Tennyson St is the grand-daddy of separated cycleways in Christchurch; it’s been around for well over a decade. So it pre-dates the introduction of the kerbside wheelie-bin rubbish and recycling scheme a few years back. I love this scheme; it’s a great way for us to get our recycling and organics easily dealt with separately. However, come rubbish collection day, sometimes I’m not so enamoured with it…
It seems to be hit & miss; some weeks they’re in the way and some weeks they’re neatly set back behind the cycleway. If I’m feeling particularly community-minded, some days I’ll stop and shift them all back to save others any grief. Hopefully the Council are regularly reminding residents that their collection trucks can easily pick them up from further back (interestingly there’s nothing specific about this on their website yet…).
It looks like most of the coming new cycleways either have a suitably sized berm or even special wheelie bin pads next to the car parking. So hopefully our future cycleways won’t have wheelie bins clogging them up once a week…
Have you encountered rubbish or wheelie bins on your cycleway route?
I loathe Tennyson Street for cycling. If I’m ever having to ride down this road, its in the traffic lane where I feel safer. Passengers are less trustworthy than drivers, and I’ve already had a close call with dooring by a passenger… Why would the passenger ever have to think about looking before opening doors?
Hey LennyBoy, what happened to your Creyke road cycleway posts!?
I presume you mean Kotare St. Contractors took them down to dig up the street. Was waiting to see if there was any more work to be done in the New Year; if not I’ll be complaining again!
Initially the “extra” posts at the intersection of Kotare and Kahu were placed on the side of the road after they were taken down. Now they are gone. I figure it as likely as not they are gone for good after they discovered their “administrative” error of putting them there in the first place. I don’t know why they don’t ban the right hand turn from Kotare St. into Kahu Rd. and make it safer for all. There really is no need to make that turn and I seldom if ever come to think of it see anyone attempting it.
Additionally, I am sure there were posts on that last east bound turn on Kahu Rd. just before its intersection with Straven Rd. (and just before that very wide black vehicle often parked half way into the cycle lane absent adequate no parking lines) but they are now gone. Last time I went by there is one post on the top of the curb so I must be right.
Rubbish day is usually OK to stay in the bike lane on Tennyson, but there is the occasional bin in the bike lane.
Of more concern is the state of the designated bikelane especially on the northern side. it could do with some patching in places. Furthermore the cars coming out of the side streets do not seem to appreciate that they encroach into the bike lane and impede cycle passage.
Overall Tennyson street is an interesting experiment and no doubt the town planner who designed it has been dining out on their handy work for years – but has anyone done a followup study about its usefulness?
If you go to the link about Tennyson St at the top of the post, you will see some information about market research that was undertaken following its implementation (and some more a few years later). In general, the feedback seemed pretty good, notwithstanding the little design lessons learned from this pioneering exercise.
Criggie, some of the little design lessons from Tennyson Street have already been learned in Europe. For example, at least 0.6m of space is required (and that is “at least”) between parked cars and the edge of a separated bicycle facility (SBF). That would eliminate the risk of being doored by a passenger. For me, I use the roadway when riding fast by myself, and the cycleway when riding slow with family. What would make the cycleway work better for fast riding (aside from more space to passenger doors) would be smoother transitions at side roads. Right now, I have to creep over those if I don’t want to break the eggs in my shopping bag!