I already had this article ready to post before the unfortunate events of last night – my condolences to family and friends. I’d like to think that media reporting around cycling safety is a little more enlightened now than seven …
Author: cmih2
Flashback Friday: Cycling and Health
It almost seems to be a given these days that most people recognise the health benefits of physical activity like cycling. But that hasn’t always been the case (especially when people overinflated the “danger” of cycling vs the danger of …
Flashback Friday: Should we have cycle helmet legislation? NOT the same question as “should we wear helmets”!
Like Voldemort, cycle helmets in New Zealand are almost a topic you dare not speak by name, unless you want to see some fireworks in social media and a lot of energy expended for relatively little gain it seems. We’ve …
Defensive cycling: Looking left
I’ve been cycling around many different place in New Zealand for quite a few decades now and over time I’ve become aware that there are things that cyclists can do to make themselves safer on the road. So I thought …
Bikes and buses – starting to think about multimodalism
Great cities allow people to get around them in many different ways and to mix and match transport forms. Christchurch already has some facilities that allow mixing and matching to happen, so I thought I’d reflect on this for a …
Accessibility – transport at its best
I was visiting a friend’s in Christchurch and we needed to go to the supermarket. This short trip provided the opportunity for a walk for us and for the dogs. We set off across a park, onto an informal track …
More on why I write submissions
Ok, so I’ve talked about the submission context and about why presenting a submission is a good thing to do. I thought I”d mention the reasons why, despite feeling that my submissions have been ignored completely at times, I still …
Submissions: Why bother?
To support the development of great cycling infrastructure in Christchurch, and even around New Zealand, one of the most effective things you can do is write letters and submissions and take time to go and present your submission where you …
Advocacy and the Submission Context
My first ever submission was to the Regional Land Transport Plan sometime in 2009. I learned a huge amount from writing, submitting and then presenting in support of that submission. Mostly, I realised that my submission pretty much completely missed …
Summit Road Opportunity
What about making the Summit road a road for cyclists and pedestrians (and people with walking frames and wheelchairs) only? The road between Rapaki and the Bridle Path reopened to foot and bicycle access only last week. A trip up …
Cyclists wanted for focus group Mon 4th Nov.
The University of Otago is undertaking a research project, entitled ‘The Imagined Transport Futures in New Zealand’ and we wish to recruit cyclists for a focus group being held at 5:45pm on Monday 4th November in the Riccarton area.
We …
Parking
I came across this article looking at the ways in which Cities in the States are starting to rethink the use of transport spaces.
Car transport takes up a lot of space in our lives and in our cities and …
The way we talk about cyclist safety
I’ve had an interesting conversation recently with someone working on a PhD at the University of Canterbury looking at transport identities. I’m hopeful that she will write us an article or two here so I’m not going cover much of …
Cycling and Health
This is a wee collection of articles that look at the health effects of getting on your bike!
From looking at the effects of exercise on general health to understanding how having fewer people in motor vehicles has a downward …
Thanks to all those cyclists out there who wrote submissions ….
I was reflecting the other day on the way people out there rose to the occasion and put in submissions both to the Christchurch Transport Strategic Plan and to the Three year plan to support the development of a cycle …
“Tactical Urbanism” and what it can do for cycling!
We’re experts at tactical urbanism here in Christchurch, so I’ve discovered. It’s what Greening the Rubble and Gapfiller have been doing every since our earthquakes began – putting in quick, often temporary, cheap projects to make a small part of …
Thoughts on a $20 tax for cycleways in Christchurch
This post follows on from my comments about pandering the cost of catering for cars. Once again the Christchurch City Council have shown their true colours by singling cycling infrastructure out as an “extra $20 tax” to provide the …
Cost of pandering to cars
Aaron Keown’s remarks about cycling infrastructure adding $16 to each households rates have sparked some comment! It is interesting that there is no analysis in this discussion of the cost per household of providing roading and maintaining roads primarily for …
Giving kids some freedom
My last post was about how cycling can benefit older folks. This one is dedicated to my nephew who is 3. We need spaces and facilities that allow children to move around and play safely. This great blog post on …
Cycle paths – important for keeping our aging population fit and well?
Separated cycle paths are an important part of a cycle network because they can help people get the cycling bug and to build their confidence to cycle and to manage in traffic.
My mother (currently in her mid 70s) had …