With all the planning and talk about cycleways and other ways to improve cycling in Christchurch, it’s nice when we can actually start to see some stuff on the ground. Just the other week, it was confirmed that the first Major Cycleway Route, the “Uni-Cycle” from town to Ilam, will be constructed this summer (recall that recently there was consultation on the part near Matai St East). However in the meantime, there are already signs of other activity out there:
- South Hagley Park is seeing the construction of a signalised crossing to connect the Blenheim Rd pathway across Deans Ave to the park, near the old Blenheim Rd roundabout site. This is a useful link for anyone coming from the Riccarton area to the southern part of the central city and beyond (now if they can improve the width of the pathway across South Hagley Park, that would be even better…).
- At the Idris/Glandovey intersection in Bryndwr, traffic signals are being constructed to replace the existing busy roundabout. This will include cycle lanes, although I do wonder why they didn’t also look to include hook turn boxes as well – there’s plenty of room for them.
- Across town, the Marshland/Prestons intersection is also being converted from a roundabout to signals. Again, there are a mix of cycle lanes, hook turns, and shared pathways to help out those biking through here (including those going to the nearby Marshland School).
- Some more cycle lane separator posts are popping up this month too at a few sites around the city. They include the Kahu/Straven, Shirley/Marshland, Whitmore/Fitzgerald and Kotare/Clyde intersections. More will be installed over the coming financial year (thanks to the readers of this website, your feedback on possible locations helped the Council develop a list of sites for the coming years).
The flagship Major Cycleways will no doubt receive a lot of attention when they start to get rolled out, but it’s nice to know that there are other little improvements for cycling continuing to happen around the city.
Have you noticed any other little cycling improvements happening around the city?