Cycling the supercity: Taking Karangahape Rd’s new bike path for a spin

Tuesday, 8 June 2021

Stuff reporter Josephine Franks tests out the new Karangahape Road cycleway.

OPINION: There were points while Karangahape Road’s new cycleway was under construction when it seemed like the road works would never end.

A K’ Rd without an army of orange road cones, acres of fencing and the judder of heavy machinery? It seemed incomprehensible.

But here we are: the future belongs to cyclists, it seems, with the government last week saying it will spend $685 million on getting walkers and bikers across the Waitematā Harbour.

Cyclists have been using sections of the K’ Rd bike path as they’ve been ready, but it will officially open with a dawn blessing on June 11.

Being separated from the cars is great – but it made me worried for pedestrians.

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With the finishing touches being put in place, I took it for a road test.

My first impression was that it feels damn good to be sheltered from the cars.

The Karangahape Road cycleway has been a long time coming.

So much of cycling in Auckland is spent being pushed into gutters, steeling yourself as you’re overtaken by buses and desperately scouring the road ahead to work out where the bike path went.

With a physical barrier between the road and the bike path, cyclists can breathe easy.

But if bikes are protected from cars, pedestrians aren’t necessarily protected from bikes.

There are sections where the cycleway butts right up against the pavement. It’s largely similar in texture and colour, so it’s unsurprising when walkers stray onto it.

It would have been great to see the length of the bike path painted pink.

On my 10-minute ride, I had to brake, swerve or call out to at least four people, particularly around pedestrian crossings.

Other people have drawn attention to the fact the path goes past bus stops, where people might linger in the way of speedsters on two wheels. This could pose a particular problem for people with impaired vision.

It would have been great to see the whole thing painted pink to match the bit on the bridge, or a tried and true bike-path-green.

As for speedsters, one thing I noticed was how slow-going the cycle was.

Part of that was down to it being a bit of a bumpy ride, with maintenance holes, ramps between road level and pavement level, and a less-than-smooth finish to navigate.

Given the chance of people on two feet and two wheels getting tangled up, taking it slow isn’t necessarily a bad thing – but I was surprised by how much of my short cycle was spent waiting for a green light.

Bikes now have their own light to go straight ahead, which is a great introduction – anything that reduces the chances of getting side-swiped by a turning truck is a bonus.

My only nitpick was with the light phasing. Cars get first dibs on the green light, while bikes have to wait until the left-turning traffic has gone before proceeding straight.

The path seems best set up for travelling straight along Karangahape Rd. It was unclear how a cyclist would navigate a right-turn except by using the pedestrian crossing, as crossing lanes of traffic would be dangerous.

While the cycleway may not be perfect, it’s an enormous improvement on competing for space with buses and cars.

Lots of people seem to consider cycling in Auckland to be an extreme sport; I’ve lost count of the number of people who have told me they’re too scared to get on a bike.

One path won’t change that, but as part of a network – part of a shift in how the city treats cyclists – it’s a step in the right direction.