Alice, the Ministry of Transport undertakes an ongoing Household Travel Survey that estimates the amount of travel made by different modes, and split by urban areas, demographics, trip purpose, etc (in answer to the recreational or otherwise question, only about 30% of bike trips are recreational; most are people getting from A to B). Here’s the link; expanding the Notes section will give you a bunch of spreadsheets with more data: https://www.transport.govt.nz/statistics-and-insights/household-travel/

It would be interesting to know if there is a description definition for what a recreational cyclist is, vs a non-recreational cyclist. For instance there are a proliferation of groups of people riding around the city on most days of the week. What category for them ? Are they riding recreationally or using bikes as a means of transport to get from A to B, where B is a cafe for a social get together. Is a group of like minded people meeting up socially who individually drive to a cafe, or meeting venue, driving recreationally, or for transport ? Difficult to distinguish as well. Somehow it feels as though money spent on safer cycle infrastructure for those who bike is unnecessary, because many perceive cycling as purely recreational and therefore the cost to make it safer and enjoyable is ‘wasteful spending’.

I’m now catious of all mid-block dedcated bike signals, such as Lincoln Rd & Sparks Rd, both on the Norwest Arc, I suspect drivers just don’t process that they should stop rather than anything intentionally malicious, I’ve had some apallingly close calls. Yet there are others like the one across Barrington St that seem to be fine, that is right on a T intersection tho’s so does that alter things in the mind of an inattentive driver?