With the “transitional cycleways”, Wellington’s using a better method to make roads safely bikeable. And when you’ve got a joined-up bikeable network, something amazing happens

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In case you’ve forgotten (it’s been a busy few weeks), the Transitional Cycleways are key routes…

• whose streets and roads were selected and confirmed with last year’s consultation based on some cracking good principles
• that’ll get fast-deployment of basic, adaptable treatments to make them instantly bikeable (first up: Botanic Gardens/ Paekākā – City, and Newtown – City)
• which will be modified and tweaked using evidence, to refine them and find the sweet spots (or the least bad compromise, because reality) for details like intersections, driveways, and trees

We’ve been excited about the “Lighter Quicker Cheaper” approach to rollout –  it’ll finally let us “Seville” our city over the hump.

TRANSFORMATIONAL!

And Greater Auckland have some fantastic evidence of what happens – even in car-dominated Auckland – when you join up disconnected bits of bikeable city into a route that people can ride A to B.

As it happens, this video is embedded in an excellent post “Double is Nothing”, calling BS on the Climate Change Commission’s transport recommendations for the government (and the Commission are currently in court defending against a claim of significant undercooking of those recommendations).

So, come for the fantastic GIF of the “network effect”, stay for the arguments about why Aotearoa should be doubling down on active travel in our emissions reduction!

We know why Council is calling them “transitional” cycleways – they’re a transition to a better state – but we’re pretty convinced they’ll be quietly transformational for the city.

Tags: infrastructure, process