Hard News: Paths and ways
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Moz,
Jealous!
I might have to do some of the other sort of cycle touring - visit places to ride their bike paths :)
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Jealous!
I might have to do some of the other sort of cycle touring – visit places to ride their bike paths :)
This kind of didn't occur to me until I took a couple of friends who'd freshly moved to Auckland from Wellington out along the northwestern cycleway and they were marvelling about it.
I thought: hang on, this is getting good. And the credit for that goes to the people who've got themselves elected to council and local boards (mostly on the City Vision ticket) and worked for it, and to Bike Auckland, whose ability to work with the system has been really important.
And credit also to NZTA: they didn't want to build the whole Waterview path (arguing that they had no obligation to build cycleways along underground parts of the route), but since the board of inquiry kicked up them up the bum and told them they were going to, they've been great. Yes, a walk-cycle bridge over the motorway to Point Chev would have been sweet, but one doesn't aways get a pony for Christmas.
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My local - looking NW toward Boulder, CO on the 18 mile US36 Bikeway
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Here's what is happening around Napier. The council is putting lots of paths on green belts to link up with other existing cycle trails. Means I can cycle most of the way to school on a path now. Once these were finished the number of people using them has increased with a lot of older people cycling as well as families. Seeing a lot more e-bikes on them too. Helps that Napier is pretty much flat most places also.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
My local – looking NW toward Boulder, CO on the 18 mile US36 Bikeway
Utilitarian bike freeway!
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Here’s what is happening around Napier. The council is putting lots of paths on green belts to link up with other existing cycle trails.
Ah. Nice to see another council doing the right thing.
Helps that Napier is pretty much flat most places also.
And that you have green belts!
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Christchurch continues to roll out more cycle routes (separated cycleways, shared pathways or neighbourhood greenways); over 5km built this past year, another 11km currently under construction and about 20km out for consultation:
And if you want to check them out, you could always come to the Asia-Pacific Cycling Congress in October…
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Rosemary McDonald, in reply to
Seeing a lot more e-bikes on them too.
And perhaps the occasional wheelchair?
We'll park up at the Ellison St carpark. I'll unload Himself in his wheelchair with the flash e-motion wheels and send him off with a cheery haere ra.
Then watch him literally disappear into the distance.
This would be about the only place in New Zealand where I have absolutely no worries about Peter heading off on his own.
That pathway along the beach is dead flat, level and wide enough that he is in no danger of running off the edge. The myriad of other users are invariably courteous.
A truly wonderful asset.
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Moz, in reply to
the flash e-motion wheels
That reminds me, I'm still waiting for someone to make bike wheels with motion-powered blinky lights in them. You can get wheelchair castor wheels like that, and obviously skate wheels. But not bike wheels.
Sydney is one of those 25 council areas places, with a state government that is actively ripping out bike infrastructure and trying to punish cyclists (it's working, instead of 10%+ increases very year we had a 5% decrease last year). But some of what's already there is excellent, and some of the new stuff is really good. Minor personal bonus, our local council responded within a month or so to us asking for pram ramps at the top of the street. So now we don't have to fight through cars parked on the footpath to get from our street to the pedestrian crossing over a busy 4 lane road. It matters to us :)
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Farmer Green, in reply to
The council is putting lots of paths on green belts
All good right?
Our rural road has been selected for the treatment; get that damned grass off there ; weeks of scraping off the top soil ; lots of machinery rumbling ; pathways laid on top of the soil. Bugger the carbon squestration :-)
We already had a single- lane tar- seal road.
But now the council lawn mowers have a new strip either side of the “shared” pathway to mow forever. Cool. -
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
We already had a single- lane tar- seal road.
...if there's a bustle in your hedgerow?
"They tore up the old road
and buried it under a new one.
I didn't mind."'Road'
by Pete Brown
...and (unofficial 4th member of Cream;- )
ps: Happy New Year!!
