Comments on: First Look: Southern Motorway Cycleway (Pt.2)

By: Catherine Kilgour

Catherine Kilgour — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 21:22:12 +0000

The cycleway stop/start signs are indicator of a wrong mindset in my opinion.
The cycleway does cross the road. The space it shares with other road users needs to be designed as well if not better than the rest of the cycleway.
A giveway sign on either side of the road for users of the cycleway would indicate who had right of way without implying that the cycleway suddenly did not exist for the next x meters while you made your way across the road.

By: ****ing Andrew

****ing Andrew — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 09:53:37 +0000

Riding this workaday since it reopened before xmas I mostly concur and In spite of it’s shortcomings it’s encouraging to see the traffic increasing.. I don’t think Lincoln Rd crossing lights are justified (yet) as it’s not difficult at peak times. Hillmorton St gutter bridge heading NW is terrible when there’s cars queueing to turn left into Wrights Rd, the alernate bridge towards Birmingham Dr involves a tight left turn into an uphill dog’s breakfast of useless paths and mud.
“Barrington St looking west: While it seems clear where to go to from this direction” Not so clear with a pedestrian or 2 waiting to cross.
In the pic looking the opposite way east across Barrington St the strip of dirt beyond the cone is now sprouting grass over the tracks of pedestrians and cyclists who have fallen prey to the 150mm deep boggy soil. When they ripped out the steep Wrights Rd enbankment path and gutter bridge they gave it this treatment and someone left a track through it down to the deep gutter where they almost certainly crashed.
The city side of the motorway from Lincoln Rd to Barrington St is passable if you don’t mind grass, which reminds me of the old dirt track Barrington St-Wrights Rd before NZTA blocked access for years.

By: Chris M

Chris M — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 01:05:40 +0000

I’ve cycled this path to work a few times and am thinking I might make it my regular route. It definitely has a few shortfalls, but is still a hundred times better (safer anyway) than my old route mainly via on-road cycle lanes. I don’t really have a problem with the crossings at Lincoln Rd and Wrights Rd, it’s the way it just stops at Barrington St and leaves you a bit stranded that I think is the biggest problem (hopefully this will get sorted at some point in future).

By: Bruce J

Bruce J — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 07:05:12 +0000

I frequently cycle the eastern half of this cycle-way and, although it works okay, I think LennyBoy has high-lighted very well some of the missed opportunites here. It’s a shame there didn’t seem to be a lot of opportunity for community input into this project. And just a point about the old, narrow cycle-way between Wrights and Annex Rd – it frequently floods whenever it rains and at the moment the western end is covered in mud.

By: Richard H

Richard H — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 05:52:26 +0000

Looking at what they have planned for the Wigram Magdala link and the intersection with Annex road and Birmingham Drive/Magdala, they have completely missed out the fact that a large number of cyclists actually turn left when heading south down Annex road to ride down Birmingham Drive. There is good provision to go straight through to the underpass and the link down the back by the motorway but if you actually work down Birmingham drive this is of very little use. Most mornings on the way to work I would be regularly riding with six or so other bikes into Birmingham drive. If you are asking why I don’t ride down the frequently flooded cycle path it is because I would have to ride past work and then back twice the distance from Annex road back to the office and then I would have to run the gauntlet crossing Birmingham Drive. The other way shouldn’t be as bad if it is busy you can then duck down Annex road heading south turn around and you should have traffic lights to let you across.

By: Roger Boulter

Roger Boulter — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 23:40:09 +0000

I haven’t seen the cycleway, but isn’t it sad that years ago (many years ago) engineers needed to draw on the insights of cycling advocates to get the details right – many ‘bloopers’ in cycling facility design. Since then, we’ve seen the mainstreaming of innovative cycling facility designs in tools like MOTSAM, plus the ‘Fundamentals’ planning and design training course, attended by a great many professional engineers, yet STILL basic mistakes are made, which only need a bit of forethought, rather than cash. Progress is slow – but on the positive side, at least some progress is being made (slowly). Not so long ago, instead of a cycleway, there’d have been a dismissive comment that cyclists ‘shouldn’t be’ on this sort of road.

By: Susan Krumdieck

Susan Krumdieck — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 22:56:52 +0000

Not quite sure you could call this thing a “continuous” cycle way. It’s like the one along the railway, stretches of bike path then horrible crossings with weird alignments.

I really hope there is some real cycle transport engineering of the new ones for CHCH