Jim Eagles: Bike backers spinning their wheels

When I was young, we all cycled to school. We were lucky because the local secondary school was only about a kilometre away down a fairly quiet main road.

There was a steep hill to climb on the way there, which probably explains why it was sometimes a struggle to arrive on time, but it did make for a joyous trip home.

No one wore crash helmets and accidents were few.

I was knocked off my bike once when a van turned a corner in front of me. I escaped with grazed knees but the driver was so upset he put my bike in the back of his van and took me home.

Even when I started work, I initially cycled to the ferry. That was okay in fine weather but not so good when it rained. Soon enough I bought a motorbike and the whole world changed.
These days, of course, hardly anyone cycles to work or to school. The grounds of my old school are now a sea of cars. Why is that? The obvious answer is that the roads are now much busier and it's too dangerous to cycle. But is that true?

Over the past decade an average of five to six young cyclists a year have been killed. Of course each of those deaths represents a tragedy but that toll is far less than the 30 young pedestrians and 110 young car passengers who also die on average each year.

While looking up those accident figures I also came across a lot of overseas research suggesting that cyclists are more likely to have accidents on footpaths or cycleways than on the roads. Here, 85 per cent of bicycle-related injuries to children do not involve a car.

All of that suggests that maybe it's safer cycling on the roads than we think. I suspect the decline of cycling also has a bit to do with what might be called lifestyle changes.

Nevertheless, that hasn't stopped the Government from doing its bit to get us all back on our bikes, by making roading subsidies contingent on the creation of cycle paths.

And it's working. In the past few days I've received notification of two proposed cycleways in my home patch of Devonport. One involves putting cycle lanes either side of the busy main road between Takapuna and Devonport; the other would see a cycle/walkway created through three local parks to create a link to North Head.

If that is being replicated all over the region then, before long, we'll have a network of cycle paths crisscrossing the Auckland region.

Of course it's a nice idea. But I can't help wondering what it will achieve. Are we really going to see thousands of people cycling to school and work on a wet Auckland morning? I suspect the space on our main road might be better used creating a busway.

My biggest worry is what will happen to the poor old pedestrian if lots more cyclists take to the paths? Cycling might have a soft, green image but the reality is harsher and more uncompromising. In fact - and this is saying something - the average cyclist is just as aggressive as the average motorist.

As I stroll down the seafront on my way to the ferry I am regularly passed by cyclists hurtling down the footpath - this is the footpath on the other side of the road to the cycle lane - at 40 to 50km/h, heads down, teeth clenched, knees pumping, moving aside for no one, brushing so close to pedestrians that you can feel the wind of their passing. It's a frightening experience.

Nor are they isolated experiences. In the course of writing this article I've mentioned cyclists to a number of friends and been startled by their ferocity on the subject:

* "Cyclists are a bloody menace. They ride on the roads, on the footpaths, across pedestrian crossings, through buildings, round blind corners, everywhere, and always at high speed."

* "It's their belief that they're totally immune from the rules of the road that gets on my wick. They ride on the road when it suits them and, when it's more convenient for them to be pedestrians, they ride all over the footpath. And they take not a blind bit of notice of traffic lights. Ever."

* "They're a pest on the ferries. They clog boats up with their bikes. And they ride down the wharves in spite of the signs telling them not to."

* "They seem to think they own the footpaths. I've seen cyclists on mountain bikes force pedestrians onto the grass. I presume they don't want to get their tyres dirty."

You get the picture. I think what it shows is that pedestrians and cyclists don't mix. In fact, they are arguably a more volatile mix than pedestrians and cars.

So what's to be done?

Well, I hate to sound a bit ... er ... pedestrian but it would be nice if, for once, we could exercise a bit of common sense before charging off in hot pursuit of the latest fashion.

It's clear from talking to local council officers that they have not the faintest idea how many people might use the new cycleways they are rushing to build.

Wouldn't it be more sensible to establish a couple and then monitor them to see if they attract users? If there's a collective surge out of cars and on to bikes then, great, build a lot more.

But I suspect we will find that only a limited number of people use them, they aren't going to solve our traffic woes and they will create a whole set of new problems.

* Jim Eagles is the Herald's travel editor.