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Six hours on the cycleway

17/8/2016

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​I had a great time on Sunday riding around the cycleway for six hours! The idea hatched a while back after watching the short film Solo Twenty Four at the New Zealand Bicycle Film Festival. Why not do a similar ride around the cycleway? My wife accurately observed it was "a pretty stupid idea" but I was still drawn towards it like a moth to a flame. 24 hours did seem a little extreme though so eventually I settled on six hours as being a decent challenge. It was also a great opportunity to get a group of friends down to the park for a BBQ and a few laps around the cycleway with the kids.
​After a couple of weeks of nearly continuous rain (and getting washed out the weekend before) Sunday turned out to be beautiful day and the kids were amping for a decent burnout. At 11am I set off from Shorland Park in jeans and a hoodie - just everyday clothes for everyday cycling. I was lucky enough to be joined by Alex, another Island Bay dad, who in the true spirit of Solo Twenty Four's Brett Bellchambers was riding a fixie. Lots of other people joined in throughout the day, doing as many laps as they felt like, which made it a lot of fun. The BBQ at Shorland Park later in the afternoon provided a welcome pit-stop and, yeah ok, it wasn't exactly six hours of continuous riding!
All photos taken on the day by Irene and Regan.
​I had thought that riding around for six hours could get boring but it wasn't at all. In fact, it was a pleasant surprise to discover what an interactive and social experience it was. There were friends and family on the cycleway pretty much continuously throughout the day and in lots of places it's wide enough that two people can ride side by side and have a conversation. The other great thing about riding in an urban environment is how easy it is to stop and talk to people you see in the street, much more so than when travelling by car. For example, I noticed that the pop-up community space at 132 The Parade was open so I just hopped off the bike (no need to find a park) and dropped in for a chat with Phil Becker from WCC and Vicki Greco from the Island Bay Residents Association. I even had a chat further up the road with a Parade resident who clearly wasn't a cycleway supporter and was quite interested in what was going on. I'm not sure that anyone changed their mind about things but it was amicable and it's always good to talk!
​Over the course of six hours Alex and I both managed 30 laps or about 90 kms. I'm not much of a mountain biker or recreational cyclist so that's by far the furthest distance I've ever biked in one go. It makes me smile that I could so easily do that in my own suburb. There were also absolutely no issues throughout the day in terms of interactions with traffic. In fact, Alex and I both noticed something quite interesting. Apparently there are well over 200 driveways along The Parade. That means that over 30 laps we each made over 6,000 driveway crossings but Alex counted only six interactions with a car entering or exiting a driveway and I counted five. The frequency of cars coming in and out of driveways is much lower in reality than you might think, and in every case there was no problem.

Thanks to everyone who came out and I'm pleased to report that there was plenty of chatter about doing something similar again, although maybe not for six hours!

Regan.

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Refreshed Wellington Urban Cycleways Programme

10/8/2016

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There's a lot to like about the refreshed Wellington City Urban Cycleways Programme
At this Thursday's Wellington City Council Transport & Urban Development Committee meeting councillors will consider a paper on the Wellington City Urban Cycleways Programme review and refresh. The paper is a response to the review of Wellington's urban cycleways programme and makes recommendations around the scope, timelines, funding and engagement approach.

You can read the complete paper below but here's what I think are the key points:
  • The WUCP "aims to create a sustainable, liveable, attractive city that offers choices about how to travel and an all ages & abilities cycle network". It's great to see this re-stated so clearly.
  • The planned cycling improvements in the CBD are now subject to the Let's Get Wellington Moving Programme (LGWM) outcomes so funding will be moved elsewhere.
  • New additions to the programme are the Great Harbour Way (Cobham Drive + Evans Bay to Waitangi Park) and the southern corridor from Berhampore to Pukeahu Park - fantastic!
  • The 4 year programme now looks like this. The big winners here are the eastern and southern suburbs. The biggest loser is the CBD, which is now on hold until the LGWM programme is finished. To be fair, there's probably no other way around this (as explained below).
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  • ​The council recognises the need for a holistic and integrated engagement approach, recognising a cycleway is part of wider streetscape & community in which people live.
  • The need to engage with all voices within communities, not just those the council can easily connect with, is also recognised.​
  • A reconfigured approach to engagement has been developed - "We're cycling the Wellington Way", which is great to see:
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  • In Island Bay WCC is working with the Island Bay Residents Association (IBRA) & Cycle Aware Wellington (CAW) on a community led approach to a 10 year plan focused on The Parade.
  • A pop-up shop is already open in Island Bay and workshops are also planned  as part of a broader, deeper engagement approach.
  • Council officers and the Island Bay community will provide an update on the Island Bay engagement approach to the September Transport and Urban Development Committee meeting.
  • The new approach has cost, timing and resource implications and will likely make the engagement and design phases of each individual programme longer.
  • The council must show united leadership at a governance and management level. There is a risk that funding may be lost if NZTA lose confidence.
  • The newly formed council must prioritise cycling matters in its first meetings and achieve the following key milestones:
Picture
That's all pretty good stuff. In fact, the only remotely negative things I can think of to say about this refreshed programme are:
  • It's disappointing to see that cycling improvements in the CBD have been de-prioritised but in reality it probably has to be that way. As James Burgess from Cycle Aware Wellington helpfully pointed out on Twitter this should be a good thing in the long term. Trying to keep the cycling and LGWM programmes separate would effectively rule out anything really good for bikes near key public transport and car routes, and prevent improving some key journeys:
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  • The IBRA and CAW are certainly not 'all voices within the Island Bay community'. I'm a little bit uncomfortable with how these two organisations seem to have been reductively positioned as the two opposing forces in this debate, which then fits a convenient narrative of "calling a truce". This risks disenfranchising any Island Bay resident who chooses not  to engage with the residents association, whether they support the cycleway or not (or are neutral or don't care). However, I know that the council are acutely aware of this and are keen to hear feedback from any other individuals or organisations about how they would like to be engaged with. You can drop in to the pop-up shop on The Parade with your ideas or contact the council directly: [email protected]. There are also workshops coming up so keep an eye out for those. And to be fair to IBRA and CAW it's not their fault. They were asked to help design the engagement approach and they have got stuck in, so good on them.
  • ​It's quite interesting to see that both the current council and the yet-to-be-elected post October council are being giving a very clear warning in the paper that they "must show united leadership at a governance and management level" and that "the newly formed council must prioritise cycling matters in its first meetings". I think this is great, of course, but I hope it doesn't provide a platform for reactionary, populist candidates to grandstand from. Let's hope that the politicisation of the Island Bay cycleway, and urban cycling in general, is now at an end.

Overall, this seems like a sensible & pragmatic refresh of the WUCP and I'm looking forward to unanimous approval from Wellington city councillors tomorrow!

Regan.

​

Read the complete paper here:
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