The unscheduled break in website service followed by a busy Biketober means that we haven’t spent much time lately highlighting all the work that has been going on on the Major Cycleway network recently. Unless you’ve picked up a copy of the latest City Cycle Map or taken part in one of the recent Biketober rides along the cycleway routes, you may not realise that four extensive new cycleways have now been completed (well, one is weeks away from the finishing touches), adding about 19km to the network.
So to whet your appetite, here’s a taster of one:
This is part of the Little River Link, which now leads you all the way from South Hagley Park out towards Hornby via Addington and Wigram on a separated cycleway. This photo shows the new signalised crossing at Barrington St, leading onto the pathway that heads alongside the Brougham St off-ramp towards the next crossing at Collins St. There are also new signalised crossings at Lincoln Rd and Wrights Rd. When the second stage of the Chch Southern Motorway is constructed, another short link will connect the route to the Little River Rail Trail, allowing continuous protected cycling out to Prebbleton, Lincoln and beyond.
Over the next few weeks, I will try to introduce you to each of the newly completed bits of cycleway that have popped up over the past few months, so that you can get familiar with them. But of course, you don’t have to wait for me – grab your cycle map and go out and explore them yourselves!
Have you tried any of the new Major Cycle Routes yet?
My commute is almost entirely on this cycleway, from about the point in the photo to just before the new overbridge. It’s mostly fantastic, especially the lights at lincoln road. Although I do feel like the Wrights road lights could have been better.
* It really isn’t clear how to reliably trigger the lights without pushing the pedestrian button (on both sides)
* It seems like the ramp opposite the path to lincoln road could have been made the full width of the path so it is easy to ride on as well as off.
* The location of the traffic light pole is a bit awkward for coming onto the path when going towards Lincoln road.
* The road itself is a bit of a hill to get over.
* The path on the Lincoln road side is marked with pedestrian symbols only, which doesn’t seem correct given that it needs to be used to get to the crossing.
I realise there are restrictions on what could be done, given the bridge supports, etc. but it feels like there are some easy improvements that could be made to make things more obvious.
All that being said, the presence of the lights is a vast improvement, as previously it was a very busy road that was difficult/dangerous to get across during busy periods.
Hi Luuk. Those lights (and probably all others) have a magnetic sensor, and do trigger reliably with my steel framed bike. I think I have heard that you can trick them by using a magnet but I’m not sure.
Some of the new cycle crossings have overhead microwave detectors instead. However, evidently they’ve been having a few problems detecting things correctly, so the supplier will need to fix these up.
I have a big heavy steel bike, so plenty for a magnetic sensor to detect. It still isn’t clear where to put my bike to trigger it “reliably” though.