National Cycleway Fund Applications
I had someone send me a list of all the applicants for funding from the government to form parts of the future New Zealand cycle trail. It makes for quite interesting reading, with the ones in the Auckland region being highlighted:
Whilst the cycleway project certainly hasn’t been the unemployment busting project that it was originally thought up as being, it is still a pretty exciting idea.
In terms of the four Auckland projects, I have heard of the Great Barrier Island one being a route running the whole length of the island, along upgraded paths at the sides of roads and so forth. I haven’t heard much about the Waiheke one, but I guess it’s fairly similar, while the Harbour Bridge one is pretty obvious. I am quite curious to know more about application number C32 though – the “Auckland Cycle Trail”. The advantage of developing cycle-trails within urban areas is that they will not only benefit tourists, but will also hugely benefit commuters and those who cycle for recreational reasons.
This link should contain all the details for you:
http://can.org.nz/system/files/Great+Rides+Proposal+for+Ministry+of+Tourism+June+2009.pdf
“Route selection
We propose that initially three compact, circular routes are identified as Great Rides. The routes are easily accessible from the CBD where the majority of tourists stay in Auckland, maximize links to places of interest and provide distinct experiences. We have deliberately chosen routes that utilize the existing and planned cycle network, are under 12km in total and can be completed in a couple of hours as we recognize that visitors to Auckland may be trying cycle touring for the first time and are often time constrained but willing to pack in as much activity as possible.”
Also, the proposed routes are available on Google Maps under the title Great Rides – Auckland .
Trying to criticise the cycleway on the grounds of not ending the rise in unemployment ignores the fact it was only meant to create a mere 2000 jobs. I agree that more urban cycleways can be considered, but the main role in creating these should be local not central government. Other pro-cycling initiatives could include:
Removing legasl requirement for bike helmets
Legally requiring shopping centres etc to have bike stands to equal 2% of parking space (ie 1000 car parks means space for 20 bikes)
Free use of bikes on public transport (setting up a bike and ride similar to park and ride)
Forbid motorists to overtake cyclists at speeds of more than 30kph urban roads 70 kph rural roads (its frightening having cars whizz past a metre away at fast speeds) and have speed cameras on volunteer cyclists to enforce this
Set up a bike hire system next to main transport terminals, where one can hire a bike for $10 for $8 hours. Have bikes stored with electronic locks released when a drivers licence barcode is scanned or credit card details entered into computers to escape theft
Encourage morer kids to bike to school (and reduce pollution) by having parking metres for all car parks near schools, with $2 drop of pick up fee, used to finance free school bus travel.
“Removing legasl requirement for bike helmets”
A non-starter untill cycling safety improves first. Even cycling organisations are bitterly divided on this issue, and have therefore (to my knowledge) mostly decided that they have no policy.
“Legally requiring shopping centres etc to have bike stands to equal 2% of parking space (ie 1000 car parks means space for 20 bikes)”
Some cities in New Zealand already have this. Hamilton’s District Plan has required cycle parking for a long while now:
Parking Lots (excluding car parking buildings) shall provide stands to accommodate
bicycles on the site at the following rates:
• 5 bicycles for car parks of 40 to 100 car parking spaces; and
• one additional bicycle per 20 car parking spaces over 100 spaces.
“Free use of bikes on public transport (setting up a bike and ride similar to park and ride)”
I am split on this. Space in PT is not free (or always available), and I would consider it fair enough to charge, though not charging would obviously be a little boost to cycling.
“Forbid motorists to overtake cyclists at speeds of more than 30kph urban roads 70 kph rural roads (its frightening having cars whizz past a metre away at fast speeds)”
What is the use having another law that is not enforcable? The logical thing would be to reverse the assumption of guilt (or at least assume that motorists automatically bear at least 50% of the blame in ANY collision with a cyclist unless they can prove otherwise). For those who consider this ridiculous – the automatic assumption of guilt on the motorists’s part exists in several countries worldwide, and is at the moment debated in the UK. The idea is that cyclists are less likely to risk their lives than a motorist is likely to risk his paint job, so culpability should take this into account.
