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Last week’s visit to Adelaide for Velo-City Global 2014 was also a great opportunity to see what our Trans-Tasman neighbour is up to on the cycleway front. And the jewel in the crown to date is the newly-opened Frome Street …
Category: Flashback
Identifies those posts that have already been featured in a Flashback Friday
Thoughts from Velo-City Global 2014 Adelaide #vcg14
Well it’s been a while since my last post, but that’s mainly because I’ve been in Australia this past week. Most of my time was spent in Adelaide for the Velo-City Global 2014 cycling conference, the first time this international …
Perceived Danger or Actual Danger?
Following last month’s tragic cycling incident in Hillmorton, yesterday’s Press reports (on the front page no less) that the victim’s father is now too scared to ride himself. It’s perhaps an understandable reaction, although I wonder whether the real …
A Ride around Town – The Old and the New
With the rain returning today, it’s easy to forget that we just had three glorious day of sunshine. And so it was on Saturday, with my youngest boy at a loose end, that we decided to hop on the bikes …
A little plug for Spokes Canterbury
The recent local media coverage has been fairly comprehensive in discussing first the planned delays to completing the Major Cycleway network and then reaction to the tragic cycle death a couple of weeks ago. Through it all, you might have …
How should we tackle Cycle Safety in NZ?
So you may have heard that I got myself another little job to do in the next few months – help the Government formulate some proposals about what to do about cycle safety in this country. The NZ Transport Agency …
First Cycleway Signs: Grassmere-Rutland Cycle Path
With some of the recent discussion around Major Cycleway delays (and in light of today’s tragic events), you might have got the impression that the City Council is sitting on their hands doing nothing for a few more …
Cycling Stuff from Wellington
So last week I spent most of my time in Wellington (which explains the slight gap in posts). For much of it I was attending the 2014 IPENZ Transportation Conference, but I did also have a little bit …
M is for Maintenance
Over the past few months, my bike has been looking progressively more haggard, with various things not quite working as well as they should. The gears weren’t shifting properly, the brakes were a bit so-so, there was a bit of …
A Week in Auckland – Is there hope for Cycling?
I’ve just had a week teaching up in Auckland, which is much more time than I usually get to spend up there. A lot of that week was spent inside presenting course sessions or listening to others. But I did …
Keeping Pathways Dry
Any time there’s a decent rain (like this past evening) it’s instructive to see how our various cycle paths fare. Often it seems that it doesn’t take a lot of water for them to more closely resemble a swimming pool …
Are painted cycle lanes dangerous?
The planned Major Cycleways for Christchurch will comprise a mixture of treatments: separated bikeways, shared paths, and quiet streets (“neighbourhood greenways”). These are designed to attract a lot of new “interested but concerned” people to cycling (or cycling more) …
Where would you like some Separator Posts?
A few weeks ago we talked about the City Council’s “Targeted Improvements” (or “Quick Wins”) programme that is being rolled out. One of the tools that fits in very well with this programme is cycle lane separators, as previously trialled…
Census: Cycling on the Rise in Christchurch
Last year, the long-awaited national Census was finally held. Now we are starting to see some of the results in detail, including information about travel to work. The full detailed regional results across the country won’t be publicly available for …
Cycling Safety and the Media
So, like most people I’ve tried to spend the last few weeks enjoying summer and thinking of nice things like going for fun bike rides. But the good ol’ media, bless them, never sleep in their quest to remind …
Clever Cycling Stuff: Cycle Bypasses
It’s always nice when you can get an advantage over motor traffic by cycling instead. Some people riding already do this by sneaking through intersections when other traffic is stopped. This doesn’t tend to do much for cycling-motoring relations (as …
Learning from Ilam Road
Christchurch’s first step into the brave new world of cycleways came almost accidentally with the reconstruction of Ilam Road near the University. What started out primarily as a pedestrian crossing improvement project ended up also providing some rather handy separated …
What “Quick Wins” would you like?
Hidden beneath all the hoopla about the City Council’s Major Cycleways programme, there is another small but potentially very useful line item in the Council budget. $250,000 was allocated for each of the next two years for “cycleways targeted …
Riding Long Distances
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When I told you the other week about the ride that my son and I took out to Sumner, I mentioned that we clocked up 30km on the trip. For some people relatively new to cycling, that might seem …
So what’s a Sharrow and do we want them here?
While cycle lanes and paths are all very nice, there are still many situations where it is not feasible or sensible to install them. For example, there may be limited road width to play with (and no politically easy way …