Cycle Rant

Check out this article published in the Dom Post yesterday about a proposal to make lower Cuba Street a pedestrian zone. This extract especially had my blood boiling

The Automobile Association's Wellington spokesman, John Christianson, said 5kmh could not be shown by most modern vehicle speedometers. 

"It's difficult to enforce if you can't tell what speed you're going." The mall could be dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists because Kiwis were not used to driving in public malls. 

"We have a very poor culture of compliance of the road rules. We kill a lot of cyclists in quite large numbers. The planners love it but unfortunately the cyclist pays the price."

My interpretation of this argument is that as New Zealanders find it difficult to follow the road rules we should cater to drivers' lack of abilities, as oppose to encouraging them to comply to rules that would require them to take into account the needs of other road users. Damn the consequences to pedestrians and cyclists! Cars need to drive places and people need to drive the cars!

As a city, it sometimes seems as though Wellington is anti-cyclist. Our traditionally narrow streets are hellish, and the hills are a pain in the arse too, to be frank. I’m not advocating a massive bulldozing of the city’s roads and hills; merely that there is an increased effort in the city to acknowledge the needs of other road users, and make an attempt to accommodate them accordingly. There needs to be a paradigm shift away from the idea that cyclists are second class citizens, to respecting cyclists as legitimate road users.

This isn’t just about the attitude change of individuals but of the City Council itself. For example, the development of Adelaide Road in Newtown was curiously cycle-lane-less. The footpaths here are too busy and not wide enough to act as dual cycle/walk ways. The road is multi-laned and extremely busy, with a bunch of car parks along the side of the road. Riding this road is freaky as all hell, and the simple addition of a cycle lane to the road would have made a huge difference to the usability of the thoroughfare to all users: motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.

Such an age-old rant, I know. I've always been pro-pedestrian and pedestrian-based city centres - cities are for people, not cars! - so this isn't a new position for me. However, as a newly-fledged cyclist (and admittedly, not an awesome one) all of this seems even more apparent to me than ever before. The presence of cyclists in the streets of Wellington is only increasing, and it seems that it's never to early to start making some changes to the city that will benefit all users.