Do you live in Kaipatiki? Do you cycle (or are you considering cycling) through Kaipatiki? Then we want to hear from you!
How can we make Kaipatiki more cycle-friendly? How can we get more people hopping on bikes to get to the ferry terminals and shops? How can we get our kids cycling to school and sports safely? How can we better enjoy our parks and reserves by bike?
What are the barriers to cycling in Kaipatiki and what can we do to fix them? Do you have thoughts on the Birkenhead Bike Park? How might SkyPath change things?
So many questions, and we need to hear your answers.
Please complete our survey at:
http://tinyurl.com/KaipatikiCS
and tell us what you think!
Then share this URL by email, Facebook & Twitter with your Kaipatiki neighbours, friends, family and followers. We want as many people to respond as possible, including children and those who haven’t even thought of hopping on a bike yet.
Why?
If you’d like to find out how this survey came about, read on.
We wrote about the Birkenhead Bike Park back in July, and noted that while the intention was good, execution left a bit to be desired.
And the intention? Encourage cycling in the Kaipatiki (and specifically Birkenhead) region by installing good quality bike parking at the Birkenhead ferry terminal. Now we know that good quality and properly located bike parking is certainly a component of good cycling infrastructure, but on its own it won’t do too much to encourage more people to hop on a bike, particularly when there are many other barriers to cycling which remain unaddressed.
That’s why the Kaipatiki Local Board, when they set up a Working Group to consider options for the existing Bike Park, also wanted to investigate ways to increase use and access by cyclists to and from the Birkenhead Wharf area. With representatives from Cycle Action and Auckland Transport’s cycling team on the Working Group, we’re not short of ideas on how we can transform Hinemoa St, Birkenhead/Highbury and indeed all of Kaipatiki into a mecca for cyclists.
But what do local residents think? What are the reasons they don’t cycle more? (A Strava heat map will show you cycling is more popular to the east in Takapuna and the Devonport Peninsula than it is in Kaipatiki to the west). What are the barriers to cycling, and what are the best things the Kaipatiki Local Board and AT can do to encourage more people to hop on a bike?
So the Working Group can make an informed response back to the Kaipatiki Local Board, we’re running a survey. This will help shape our recommendations, and we hope it will lend more weight for concerted action to be taken.
We’ve used Google Forms to create the survey, which is powerful, easy to construct, free and can handle unlimited responses. If you’d like to run a similar survey in your Bike Burb, please leave a comment or get in touch with Steve so he can share this one with you if you’d like to use it as a template.
And finally, a big thank you to the Collins family of Chatswood for agreeing to be our photo banner. Don’t they look great! Yes, that’s Mum and Dad on flash electric bikes, and of course all the kids want to bike everywhere. And they would if Kaipatiki was a safer cycling environment. We’re working on that!
