Mastodawn

If you have to put up a sign asking cyclists to please use your shared pedestrian path, you've designed it wrong.

As a commuter cyclist, I want to get from point A to point B as fast as I can, without dying. Just like a car driver.

When given the option of riding on the road verge, or weaving in and out of people walking their dogs with headphones on and children walking to school and friends walking along chatting to each other, and giving way to cars at every little side road, then I choose the road verge. So do people on road bikes zipping past me at >30 km/hr.

I really like the separated cycleways that Christchurch city has built. They're safe and fast and well used.

I worry about the recent proliferation instead of "shared paths" in new road developments which combine cyclists with pedestrians and discourage bikes from being on the road at all.

Shared paths are useful for children on bikes, if we teach them how to ride around pedestrians, but they're impractical for an adult cyclist trying to travel 20–30 km/hr.

Please, let's keep investing in separated cycleways for cycle commuters. That's what will get more commuters out of cars, not shared paths.

#cycleways #bikeTooter #nz #biking

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Seán na bhFritíortha

@joncounts
Melbourne is often praised for its networks of off-road bike paths, but a LOT of them are shared.

One I use regularly along a train line was created by cyclists just using it over a long period until it became official. In the 80s & 90s it was rare to see many people walking on it, but as more & more flats have been built along the line, it now has dog walkers & maybe 20% of pedestrians have no clue. For the last few years there’s also always been some dangerous bit somewhere caused by the constant building of new apartments.

Locals fought for some separated paths when part of the line was elevated, but the design put the bike path directly in line with the station entrance, so you can guess how separated our separated path is.

Until there’s some critical mass of people designing this stuff that actually ride bikes, I doubt we’re going to get a good result.

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Jon Sullivan Feb 20

@seanos > Until there’s some critical mass of people designing this stuff that actually ride bikes, I doubt we’re going to get a good result.

Absolutely. I expect you’re right. It’s one of those tricky situations where more people will bike if our roads are better designed, yet our roads won’t be better designed for bikes until more people bike.

I sense that we are inching in that direction in NZ although movement is slow and we’ll be stuck with our current designs for our new roads for many years.

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Worik Feb 21

@joncounts @seanos

> ....critical mass of people designing this stuff that actually ride bikes,

I am unsure.

The meat in the sandwich is the pedestrian, not the cyclists.

I know prominent cycle advocates I will not name who do not get that cycles are vehicles, they do not mix well with pedestrians at >10km/h

Pedestrians are not viewed as serious commuters...

As a pedestrians I want two things for bicycles shari g my footpath:

1. Use a bell when passing
2. 10km/h limit for the bikes

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Jon Sullivan Feb 21

@worik @seanos Yes, I accept that. Bikes are a mode of private transport just like cars are. Neither mixes well with lots of pedestrians, except perhaps when bike riders and car drivers are required to travel much slower than they'd like to.

All sorts of conflicts seem to be inevitable when most people in a city's transport network are using private transport instead of public transport, and it's designed for them and not public transport.

This is the case here in Christchurch, where I can bike the 21 km to work faster than I can bus it.

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Worik Feb 21

@joncounts @seanos

They mix well at slow speeds. At less than 10k/h all three modes can work together, like in Dunedin's main St.

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Robyn Feb 21

@worik

I disagree that different transport modes mix well at slow speeds on shared paths.

George street is not really a good example of it working well.
First I need to say virtually all wheeled transport is going above not below 10km/hr When I do 10 k I get a frustrated queue of traffic behind me. Southbound gravity takes me faster unless I use the brakes. When I don't have the emotional bandwidth for malicious compliance and go with the traffic flow it's usually up around 20km/h.

George street is also not a shared path. For a start it's much much wider. Most of our shared paths don't even reach the 3m minimum for low traffic paths in the attached article. And even though it's legally a shared space without legal lane markings the different paving treatments and street furniture effectively separate different traffic modes. Almost all pedestrians stay close to the shop fronts and only go into the vehicle "lane" to cross to the other side. Contra flow cyclists invariably use the space to the west of that "lane" and only use the pedestrian space when that is obstructed. Southbound cyclists range at will across the cycle space and vehicle lane and avoid the pedestrian areas. Its success is an argument for people friendly central cities, and for separated paths; but it's not a shared path like the ones Sean and Jon are talking about

Some notes on speed: for many cyclists the point of riding is to be able to quickly and efficiently go places that are outside of reasonable walking distances. We all benefit from having car trips replaced by bike trips. I suspect enforcing arbitrarily low cycle speed limits would encourage more car trips and consequently do little for pedestrian safety. Aside from cyclists desire for shorter transit times keeping them below 10km/hr makes bikes harder to control. At lower speeds stability is affected, leading to erratic weaving (how slow varies with bike geometry and experience)

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/explained/125904730/the-hunger-games-of-transport-one-of-aucklands-busiest-cycleways-explained
@joncounts @seanos

Stuff

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Jon Sullivan Feb 21

@RedRobyn @worik @seanos Thanks. That’s an excellent article that covers the details well.

“The Netherlands don’t tend to do shared paths at all; footpaths and cycleways are always separated (whether on a city street or in the middle of a park).”

“Here in New Zealand we have historically done shared paths to save money” even though the NZ Transport Authority (in 2021, before the current government) had upcoming guidelines that “shared paths are not encouraged at all, except for low-volume situations like rural pathways.”

It’s 2026 and NZ’s still building shared paths when it upgrades urban roads (while diverting cycling, pedestrian, and public transport budgets to build our new “Roads of National Significance”).

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Robyn Feb 21

@joncounts
I'm actually becoming slightly less hard-line anti shared paths since I first read that article. But only in very limited circumstances. And I really don't like it when people treat footpaths as shared paths, especially the motorists who expect me to use them instead of "their'' road.
@worik @seanos

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Seán na bhFritíortha Feb 21

@worik @joncounts
In the example I was thinking of, both cyclists and pedestrians campaigned for separated paths, but were let down by a bad design which ignored criticism, both paths being secondary to the rail project.

(And even the rail project is really a car project as it’s all about removing crossings for cars)

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Robyn Feb 21

@worik
I don't know any cycling advocates who don't get that. And I even know some who try to tone police other cyclists, particularly around world naked bike ride and critical mass events, which they are convinced harm all other cyclists by association
@joncounts @seanos