Flashback Friday – Return to Chch: Cycle lane separators on curves

The growing concern about addressing climate change is seeing various people look at ways of rolling out infrastructure for cycling faster than the usual laboured full consultation/design/construct process (Harewood Road anyone?). Nationally that is meaning things like the Streets

Flashback Friday – Cycling in Zürich: An uphill challenge

This week I have been spending time in Wellington, looking at some proposed cycleway routes and observing bike behaviour in our capital city. Although similar in size to Christchurch, Wellington suffers from having a lot of hills that limit the

Flashback Friday – Return to Christchurch: Cycling works underway

When we haven’t been pondering our own cold/wet weather lately, much of the focus this week has been on the incredibly hot weather over in Europe (climate change, anyone?). Seven years ago, I had just returned from three months in

Flashback Friday: Cycling in Nantes and #VeloCity2015 Conference

Like many parts of the world, Europe is starting to attempt some semblance of post-lockdown normality (even despite the ongoing Covid infection numbers…). In the cycling world, that meant another recent Velo-City cycling conference two weeks ago, in Ljubljana,

Flashback Friday: Cycling in Amsterdam – does it live up to the hype?

Pay attention to some of the debates that occur in the media comments sections about cycleways and at some point a naysayer is invariably going to say that “[NZ town X] is not like Amsterdam!” Ignoring the fact that a

Flashback Friday: The Orthodoxy of the Highway

It’s been an interesting week for transport policy, both nationally and locally. For a start the Government’s first Emission Reduction Plan was finally released on Monday, which personally was a bit underwhelming but at least makes some signals about further

Flashback Friday: Pathway Leaves – A Menace for Cycling?

Autumn is a lovely time of year as the leaves on the trees turn into golden shades. But it’s also the time when those leaves eventually start dropping off. I was reminded of this when cycling along one of the

Flashback Friday: Another look at Auckland: Shared Paths

Another week, another out-of-town trip limiting my spare hours… This time, the work topic vexing my mind is shared paths (or not shared paths). We’ve touched on the question before and it’s an area of evolving best practice in New

Flashback Friday: Bikes on Buses

I’m back home again in Christchurch after a long stint away, although ironically I’m heading out of town again this weekend, so back to the airport I go… As mentioned previously, my short jaunts away typically involve a combination

Flashback Friday: Cycling in Utrecht

Happy Easter! I hope you’re managing to get in some bike rides to work off all the additional chocolate… It’s been an interesting week, not least because I managed to catch Covid. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that my symptoms have

Flashback Friday: Do the economics of Chch’s cycleways stack up?

Expenditure of public money sometimes brings out some very odd understandings of how the system works. For example, recently one local Councillor (ironically a chartered accountant) was claiming that scrapping a $20 million local cycleway would enable some petrol tax

Flashback Friday: Reflections on a Month in the UK

With all the recent Govt announcements allowing more easy travel in and out of NZ once more, it feels like the world has suddenly opened up again. People are talking about doing the travel they’ve had to postpone for the

What do you think of the Ferry Road trial so far?

Many locals will recall the efforts roughly a year ago to install a bright “pop-up” separated cycleway along Ferry Rd, connecting the Heathcote Express at Fitzgerald Ave with the St Asaph St cycleway. In a matter of weeks, a relatively …

Consultations on Antigua / Worcester central city cycleways

Post-quake, there was always a bit of a gap between what Ōtākaro (ex CERA) did for cycling within the central city and what the City Council did for cycling  outside the Four Avenues. This has led to the odd situation …