Mayors join drive to boost cycling

Mayors of two Auckland cities will be among hundreds of cyclists at "Bike to Work" breakfasts today to boost the region's ranks of non-petrol commuters.

But they face an uphill battle trying to coax more Aucklanders out of their cars. Fewer than 5000 commuters cycled to work on the day of the 2001 Census - less than 1 per cent of Aucklanders with jobs.

They had thinned from about 6000 since 1996, when the proportion of cycling commuters stood at 1.2 per cent, even then just half the national average.

But organisers of Auckland City's annual bike breakfast hope to draw at least 500 peckish pedallers, including Mayor Dick Hubbard and council transport and urban linkages committee chairman Richard Simpson, to this morning's festivities in Aotea Square.

North Shore Mayor George Wood intends joining one of three convoys of cyclists in Takapuna.

Police escorts will be a rare luxury for the North Shore cyclists.

An average of 300 cyclists a year were admitted to Auckland hospitals in the decade to 1997, according to a regional council strategy document, and their vulnerability is a big obstacle to efforts by planners to boost their ranks.

Local authorities are spending increasing sums on making them safer, whether by squeezing cycle lanes on to existing roads or building dedicated cycleways.

Auckland City has only about 20km of off-road cycleways, mainly beside the Northwestern Motorway and Tamaki Drive.

But tender documents are being prepared for the first stage of a 12km cycleway from Southdown to Mt Roskill, which will be built for $3 million over three years in tandem with the motorway extension of State Highway 20 from Hillsborough Rd to Maioro St.

Planners are also looking at putting cycleways along rail corridors, including the southern line from Newmarket and the western from Mt Albert to Waitakere. That corridor is believed to be too narrow to accommodate cyclists east of Mt Albert.

Although the city council has withdrawn support for an eastern highway to Glen Innes and Manukau, Hobson Community Board chairman Dr David Simpson is pushing for a cycleway along the first part of the route and then to Pt England.

Manukau and Waitakere cities are also on the brink of ambitious cycleway developments, having won more than $9 million in grants from the now-defunct Infrastructure Auckland.

A big missing link for pedallers is the harbour bridge, on which they accuse Transit NZ of dragging the chain over a study the Government has ordered on the feasibility of building a shared cycleway and walkway.

Transport Minister Pete Hodgson called for the study in July after 5813 people petitioned the Government, but he now says it will take about four more months for Transit to complete a structural analysis of the 46-year-old bridge.