Broken glass, black eyes and bus mishaps: Adventures of a non-driver in Auckland

Monday, 7 January 2019

Stuff journalist Josephine Franks gives us her thoughts on being a non-driver commuting to work in Auckland.

OPINION: Auckland is a city built for drivers, dissected by motorways that funnel drivers through its belly and spit them out on the other side of the Harbour Bridge.

Occasional bus and bike lanes are pitted against the press of traffic, but sporadic timetabling and a slew of hills are enough to put off all but the hardiest would-be bus or bike users.

If you can drive, you do. The problem is, I don't.

I hopped off the plane in New Zealand fresh from London, where the biggest hiccup in my commute was a 90-second wait if I didn't squeeze onto the first tube.

* We need to recognise the risks of cycling, and then reduce them

* Road to NZ's brave new cycling world will have plenty of bumps, so how will we do it?**

At 25, I'd never needed to drive. I'd grown up in a town small enough to navigate by foot and gone to university in Bristol, proudly touted as 'the UK's first cycling city'.

Then I moved to London, and I thought my fate as a non-driver was sealed.

The money I'd saved for driving lessons went on a two-month trip to Nepal.

When I told Aucklanders I'd never got behind the wheel, they were unfailingly incredulous. But how did I cope?

Here's how: my adventures as a non-driver in Auckland.

ON YER BIKE

I cut my teeth on city cycling in Bristol (lots of hills) and London (lots of traffic). Auckland would be a doddle, I thought.

I hadn't banked on the glass shards dusting the streets, which would ensure I spent most of the first months pushing my flat-tyred bike, swearing and changing inner tubes, before investing in better tyres.

When I managed to get on two wheels, navigating the piecemeal cycle network was the next challenge.

For every brilliant section of bike path, there's another road laughably ill-equipped for cyclists.

Want to get on to the lovely, wisteria-clad cycleway that runs alongside the northwestern motorway? No bother, just slot into the queue of cars waiting to join the on-ramp, find a narrow window in the oncoming traffic and bump up onto the pavement opposite.

Auckland's hills are a pretty good metaphor for what it feels like to cycle round the city.

Auckland is a city designed for cars. But how difficult is it to get around without one?

There are the uphill slogs: the daily near-misses with drivers who still aren't used to sharing the road; the catcalls from men who think a woman cycling in a dress is fair game for their grunting misogyny; the kind of humidity that makes you feel like you're riding through a garden centre.

Then there are the freewheeling downhill rushes: overtaking traffic as it crawls home on a Friday afternoon; the endorphins from half an hour's exercise before getting into the office; privately racing men in Lycra and anyone on a Lime scooter.

Like any good adventure, there's danger – and war wounds. I got punched in the jaw by a bloke on K Rd once, my only apparent crime being getting on my bike.

When someone opened a car door into me without looking, I sported a black eye for a week.

Both times, the damage could have been much worse. Despite the reminders that getting on a bike is dangerous business, I love it – and I'm not the only one.

More Aucklanders are experiencing life on two wheels – 38 per cent of us according to Auckland Transport, up 3 per cent on last year.

The number of trips taken by bike also leapt in 2018 – 3.5 million cycle movements – were recorded in the year from December 2017 to November 2018, 5 per cent more than in the previous 12 months.

BUS LIFE

I've got better at buses in Auckland. I think it's because I take more Ubers.

When it's $3.30 for a bus ride into town, shelling out a few extra bucks for your own Toyota Prius and door-to-door service starts looking pretty attractive.

Heading somewhere new, I'll check the Auckland Transport app with the best of intentions, realise it takes 55 minutes to complete what would be an 11-minute car journey, and swiftly pull up Zoomy, Ola or Uber on my phone.

When Stuff journalist Josephine Franks can't bike, you'll catch her on a bus - or two or three.

AT's motto seems to be 'never take one bus when two or three will do' and I know the majority of those 55 minutes will be taken up dashing between obliquely labelled bus stops, waiting for a connection that's running late or cursing a bus that's taken off early.

That said, I can't justify splurging on a cab for my daily commute, so when I can't bike it's the bus life for me. And in Auckland, the bus life starts with a 20-minute walk to the bus stop.

NOT YET TIME FOR LIME

Lime e-scooters are a popular way to get around, but they don't come with bubble wrap.

As a city-working, non-driving millennial, I should be Lime's target audience to a T – yet the app languishes unused.

It's fear, not snobbery, that keeps me away.

Until Limes come with helmets, kneepads and a complimentary roll of bubble wrap, I'll leave them for the more coordinated – or foolish – among us.

LEARNING TO DRIVE

Perhaps this should have been called adventures of an almost-driver.

Driving in Auckland can be daunting for the best of us.

In the last couple of months I've finally started driving lessons, coached by a Russian man who likes to distract me from three-point turns with tales of the golden days of the Soviet Union.

'No drama' is his favourite phrase.

Holding up a road of cars trying to parallel park? No drama. Windscreen wipers on instead of indicator? No drama. Accelerator instead of brake? OK, there was a little bit of a drama.

I'm not quite ready to step outside his bright orange, dual-controlled, driving school-branded bubble, but learning so far has been surprisingly non-traumatic.

Visions of careering off bridges and flattening pedestrians are yet to play out in real life.

It's taken a decade to get to the point of feeling ready to drive. Maybe another decade to pass my test?