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Rosemary McDonald, in reply to
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An interesting commentary on the furore in Christchurch about plans to acquire and remove two properties to make a better cycleway:
What’s particularly ironic is that on the same day that a big fuss was being made about this proposal, The Press was also reporting on the sod-turning for new motorways north and south of Christchurch – motorways that will purchase dozens (hundreds?) of properties and affect numerous houses and businesses, as had been reported before, but now don’t rate a mention. Instructive is the comment in that last article: “We don’t want the motorway here. Who does? But that is progress, isn’t it? You just have to accept this as progress.” So are cycleways ‘progress’ as well? Just like the properties purchased to extend shopping mall carparks, enlarge intersections, create four-lane roads…
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
And these flashy numbers…
speaking of L.E.D.s...
(truly an oven/top production) -
Farmer Green, in reply to
p.s: Happy New Year!!
Send 'er down Hughie !
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Good stuff, Russell. Is there a good site where such paths are overlaid on a map. for non-Aucklanders to find them? I did find one site but the details were miniscule.
I have a Significant Birthday coming up and as a present to myself, I have put a deposit on a rather excellent e-bike: 2017 Trek Conduit, which has a range of 120km, built-in lights and something called Shimano Step-through. Expensive but we can keep our rather battered Toyota running for another year or two.The other birthday present is a week on the beach in Samoa (to allow the birthday to pass, in a place where no one knows my name). I had ideas of cycling there but rabid dogs are apparently a problem.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Good stuff, Russell. Is there a good site where such paths are overlaid on a map. for non-Aucklanders to find them? I did find one site but the details were miniscule.
Bike Auckland has a good list – including a link to Daniel Cranston's crowdsourced map, which focuses on routes for less confident cyclists, many of which aren't officially listed. It even tells you where the steep hills are!
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Elsewhere, the northwestern cycleway upgrade seems all but completed with the installation of these viewing platforms over the Waterview estuary and the Whau river.
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For me theres progress being made on an infamous 'missing link' in Melbourne's bike network - a path several K's long linking the Yarra & Darebin trails, helped by some compulsory (golf club) land acquisitions and $18m public funding. Once this is completed I'd be able to ride from my house to the city (~8k as the crow flies) via path for all but a few hundred metres (admittedly a 20k or so run if you follow the rivers all the way) ... More broadly it's going to create fantastic access for many
Five bridges being built ... some codger shot a drone clip a few days ago, which gives an excellent idea of the terrain:
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Moz, in reply to
Oh yes, there are a fucton of battery powered bike lights, even motion activated ones. I have owned a few different ones. The valve cap lights are actually annoying and not at all useful (we have some, but the little watch batteries they use seem like to last forever... they were taken off of the bike and put in a drawer years ago).
What I want is lights powered by motion. Like the dynamo lights I use to be seen by, but going round inside the wheels.
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Went on the walk today, it is a great place to go....was a bit surprised at the rails ending in different sections, so if you weren't too hot on the bike it would be pretty easy to go over.
That said, so pleased to see stuff like this, mangrove swamps are underrated!
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
A bit challenging to engineer:
- to have a directly driven dynamo, you'd need it to have something to torque against. A hub unit would be obvious (driven from the skewer) but it would need an entirely custom hub and wheel.
- you could maybe have a drive off a disk brake, but obviously this would depend on the disk in use.
- the other option would be an inertial generator (a weight that stays put as the wheel spins)
- or, maybe have magnets on the forks and a coil that picks up a pulse as it passes them -
Moz, in reply to
maybe have magnets on the forks and a coil that picks up a pulse as it passes them
I might see if I can find some "reel lights" (brand) that someone has discarded because they're pathetic, and fit them wrong the round way, so the light is attached to the wheel and the magnet(s) are on the bike. That might actually work.
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Vive la resistance!
Torque isn't cheap then? -
Meanwhile Nelson, which is frankly a cyclists Mecca, isn't quite getting it right...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/87612655/compromise-plan-for-maitai-walkway-approved
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