If you have a video of a great piece of cycle infrastructure, send us the file or upload to your favourite video website (YouTube/Vimeo) and we will be happy to link to it here.
This is a video of the new Grafton Gully cycleway from a friend of CAA, Peter Baillie. He rode the completed and accessible part of the cycleway from Parnell Rise up the Churchill Street part of the cycleway (which is completely separated as well as being no exit for cars) and then crossing at the Alten Road intersection. After crossing the Alten Road intersection, the cycleway continues until Grafton Road after which it is 95% completed but blocked for now by works.
If you are wondering how Peter is going so fast up those slopes he was on a Smart Motion electric bike.
I also rode this on Saturday, and one of the really cool things for me was seeing the bicycle crossing light at the Alten Road intersection (not shown in the video) alongside the pedestrian light. It is amazing how fast we have gone from almost no cycle infrastructure to seeing cycle stencils everywhere denoting dedicated infrastructure – even sharrows at least visually declare that bicycles have an equal ranking on that street.
One thing that I hope all cyclists will do is respect the safety of people walking on the cycleway – especially when going downhill. You might need to slow down and take it easy for a bit until you have passed walkers. This may be inconvenient but keep in mind that this is exactly the kind of safe, patient sharing of the route we expect from people in cars when bicycles are around, so we should practice what we preach.
Hopefully, we can soon put up a video with the whole route from Mahuhu Crescent along Beach Road and then up to the NW Cycleway. The full route should be open in September.
