak. I think that peak only signals would make a huge difference here, are there peak signals on other roundabouts in Auckland? Anyone know?