Flashback Friday: Cycling in Amsterdam – does it live up to the hype?

Pay attention to some of the debates that occur in the media comments sections about cycleways and at some point a naysayer is invariably going to say that “[NZ town X] is not like Amsterdam!” Ignoring the fact that a

Flashback Friday: The Orthodoxy of the Highway

It’s been an interesting week for transport policy, both nationally and locally. For a start the Government’s first Emission Reduction Plan was finally released on Monday, which personally was a bit underwhelming but at least makes some signals about further

Flashback Friday: Pathway Leaves – A Menace for Cycling?

Autumn is a lovely time of year as the leaves on the trees turn into golden shades. But it’s also the time when those leaves eventually start dropping off. I was reminded of this when cycling along one of the

Flashback Friday: Another look at Auckland: Shared Paths

Another week, another out-of-town trip limiting my spare hours… This time, the work topic vexing my mind is shared paths (or not shared paths). We’ve touched on the question before and it’s an area of evolving best practice in New

Flashback Friday: Bikes on Buses

I’m back home again in Christchurch after a long stint away, although ironically I’m heading out of town again this weekend, so back to the airport I go… As mentioned previously, my short jaunts away typically involve a combination

Flashback Friday: Cycling in Utrecht

Happy Easter! I hope you’re managing to get in some bike rides to work off all the additional chocolate… It’s been an interesting week, not least because I managed to catch Covid. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that my symptoms have

Flashback Friday: Do the economics of Chch’s cycleways stack up?

Expenditure of public money sometimes brings out some very odd understandings of how the system works. For example, recently one local Councillor (ironically a chartered accountant) was claiming that scrapping a $20 million local cycleway would enable some petrol tax

Flashback Friday: Reflections on a Month in the UK

With all the recent Govt announcements allowing more easy travel in and out of NZ once more, it feels like the world has suddenly opened up again. People are talking about doing the travel they’ve had to postpone for the

What do you think of the Ferry Road trial so far?

Many locals will recall the efforts roughly a year ago to install a bright “pop-up” separated cycleway along Ferry Rd, connecting the Heathcote Express at Fitzgerald Ave with the St Asaph St cycleway. In a matter of weeks, a relatively …

Consultations on Antigua / Worcester central city cycleways

Post-quake, there was always a bit of a gap between what Ōtākaro (ex CERA) did for cycling within the central city and what the City Council did for cycling  outside the Four Avenues. This has led to the odd situation …

Flashback Friday: Cycling in Bristol

Any time that someone claims their city is too hilly for lots of cycling (and conversely, that’s why everyone bikes in Chch…) I invariably think about all of the hilly cities I have visited around the world that somehow buck

Flashback Friday: Study Abroad – First Stop: London

Remember that thing called overseas travel? Long before Covid, it was a thing apparently… And back in my previous university job it was a regular thing to visit places overseas to check out their transport systems (call it a busman’s

Flashback Friday: Hagley/Hospital street works so far

We cycling advocates can be a picky bunch sometimes; as I illustrated with yesterday’s post, something new might be mostly good but there always seems to be something they could have done a little better… This is not a