“and have speed cameras on volunteer cyclists to enforce this”
And the first time, one of those volunteers tries to ticket a lawyer, what happens? The whole system gets declared illegal. It can be hard enough to give tickets to people even with a sworn officer behind the speed camera.
“Set up a bike hire system next to main transport terminals, where one can hire a bike for $10 for $8 hours. Have bikes stored with electronic locks released when a drivers licence barcode is scanned or credit card details entered into computers to escape theft”
Well, Nextbike is trying to provide public bicycles – but as a small-scale private entity, they cannot go the Paris or London route and set up thousands of bikes. Eventually, this should come here too, I agree.
“Encourage morer kids to bike to school (and reduce pollution) by having parking metres for all car parks near schools, with $2 drop of pick up fee, used to finance free school bus travel.”
Again, the enforcement required to make this technically good idea work would be too difficult. Also, parents would just park further away…
Some good ideas there, though – at the core, what we really need is slower traffic speeds, and more cycling infrastructure.
Back to the NZ Cycle Trail – well, the whole point of applying for NZ Cycle Trail funding is that way too many tourists are up and gone from Auckland pretty immediately after they arrive. While it is understandable that they want to see the natural beauty of NZ, the same applies in Australia – yet what tourists would not spend some time in Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney, if he is already there? So the Ministry of Tourism (whose budgets funds the NZ cycle trail) funding facilities in Auckland makes perfect sense.
Removing NZ’s nonsensical cycle helmet laws is the biggest step the govt can make to promote cycling. golfson thinks this is
A non-starter untill cycling safety improves first
but the fact is that cycling is extremely safe – safer even than walking or gardening. It is even much safer than motoring – but you dont see Steven Joyce forcing motorists to wear polystyrene hats oh no.
Anyway, that NZers — unlike the rest of the world — think cycling is dangerous shows how effective 20 years of anti-cycling propaganda in this country has been.
“but the fact is that cycling is extremely safe – safer even than walking”
Sorry, I am all for both improving cycle safety, and acknowledge that NZ scaremongering has given cycling a much worse safety rep than it deserves. But it is NOT safer than walking, and it is ridiculous to say it is safer than motoring, because you give no comparisons – are you talking that it is safer “by trip”, “by km travelled”, “by time spent on the road”?
And yeah, I have data to show that (from last year’s MoT discussion document on future road safety strategies):
“In each year over the period 2003-2007 an average of 671 pedestrians were hospitalised and 43 were killed.”
“In each year over the period 2003-2007, an average of 280 cyclists were hospitalised and 10 were killed from
crashes involving a vehicle.” (note that this seems to exclude non-vehicle-related accident deaths)
Since the current levels of walking in NZ are much higher than cycling by anything from a factor 3 (way to work, Census 2006) to much more upwards (when all trips are counted), cycling is clearly still more dangerous. It won’t help the case to simply ignore that.
Cite correct statistics, such as the fact that there are only 46 injury accidents for every 1 million “school children cycle trips” in New Zealand. Or 1 for every 21,739 trips.
This Guardian article calculates that cyclists die at a rate of 25 per billion km, whereas pedestrians are killed at a rate of 43 per billion km (UK stats). By that measure, walking is more dangerous than cycling. Lies, damn lies, and statistics, eh?
Thanks jpg for that – interesting stuff. NZ figures may still be different, though, and what you include or exclude in any particular definition makes for statistics that are hard to compare.
Plus, this shows what I mentioned earlier – since the average cycle trip is presumably much longer than the average walking trip (lets say 5km vs 2 km though I am just making these numbers up, admittedly), cycling could still be said as being unsafer per trip.
I agree – the devil is in the details, AND cycling is certainly safe enough to go out there. After all, there are also studies which argue that the health benefits (added longevity) due to the exercise you get on a bike are about 20 times the longevity you lose through having accidents while doing it (compared to sitting safely inside, in front of the TV). I’ll take any exercise which gives me increased length of life at a 1:20 rate!