Transport: Is Auckland failing its cyclists?

Photo / Getty

Cyclists in Auckland "generally sport the Lycra garb and haunted expression of the cycling enthusiast in a bike-unfriendly environment," according to Guardian news blogger Peter Walker.

'Aghast' that cyclists could not cross the harbour bridge, Walker said that our favourable climate, obesity rates and habit of defining ourselves through sport didn't tally with our cycling infrastructure.

Auckland as a cycling city "should be more popular ... awash with cyclists, but it's not"
according to Walker who recently visited the region.

His bike blog entry entitled "How cities fail their cyclists in different ways" begins by claiming the UK isn't such a bad place to be a cyclist, when you compare it to the likes of Auckland and Hong Kong's limited cycling cultures.

He differentiates between the two cities, choosing Hong Kong as the example of "a city where cycling will seemingly never thrive", while Auckland is his case study for
a city that could do better.

Appalled that the harbour bridge has no cycling option, he says "They must either plonk their bike on a ferry or take a fairly long detour. As an emblem for a city dominated by cars and roads it's hard to beat.".

But during his visit he observed a lack of cyclists on the streets claiming "outside peak
times they're almost non-existent."

While he notes the effort to boost numbers has resulted in a 30 per cent increase in cyclists compared to five years ago, Walker sees the numbers as remaining "fairly small" - 13, 500 cycle movements observed in a day by 82 monitoring sites - and says our compulsory helmet law does not help the cause.

Walker also thinks we could do better: "Like with Hong Kong, it's not as if Auckland couldn't do with more cyclists. New Zealand might more or less define itself through sport but it's simultaneously one of the more obese nations on earth."