Category: Cycle-centric ideas

Bright ideas about cycling

Mythbusting: What a Safe Passing Rule Means

1.5m overtaking spaceSince the Cycle Safety Panel report came out, there has been a lot of attention focused on one particular recommendation in it – introducing a mandatory minimum lateral clearance distance when passing someone riding a bike. As is often the …

Inside the new Bus Interchange – What’s in it for Cycling

While it’s been partially open for a few months now, with the second stage of the new Christchurch Bus Interchange now completed, it seems timely to have a look at it and see how it works for cycling (we’ll …

How do you make your bike commute more interesting?

I came across this very interesting blogpost a while back on one of my favourite sites, BikePortland:

“I’ve been bike-commuting for longer than I can remember, and it’s always been a highlight of my day – both directions. But …

Timely street maintenance is important for cycling

The first week I was back in Christchurch after my overseas travels was a bitterly cold July one, with lots of ice and frost about. The City Council’s contractors, to their credit, spread lots of grit down on the main …

Progress on Cycle Safety Panel Recommendations

There wasn’t a lot of fanfare, but just before last Christmas the final Cycle Safety Panel report was presented to the Government. You will recall that this came from the national group of experts convened by NZTA and the …

End of Tour: Reflections on Cycling in Europe

So, two months after I actually returned home, we come to the end of the belated reports on my 3-month study tour of Europe. I finished with a couple of days in Frankfurt, Germany, before flying out, and I’ve …

Vauban and Rieselfeld, Freiburg: Suburbs for Cycling

During my time in Freiburg, Germany, I paid a visit to two outlying suburbs that have become poster-children for sustainable development. Vauban and Rieselfeld lie to the south and west of central Freiburg respectively, with about 6-7000 people in …

Freiburg – Cycling and Sustainability

We’ve seen a lot of examples of cities around Europe that are doing great things for cycling. But our local readers might say “You’ve shown us big cities (e.g. Munich, Vienna, London), small cities (e.g. Enschede, …

Spark Bikes bikeshare now in central Christchurch

Christchurch now has another piece in the puzzle for a cycle-friendly city, with the launch of the “Spark Bikes” public bikeshare scheme in central Christchurch last Friday. As mentioned previously, five stations have been set up across the central …

Cycling in Zürich: An uphill challenge

After my time in Munich, I spent a brief few days in the Swiss city of Zürich, a city of about 400,000 people (although there are about 1.5 million in the greater urban area). Unlike the afore-mentioned German …

Unterhaching, Munich: Cycling and good planning

While I was in Munich for a week, I made a visit to one of the outlying suburbs of Unterhaching. Technically it is a self-contained town just 10 km away from central Munich (about 20 minutes by train); what …

Cycling in Nantes and #VeloCity2015 Conference

After the highs of a month in the Netherlands, I still had another month to check out some of the “lesser lights” of European cycling (which, compared with New Zealand, invariably still means better than most of us…). …

What can Christchurch learn from The Netherlands?

Having had a month ranging far and wide around The Netherlands (and a month since to reflect), I think I’m starting to see some common trends emerging in terms of what makes the Dutch get on their bikes so much …

Bus-Bike Road User Workshop – Wed 8th July

We’ve mentioned in the past the great initiatives by CAN, the Cycling Advocates Network, to run “Road User Workshops” around the country targeted at bus and truck safety with cycling. Coming up soon is a new Workshop here in Christchurch …

Groningen and Zwolle – the best for cycling?

My final visits in The Netherlands were to two more northerly cities. Groningen (pop. 200,000) is often considered by many to be the best cycling city in The Netherlands with over half of all vehicle journeys made by bike (unfortunately …

Münster – Germany does Cycling too

While I was in the Netherlands I was based very close to the border with Germany. So it was an easy train ride to hop over one day and visit the German city of Münster, just 60km away. Why Münster? …

Cycling in Houten – a triumph in Planning

When providing for cycling, it’s easy to get hung up on the various design details in how to build best-practice cycling routes. As I showed you in my previous post about Utrecht, the Dutch certainly have many very good …