It seems to be the season suddenly for lots of friends I know to be off travelling around the world, getting their tourist fix after a few years being stuck in NZ thanks to lockdowns and pandemics. It has certainly …
Tag: Overseas learnings
Flashback Friday – Highlights from #2walkandcycle Conference Nelson
Earlier this week, I attended the NZ Walking Summit here in Christchurch, organised by pedestrian advocates Living Streets Aotearoa. It was a fairly well attended forum, with delegates from around the country coming to hear the latest thinking on creating …
Flashback Friday: Munich: Cycling for a Big City
Happy Matariki! Earlier this week, I mentioned how Christchurch had rated fairly well amongst large cities worldwide in the People for Bikes 2023 City Bike Ratings. Perhaps not surprisingly, three large Dutch cities, The Hague, Utrecht, and Amsterdam feature in …
Flashback Friday: What can Christchurch learn from The Netherlands?
This week we heard the fantastic news that a large chunk of local streets in Chch will soon see their speed limits lowered – bravo! For some people, speed management still seems like a strange (and unnecessary) facet of our …
Flashback Friday: Cycling in London – More Pictures
Currently I’m working on a couple of interesting and somewhat related projects. One is some research looking at how ways to reallocate road-space (e.g. remove a traffic lane for a cycleway…) can reduce vehicle-kms travelled. The other is to …
Flashback Friday: Separated Bikeways in Portland
So, the much-debated Park Terrace cycleway gets to live to fight another day; glad to see it. We will now await with interest the results of the current consultation about it (closes this Sunday!). Temporary or “quick-build” cycleways like …
Flashback Friday: Münster – Germany does Cycling too
Earlier this week, I ran another Cycle Planning & Design industry course here in Christchurch. While increasingly it showcases some of the good practice cycling to be seen around NZ, we also include a few nice examples from overseas where …
Flashback Friday: Cycling in Houten – a triumph in Planning
There’s a growing group of people within Christchurch looking to meet regularly in Christchurch to discuss urban transport and planning issues, including good sustainable transport practices like cycling. Tonight was another meet-up and, amongst the many topics discussed, was some …
Flashback Friday: Adelaide Cycle Training Park
If you weren’t already aware, the City Council is currently consulting on an upgrade to the famous Westburn Junior Cycle Park – submissions close Mon 24th Apr (I’ll blog more about this soon). It brought to mind when I came …
Flashback Friday: Cycling Postcards from Australia
A colleague of mine is about to go on a short holiday over to Byron Bay in Australia; another is planning a trip to Gold Coast in May. I’m also eyeing up a return across the Tasman later in the …
Hey world, have you heard of Christchurch?!
We all love a bit of healthy rivalry, whether it’s which is the bigger “second city” in NZ or even which is the “shittest town in NZ”. Bike-friendliness is another metric by which many people seek to answer “where …
Flashback Friday – End of Tour: Reflections on Cycling in Europe
Earlier this week I reported on the recent draft Chch Transport Plan, which has some great proposals in it. It’s stated that many of the ideas in it came from looking at best practice elsewhere in the world; many …
Flashback Friday – Vauban and Rieselfeld, Freiburg: Suburbs for Cycling
Last week I reminded you about my time visiting the German city of Freiburg and some of its transport-friendly aspects that the similar-sized Christchurch could emulate. Another feature that Greater Chch could do well to consider is how Freiburg develops …
Flashback Friday: Freiburg – Cycling and Sustainability
This week has seen a flurry of discussion locally by City Council about whether to release or not the draft future transport plan. In the end, the Council decided to publish the 30-year draft plan for the public to have …
Flashback Friday – Cycling in Zürich: An uphill challenge
This week I have been spending time in Wellington, looking at some proposed cycleway routes and observing bike behaviour in our capital city. Although similar in size to Christchurch, Wellington suffers from having a lot of hills that limit the …
Flashback Friday: Cycling in Nantes and #VeloCity2015 Conference
Like many parts of the world, Europe is starting to attempt some semblance of post-lockdown normality (even despite the ongoing Covid infection numbers…). In the cycling world, that meant another recent Velo-City cycling conference two weeks ago, in Ljubljana, …
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: A Presidential Bikeway
Happy World Bicycle Day! This week, New Zealand was in the limelight over in the US as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern got to meet President Joe Biden in Washington DC. Meanwhile, back here in NZ, some quick-build trial cycleways …
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: 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 …