The Wrong Side of my Car

The blog that wants to go obsolete

16 Feb 2016

Auckland’s ghost cycle lanes

Let me introduce you to the map of current (red) and future (blue) cycling projects. This map also shows already existing cycling infrastructure, in solid black lines. So if you look at central Auckland it looks like it is at least reasonably convenient to cycle to the city centre.

Auckland proposed cycle network

Right? Can you guess where these cycle routes are in real life?

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14 Feb 2016

Cycling revolution: cycle lanes

So it seems 2015 was a good year for people who like to ride their bicycle in Auckland. Transportblog thinks we can unequivocally say that 2015 was the best year ever for cycling in Auckland and NZ. Bike Auckland is even talking about ‘revolutions’.

It was a great year for sure, but let’s not get carried away. Here is the big picture:

And we also know the Big Reason why. The most important revolution will be undoing this Big Reason, and we are not there yet by a long shot.

Nonetheless bicycle lanes have their place, both as a way for cyclists to have a feasible way to ride along arterials, and also because people may pick up from their presence that cycling does in fact has a place on city streets.

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8 Feb 2016

The Big Reason™ why Auckland is Unfit for Bicycling

A lot of people argue that there’s a Big Reason™ why people will never ride a bicycle in Auckland.

And they are right. They just guess the reason wrong.

It’s too cold some say. It has zero days of frost, and zero days of heavy snow per year. How terrible.

Or it rains too much. If only we had a nice warm and dry climate. Like Amsterdam or Copenhagen. You know, if you look at the winters over there, we’re doing pretty good on the ‘warm’ part.

Or it is too hilly. Maybe. I commuted to work on my bike from a few places, and the usual serve of uphill stretches is 15 to 20 climbing metres per km. That’s a lot. But I still make it to work. Just a bit more slowly.

Wrong, wrong wrong. The Unique Reason™ is inside the people living here.

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