Hello all – as a few of you know, I have been the editor of this blog for the last 1-2 years, writing many of the articles, and sourcing / editing those from others to tell you about what is going on with Cycle Action Auckland, and cycling in Auckland in general.
Myself and the other blog editors have managed to quadruple our Facebook likes and more than double our general readership numbers within the last year, in big part by constantly running 5 or more blogs a week, and almost never taking any posting breaks.
Many of my articles have dealt with cycling infrastructure. Maybe too many, but that is my own passion, since I am also CAA’s “infrastructure liaison’. That means I am constantly busy reviewing design plans for cycleways (or for roads in general) providing comment to Auckland Transport and NZTA to achieve better cycling. Despite the glacial pace of actual cycleway construction, this is a big amount of work for a volunteer, especially coming home from a full-time professional job.
Sadly, I have decided that being the editor-in-chief of the blog as well as the main infrastructure guy isn’t sustainable. Too much stress, and 15+ hours of volunteering every week isn’t doing great things to my health either. Bowing out of part of my work now – and concentrating on the infrastructure side – is better than burning out and leaving CAA itself in a year or so after a nervous breakdown. My passion for cycling remains very strong, but if I want to go for another 5+ years, I need to get more balanced.
What does this mean for the blog? Well, the short term effect will be that there will be less articles. I will still write the occasional blog, but on topics that I am working on, or that particularly interest me, and not because of a nagging feeling at the back of my head that “We haven’t had a blog yesterday, so better do one today”.
We had many other people write blogs on here, and that will continue – and hopefully even flourish. So you will continue to get information and calls for action, and hopefully, the same positive attitude (We can change Auckland if we stick with it!) that we have always had.
It’s been great!
Max Robitzsch
