What a disaster. Most of the routes that were planned in 2004 went onto the map as dotted lines - routes we'd like to build "one day". Three years later, most still don't seem to have been done.
According to the map in my pocket, when I got to the end of this street, there was supposed to be a bike path going around this oval. Ha ha. It was the same everywhere I went - I'd go down a dead end street expecting to be able to get onto a path at the end, and find that the only way to get to the path was to dismount and lift the bike over an 8 inch high kerb, and then walk it up a concrete gutter that had been put in place to channel rainfall.
So much for joined up infrastructure.
The Council is making progress though. They recently went down one of the main bike routes and removed the existing lane markers and painted in bike lanes, which was a first. They've gone for the cheap option, which involves putting down two lines of white paint about a metre apart, with a bike logo every hundred yards or so. I doubt we will see any of the lanes filled in with red or green paint.
I was particularly interested in riding past some of the local schools, since kids under the age of 17 would surely be those most dependent on a bike for getting around. The route past one school went down the roughest goat track that I have been on for a long time. It was a truly abysmal surface. If you gave someone a bike, and that was the first bit of road that they rode on, they'd give it away for good there and then. Bike routes need to be many things - safe, convenient and comfortable. By the time I finished my ride, I was starting to question the bike plan on all three aspects.
This next photo shows where one of the routes crosses over one of the main roads in our area - Great North Road. You actually need to do a dog leg to the left at this intersection in order to get across Great North Road and to continue onwards.
The amazing thing about this intersection is that the Council or the RTA have built a concrete island smack down the middle of the road in order to stop cars turning across Great North Road, which of course makes it really difficult for bikes to follow the bike route. They've conveniently cut a hole through the island for people to walk across the road, and I presume that is also there for bikes, since I dashed through it today.
The amazing thing though is that just behind me is a primary school. The main users of this route would be kids in the 10-12 year old age bracket, and they are expected to use this abortion of a corner.
The plan was developed by consultants of course. I am glad that the Council at least had a go at coming up with a plan, but the consultants have not really thought everything through. I have to wonder sometimes whether the consultants actually rode any of the routes that they were planning on paper?
I was a bit sceptical before my ride about the routes, so I had a look at where I was going on Google Maps before heading out. I could see that I had to cross several parks and a golf course, and that there were no paths visible across them. If you zoom in as far as you can go, you can generally see concrete walking or bike paths on the Google Maps aerial photos. So I was pretty sure before I left that I'd be let down, and I wasn't wrong.
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