Quite a while ago we heard about the development of the Central City transport plan, An Accessible City. It seems like it’s been a long gestation period for things to start happening within the Four Aves on the transport front. Now at last, there are some interesting developments happening on the south-western side of the CBD and they’re now out for consultation. We’ll talk about what is proposed for the Hagley Ave / Moorhouse Ave quadrant in a later post, but for now let’s look at what is planned for the area around Hospital Corner and east into town.
The main change in this area is the shifting of the eastbound one-way route from Oxford Tce over to Tuam St (separate works will carry this one-way route further east). Oxford Tce will become a quiet river esplanade route, with good walking and cycling provision and minimal traffic. There are also plans to develop a “super stop” at the Hospital for the bus services through this area; effectively a mini bus exchange. It’s important to also appreciate that this is an interim “Stage 1”; further “Stage 2” works will take some of the developments further.
So what’s in it for cycling? Well, not much yet, actually. While there are plans to develop separated cycleways along Tuam, St Asaph and Antigua (and I’ve seen some of these) they’re not slated for this first tranche of works. Hence you see some fairly conventional cycle lanes (including a couple of hook turn boxes and even a contraflow link south along Montreal St). It’s nice to see the path in the Park along Hagley Ave being widened to 4m though (and hopefully better designed for drainage…).
At the very least, it would be nice if some of these cycle lanes could include some cycle lane separators as well; it seems quite feasible in a number of locations (i.e. when not alongside parking).
I have to say that I’m not entirely sure why the separated cycleways aren’t part of the works from day one. According to the programme, next month we’ll see consultation out for the rest of the Tuam St one-way route through town and that will include a separated bike facility. But Stage 2 for Hospital Corner won’t be consulted on until next year. The only key difference I can see is that these Stage 1 works don’t appear to require many major kerb and channel reconstructions; rather it’s mostly just about re-marking the existing roadway. Quicker to implement I guess, especially with the new Transport Interchange scheduled to open in the middle of next year. But it does send a certain message about the relative priority of different transport modes…
Submissions are now due on these proposals; you have until 5pm Mon 8th September to get your submission in. If you want more information, there are also some “drop-in” sessions planned:
- Mon 18 Aug, 10am–4pm
Rolleston Foyer, University of Otago Chch School of Medicine, corner Oxford Tce and Riccarton Ave - Tue 19 Aug, 2–6pm
Hagley College cafeteria annex room, corner Hagley Ave and St Asaph St - Wed 20 Aug, 4.30–6pm
Addington Coffee Co-op, 297 Lincoln Road - Sat 23 Aug, 11am–3pm
Future Christchurch Showcase, Re:Start Mall near the Bridge of Remembrance - Wed 27 Aug, 2–6pm
Hagley College cafeteria annex room, corner Hagley Ave and St Asaph St - Wed 3 Sep, 11am–3pm
BNZ Lounge, EPIC, 96 Manchester Street
What do you think of the proposed works?
….I’m not entirely sure why the separated cycleways aren’t part of the works from day one…..
thank you putting this up. Look I know it is easy to be critical, but I also find the failure to splice cycle roads into this more than unsatisfactory. There is an acceptance that some roading has to re-worked as the wider position developed so why is this not the same for cycling. To me this scenario clearly demonstrates the CCC reluctance to actually deal with the cycling opportunities. If the CCC had a policy on Quality, this would come in under the reporting on waste because that is what it is. After all the energy expended in recent years on this topic, the opportunity to build cycling into the thinking, planning,design and construction has been shelved.
The separated cycle lane on Tuam Street has been open for some time now. As a regular user I would say I find it an incredible disappointment. This is for two reasons:
1) The interaction with buses and construction vehicles (presumably to be eventually replaced by emergency precinct vehicles) makes it feel like a death trap.
2) The signaling. Cyclists have a distinct set of lights from cars (and a third set for buses). The lights for cyclists wanting to cross Colombo remain red until a cyclist stops at the intersection, and then waits a full cycle for the green. This occurs even when cars have a green to cross Colombo. I suppose this is done to prioritize cars turning left onto Colombo, but when there are none it really feels like they got it backwards.
The end result: It feels safer and is certainly much faster to ride on the road than in the cycle lane.