If you have to put up a sign asking cyclists to please use your shared pedestrian path, you've designed it wrong.

As a commuter cyclist, I want to get from point A to point B as fast as I can, without dying. Just like a car driver.

When given the option of riding on the road verge, or weaving in and out of people walking their dogs with headphones on and children walking to school and friends walking along chatting to each other, and giving way to cars at every little side road, then I choose the road verge. So do people on road bikes zipping past me at >30 km/hr.

I really like the separated cycleways that Christchurch city has built. They're safe and fast and well used.

I worry about the recent proliferation instead of "shared paths" in new road developments which combine cyclists with pedestrians and discourage bikes from being on the road at all.

Shared paths are useful for children on bikes, if we teach them how to ride around pedestrians, but they're impractical for an adult cyclist trying to travel 20–30 km/hr.

Please, let's keep investing in separated cycleways for cycle commuters. That's what will get more commuters out of cars, not shared paths.

#cycleways #bikeTooter #nz #biking

If you have to put up a sign asking cyclists to please use your shared pedestrian path, you've designed it wrong.

As a commuter cyclist, I want to get from point A to point B as fast as I can, without dying. Just like a car driver.

When given the option of riding on the road verge, or weaving in and out of people walking their dogs with headphones on and children walking to school and friends walking along chatting to each other, and giving way to cars at every little side road, then I choose the road verge. So do people on road bikes zipping past me at >30 km/hr.

I really like the separated cycleways that Christchurch city has built. They're safe and fast and well used.

I worry about the recent proliferation instead of "shared paths" in new road developments which combine cyclists with pedestrians and discourage bikes from being on the road at all.

Shared paths are useful for children on bikes, if we teach them how to ride around pedestrians, but they're impractical for an adult cyclist trying to travel 20–30 km/hr.

Please, let's keep investing in separated cycleways for cycle commuters. That's what will get more commuters out of cars, not shared paths.

#cycleways #bikeTooter #nz #biking

The mayor of Christchurch city, NZ, Phil Mauger, is in the news backing the government’s proposal to cap councils’ rates increases. The article on #RNZ says that Mauger “agreed with [finance minister Nicola] Willis that councils had engaged in wasteful spending”.

Ah, you must be thinking, surely Mauger must mean our $683 million new stadium. That’s a big reason why Christchurch rates have gone up by on average almost 25% during the 3 years of Mauger’s term, while inflation had only risen about 8%.

No, of course not. He’s pointing at our cycle ways. “We've wasted money on how we have designed and built cycleways”. The council has budgeted on average $21 million annually over the next 10 years for cycleway and footpath maintenance and construction.

😔

Remember that it’s election year this year.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/566309/christchurch-mayor-backs-proposal-for-government-capped-rates-rises

#nzpol #BikeTooter#CycleWays#UrbanPlanning#Christchurch #nz

The mayor of Christchurch city, NZ, Phil Mauger, is in the news backing the government’s proposal to cap councils’ rates increases. The article on #RNZ says that Mauger “agreed with [finance minister Nicola] Willis that councils had engaged in wasteful spending”.

Ah, you must be thinking, surely Mauger must mean our $683 million new stadium. That’s a big reason why Christchurch rates have gone up by on average almost 25% during the 3 years of Mauger’s term, while inflation had only risen about 8%.

No, of course not. He’s pointing at our cycle ways. “We've wasted money on how we have designed and built cycleways”. The council has budgeted on average $21 million annually over the next 10 years for cycleway and footpath maintenance and construction.

😔

Remember that it’s election year this year.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/566309/christchurch-mayor-backs-proposal-for-government-capped-rates-rises

#nzpol #BikeTooter#CycleWays#UrbanPlanning#Christchurch #nz