Christchurch Speed Mngmt Plan promises good things for Cycling

It doesn’t seem that long ago that Christchurch oversaw a whole raft of suburban lower speed limits, proposing 30 and 40 km/h streets to many of our neighbourhoods and school zones. Those new speed limits are hitting the streets

Flashback Friday: Cycle-friendly places vs People-friendly ones

If you’ve been anywhere near Cathedral Square lately, you might have noticed the works that have been going on in the southeast quadrant (near Distinction Hotel) to improve the look of the area. It’s part of a wider project to

Flashback Friday: Munich: Cycling for a Big City

Happy Matariki! Earlier this week, I mentioned how Christchurch had rated fairly well amongst large cities worldwide in the People for Bikes 2023 City Bike Ratings. Perhaps not surprisingly, three large Dutch cities, The Hague, Utrecht, and Amsterdam feature in

Flashback Friday: What can Christchurch learn from The Netherlands?

This week we heard the fantastic news that a large chunk of local streets in Chch will soon see their speed limits lowered – bravo! For some people, speed management still seems like a strange (and unnecessary) facet of our

Flashback Friday: Cycling in London – More Pictures

Currently I’m working on a couple of interesting and somewhat related projects. One is some research looking at how ways to reallocate road-space (e.g. remove a traffic lane for a cycleway…) can reduce vehicle-kms travelled. The other is to

Flashback Friday: Münster – Germany does Cycling too

Earlier this week, I ran another Cycle Planning & Design industry course here in Christchurch. While increasingly it showcases some of the good practice cycling to be seen around NZ, we also include a few  nice examples from overseas where

Flashback Friday: Where should we have lower speed limits?

Despite some recent disappointing Prime Ministerial pronouncements regarding highway speed limits, many local councils are continuing to crack on with their own local speed management programmes. Christchurch has been one of the most enthusiastic proponents of lower speed limits

Lots of safer speed street consultations out for review

We’ve mentioned before the importance of lower speed limits for improved encouragement and safety of active modes like walking and cycling. Around the country, we’re starting to see more of this happening, especially on the back of the new 2022 …

Flashback Friday: Why Traffic Speed Matters for Walking and Cycling

This week I have been busy attending the Australasian Road Safety Conference, being held for the first time ever here in Ōtautahi Christchurch. It’s been a fantastic event, with over 450 people attending from the road safety sector in

Flashback Friday – End of Tour: Reflections on Cycling in Europe

Earlier this week I reported on the recent draft Chch Transport Plan, which has some great proposals in it. It’s stated that many of the ideas in it came from looking at best practice elsewhere in the world; many

Flashback Friday – Vauban and Rieselfeld, Freiburg: Suburbs for Cycling

Last week I reminded you about my time visiting the German city of Freiburg and some of its transport-friendly aspects that the similar-sized Christchurch could emulate. Another feature that Greater Chch could do well to consider is how Freiburg develops

Flashback Friday: Freiburg – Cycling and Sustainability

This week has seen a flurry of discussion locally by City Council about whether to release or not the draft future transport plan. In the end, the Council decided to publish the 30-year draft plan for the public to have

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: 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 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: 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