Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: The Cycle Frolic

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  • Luke Christensen,

    Ciclovia is a very exciting event, and hate to be a downer, but not good timing.
    This is a rail network closure weekend, so no trains on Western, Eastern or between Newmarket and Britomart. This has been long planned, so organisers should have looked this up. and also can't be next weekend because of NRL nines, Lantern festival which means definitely need trains that weekend.
    Irony will now be most people driving into the city to enjoy a car free bike ride.
    Also pity the people that will turn up expecting to be able to take bikes on trains, and being told they can't, or get dumped at Newmarket and have to cycle along busy roads to Quay St.
    Should be seeing the end of these closures soon, inevitable but events need to be planned around them!

    Auckland • Since Feb 2014 • 3 posts Report Reply

  • bob daktari,

    trains haven't operated on the weekends for a long time due to the electrification work, which whilst necessary is very painful for those wishing to attend the many and varied events or just come into the city in the weekend

    with the rise in interest in cycling whomever makes/sells those car bike racks in NZ is onto a winner, shame that really

    auckland • Since Dec 2006 • 540 posts Report Reply

  • Ray Gilbert, in reply to bob daktari,

    trains haven't operated on the weekends for a long time due to the electrification work

    Closures are staggered - only every second weekend for the next couple of months according to AT website. However there are no trains or replacments at all to the Waitakere stop on Sundays, something I think is a bit of a shame as it is a good place to alight for cyclists trying to avoid the city rush on their way to ride in the country.

    Since Nov 2006 • 104 posts Report Reply

  • George Darroch,

    A good friend of mine was knocked off his bike yesterday, and spent the night in a serious but stable condition in Auckland Hospital. A few weeks ago I would have considered it a tragedy. Now I consider it a tragedy which Auckland Council (the ultimately responsible organisation) have failed to prevent.

    WLG • Since Nov 2006 • 2264 posts Report Reply

  • Luke Christensen,

    This excellent release about the health benefits of cycling has just come out this morning from Auckland University too.
    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1402/S00092/long-term-benefits-of-cycling-investment.htm
    Great to see it joining the chorus of people calling for separated cycleways.

    Auckland • Since Feb 2014 • 3 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Poole,

    Following on from my OIA requests to ACC and the Police, I got a response from ACC today.

    The promptness of the response aside, it was interesting to see that over the three years (2010-2012) for which hospitalisation figures are available there were only 14 hospitalisations for cyclist/pedestrian collisions. For 2008-2012 there were a total of 45 claims to ACC for cyclist/pedestrian collisions. I've gone back to ask if it's possible to correlate them to whether one or both parties claimed for a given collision.
    And, unsurprisingly, fatalities from cyclist/pedestrian collisions over 2008-2012 were zero.

    What's clear is that cyclists are not the danger. The danger is motor vehicles. Whatever can be done to improve the safety of cyclists will also benefit pedestrians, if only because it will provide better separation between pedestrians and motor vehicles.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report Reply

  • Christopher Dempsey,

    Thanks Russell for publicising Ciclovia.

    You said: "A Ciclovía – the word means “bike path” in Spanish – is a kind of riding fair, where the road is closed to cars and we all may trundle safely and freely where we please. "

    Can I suggest another image? The road is open to bikes, scooters, horse riders, skaters, mobility scooters etc, everything but cars. We can think of this not as a closure, but instead as an opening!

    Parnell / Tamaki-Auckland… • Since Sep 2008 • 659 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,

    We can think of this not as a closure, but instead as an opening!

    Nice image. I shall bear it in mind.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Carol Stewart,

    Coming to Wellington as well.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia, in reply to Luke Christensen,

    This is a rail network closure weekend, so no trains on Western, Eastern or between Newmarket and Britomart.

    Details of the rail replacement bus services this weekend are on the Auckland Transport website here.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Felix Marwick,

    I'm a cyclist. I bike to work more often than not and I really enjoy doing it. But, having said that, it's damn dangerous and I fully understand why many won't do it.

    Commonsense, and this bikecam footage, suggests that I should reconsider.

    http://youtu.be/s4GMDVPsuuo

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 200 posts Report Reply

  • kris_b, in reply to Craig Ranapia,

    Rail bus replacements are of course no use in this case anyway, since you can't take your bike on a bus.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2012 • 16 posts Report Reply

  • Brodie Davis, in reply to Matthew Poole,

    Have you sent the stats to the guys at transportblog? they would probably be able to make a post out of it (for their mythbusting segments).

    Since Aug 2008 • 54 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Poole, in reply to Brodie Davis,

    Have you sent the stats to the guys at transportblog?

    I'm waiting for the Police to come back about reported incidents, since that'll be a different angle on things. They've got a little while yet. My follow-up to ACC about particular parties has to be a full formal request, too, and may not even be able to be answered, so it'll be a while on that too.
    Once I've got all the responses I'll put it together electronically (ACC emailed, but as an image PDF so I have to do some work to get the numbers out) and then let the Transport Blog guys have at it.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia, in reply to kris_b,

    Rail bus replacements are of course no use in this case anyway, since you can’t take your bike on a bus.

    You can on the ferries, and I understand most of the buses on Waiheke have bike racks. But it wouldn’t hurt anyone to suggest to Auckland Transport that would a useful piece of kit to make standard on new and upgraded fleet. (IIRC, Wellington and Christchurch have run pilots but don't know if that's gone anywhere.)

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • bbrooks, in reply to Matthew Poole,

    ...or you can ask them to send it to you in a different format. They're required to provide the information in your prefered format unless there are good reasons not to (refer them to s16(2) if they give you any trouble). Although, to be clear, they don't have to create anything (i.e. if it isn't in an excel file they don't have to create one).

