Hi,
The infrastructure changes to the the design of any traffic-able route are important, obviously. ‘Any‘ means from planes to trains to wheelchair walking tracks.
I’m a bit late replying to this article, I’ve only been back in Christchurch riding for about 6 months.
Two things I can say with certainty of Christchurch – First, it’s safer to ride in Sydney in peak hour in areas with high traffic flow that can still make the speed limit, and second, Christchurch drivers are more likely to be ignorant/rude/selfish towards anyone else on the road.
I actively avoid 2-3 instances where I would get hit by a car weekly, and another 1-2 where I can’t avoid. I get physically nudged or forced off the road into a parking or other space (gutter/footpath/traffic island) and drivers sometimes apologise, but mostly they just shrug… they don’t give a £*&t!

The second sentence seems to directly contradict the first one. Physical separation will be a better protection against human error than paint.

You’re always going to get motorists who don’t know how to drive! I believe that the white line(s) are a much better alternative to dedicated cycle lanes separated by kerbing from the main roadway.

Example https://youtu.be/7w7PeN-Di6c

Yes, I’m digging into the research released this month about parents giving licence to their kids to travel independently (or not, as the case usually is) in Auckland. Most of the findings were intuitive (although the second one is really good to hear! We’re not being overprotective!)

Key findings were:
(1) parents identified a need for safer traffic environments for their child’s independent mobility;
(2) no significant differences were observed between objective neighbourhood built environment measures and parents’ reported neighbourhood needs; and
(3) parental licence for their child’s independent mobility was positively associated with parent perceptions that dedicated and safer places to bike were needed in their neighbourhood and negatively associated with residing in an area with a higher ratio of cycle path to road lengths.

The second half of number 3 is fascinating though. In Auckland, although parents want dedicated cycling infrastructure, they are less likely to let their kids cycle where there is some! I checked with the researchers that this is correct, and it is. I’d hypothesise:
– the cyclelanes are generally only provided in areas where traffic is busier, so those are the places parents are unlikely to want to let their kids cycle anyway (due to traffic volumes and speeds)
– our painted cyclelanes are so unsafe for kids that parents would prefer them not to cycle independently because they might be so silly as to use them.

Good stuff today on Greater Auckland about how much nicer the Christchurch people were about Lime… for the same reason probably. Your roads and footpaths are wider, with fewer people.

Agreed – crap infrastructure lets the anti-cyclist say “we spent money on lanes and you don’t use them so why would we allocate more?”

What this seems to suggest is that if you build crap infrastructure, you will get crap results; conversely if you build good infrastructure you should get better results. It’s all very well asking for protected cycleways instead of cycle lanes, but if there wasn’t room (or desire) to put in a proper painted cycle lane, why would there be room/desire to do a good job of a separated one? Either way, we need to consistently push for appropriately good design standards of all cycling infrastructure (and that might mean removing a parking/traffic lane, narrowing other lanes, or adjusting kerb lines to achieve it).

Glen’s research is of Christchurch, which does have wider lanes, and generally lower traffic volumes than we do in Auckland. We’ve got some cheap and nasty painted lanes here… A quick comparison of my locals – the cycle lanes on Carrington Rd, Auckland – with the ones that appear on the Lincoln Rd shot, show that
– instead of about 1.59m cycle lane width in Christchurch, we have 1.34m, reducing to less than 1m around corners
– and the traffic lanes are 3.24m cf the Lincoln Rd lanes of 3.41m.

The highest AADT I’ve seen for Carrington Rd are over 25,000 vpd (although lower currently, but they’ll rise again). I don’t know what they are now on Lincoln Rd, but it seemed to be 14000 vpd in 2011.

I think the closer passing distances probably apply to the Auckland situation as well… but because the traffic lanes are narrower to start with, the closer passing distances probably become very dangerous. And then the cycle lanes are narrower too…

Given that we _don’t_ have industry best-practice widths and layouts… do you think we’d be best just to go with the Australian research as being more appropriate for Auckland? And could the Australian research be support for submitting against such narrow lanes – even though submitting against any cycling infra goes against the grain?

Ironically when I am driving a Motor Home on the open road and large trucks are coming towards me only inches from the centre line I think: what the heck he has a good couple of feet on his left, wtf don’t they move over a bit.