    Melbourne • Since Nov 2013 • 5 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    The rail network closure thing is wildly frustrating: I'd just worked out how my whole family could make it to Ciclovia with our bikes: we can bike to the Mt Albert station and then emerge at Britomart straight into open-street-paradise. And then home again at the end of the day.

    (Sure, the fittest/biggest of us could bike all the way into town and home again, but it's a huge ask for kids, and there's no route I'd be entirely comfortable taking an 8 year old on.)

    A more forward-thinking city apparatus would have seen the conflict coming, and arranged a fleet of buses with bike trailers setting off from train stations and town centres around the city at designated times, and returning again at the end of the day...

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    The Rock to Rock annual community bike ride across New Haven always had a shuttle vehicle to return people and their bikes to the start of the ride if they were unable to go the distance themselves. Something like this would do the trick.

    Or I suppose we could all leave our own bikes at home and queue for a go on one of these... of which there are ten.

    Anyone know at what point bike racks will be added to Auckland buses?

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • Stephen Judd,

    Business in Auckland today. Suddenly struck me, taxiing back to the airport, how there are no cycle lanes on Pah Rd or similar arteries the way that there are on Harewood, Memorial Ave etc in Christchurch. There's room for them -- cut back some berm and put them on the far side of the parked cars.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report Reply

  • Martin Lindberg, in reply to Jolisa,

    Anyone know at what point bike racks will be added to Auckland buses?

    Never as far as I know.

    Stockholm • Since Jul 2009 • 802 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Poole,

    A more in-depth analysis of what I've got so far:

    Total injury claims made to ACC for the period 2008-2012* for collisions involving some combination of motor vehicle and/or bicycle and/or pedestrian: 7,657
    Injuries claims made to ACC as the result of a collision between a pedestrian and a bicycle over that period: 45, or 0.59% of the total.

    Total hospitalisation claims made to ACC for the period 2010-2012* for collisions involving some combination of motor vehicle and/or bicycle and/or pedestrian: 1,853
    Hospitalisation claims made to ACC as the result of a collision between a pedestrian and a bicycle over that period: 14, or 0.76% of the total.

    Total fatalities for the period 2008-2012* involving the same combinations: 195
    Fatalities involving a collision between a pedestrian and a bicycle over the period 2008-2012: 0, or 0.00% of the total.

    Normalising the periods for injuries and fatalities to match hospitalisation's 2010-2012, we get 25/4,471 injury claims (0.56%) and 0/115 fatalities.

    Note that I do not know which party claimed for a given combination of pedestrian/cyclist.

    *different years of available data for different kinds of claims.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Poole, in reply to bbrooks,

    or you can ask them to send it to you in a different format.

    The analysis I just posted has taken me an hour, including transcribing the data across to Excel, doing the calculations, checking on my sleeping infant son, and writing up this post through a laborious draft process that included checking the snark factor for my FB version of it (FB comments having given rise to the OIAs in the first place). Asking ACC to change the format would have taken much longer to get a result, and the volume of data is so tiny (six tables, five columns in four, three in the other two, four rows including the header in each) that I just didn't see the point.
    If they'd sent me an image PDF of pages and pages of numbers, that would have been a different story.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Poole, in reply to Stephen Judd,

    back to the airport, how there are no cycle lanes on Pah Rd or similar arteries

    On the main 50km bicycle circuit that runs out to the airport, there is not a single dedicated bicycle lane along either of the main roads that run to/from the airport. There are quite wide shoulders, but they're shoulders not bicycle lanes. There're some shared bus/bicycle lanes in a couple of spots along Great South Road, but they're also not dedicated bicycle lanes. Auckland just does not do quality bicycle infrastructure, historically. That's gradually improving, in places, but with a marked out 50km route that has pretty much no bicycle infrastructure you get some idea of how seriously it's being taken.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report Reply

  • jb,

    The Germans – as ever – have a word for this: Tal Total – “All of the valley”.
    An annual event (29 June this year), it closes the federal highways on BOTH sides of the Rhine valley between Koblenz-Bingen and Lahnstein-Rüdesheim between 9am and 5pm and hands over 120km to cyclists and skaters.
    They also have Fahrradstraßen – bikes only, motorised vehicles only for access (and not always).
    And heaps of cycle lanes, of course. I live in a village 10km distant from a state capital and I can get into town with total separation from cars via sealed farm tracks and then cycle lanes.
    And no helmet laws, either…

    a.small.town.in.germany • Since Jan 2007 • 86 posts Report Reply

  • Lilith __, in reply to Craig Ranapia,

    Rail bus replacements are of course no use in this case anyway, since you can’t take your bike on a bus.

    You can on the ferries, and I understand most of the buses on Waiheke have bike racks. But it wouldn’t hurt anyone to suggest to Auckland Transport that would a useful piece of kit to make standard on new and upgraded fleet. (IIRC, Wellington and Christchurch have run pilots but don’t know if that’s gone anywhere.)

    Buses on most Chch bus routes always carry bike racks* which hold up to 2 bikes each. It’s a fantastic service, giving a wide range of options. For those like me who have a bit of a walk to the nearest bus, it means I can bike there quick, get the bus, and then tootle around at the destination of my choice. Fantastic.

    *there are some exceptions, which I don’t really understand, but you can see the little bike icon next to almost all the routes here: http://www.metroinfo.co.nz/timetables/Pages/default.aspx

    Dunedin • Since Jul 2010 • 3895 posts Report Reply

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