As I have mentioned before, National has big plans to spend billions (perhaps as much as $5 billion, if we include the $2.4 billion interest on the private loan for Transmission Gully) on a grade separated four-lane highway from the airport to Otaki. It’s ridiculous to blame the Wellington City Council for holding this project up as the process is already moving as fast as it possibly could, thanks to the EPA rubber stamping process set up by National.

Steven Joyce, supposedly the economic development minister, has a particular obsession with the idea that duplicating or replacing an existing road link will have transformational economic benefits for Wellington.

This truly is, to use a term Joyce is fond of, voodoo economics.

Let’s consider why: how might building motorways create jobs?

There’s the direct impact of the people brought in to move earth, design and construct the roads. But by all accounts, building new highways is one of the worst job creators, at somewhere between $500,000 – $1,000,000 per job created. The reason for this is simple – building roads is capital intensive. Most of the money spent goes on land acquisition, big machines, and materials – not labour.

It would make a lot more sense to create jobs through home insulation, public transport services (which are much more labour intensive), even road maintenance creates more jobs per dollar spent.

But of course, the government couldn’t possibly be building the roads just to directly create jobs.  Oh no, Joyce has previously mocked the very idea of building anything just to create construction jobs… the government is building a “modern 21^st century road” because it will enable productivity benefits.

My question is – what productivity gains can we get from building a duplicate highway? The research shows that expanding an existing highway system has diminishing marginal returns, because there is already access.

The current philosophy of economic evaluation of transport infrastructure assumes that by reducing travel time, we increase access for businesses and freight, and we save precious minutes on journeys.

It is questionable whether adding up minutes of tens of thousands of commuter journeys would actually translate into economic benefit. There was never any empirical evidence to support the theory. In fact, despite people travelling at higher speeds in private vehicles, the past few decades hasn’t seen an overall reduction in travel times – people are simply travelling further than before.

The changes in land use that result from people travelling further are generally not productivity gains, they are a transfer. It’s a zero sum. Land towards the centre becomes less intensively used, while people take the benefit of cheaper land at the outskirts. Overall infrastructure costs associate with this sprawl are more expensive, as are overall transport costs to the economy (households and business need to spend more money importing vehicles and fuel.) Induced development is not a productivity gain and it costs us more for a given amount of economic activity.

If we wanted to save people time so they could be more productive, buying them labour saving devices, like dishwashers, may be more effective than building new motorways. (NB, I am not advocating this policy!)

If anything, Joyce’s treatment will be worse than the disease. Projects like the Kapiti Expressway and the Basin Reserve flyover will actually make Wellington’s situation worse, in several ways. Firstly, it will destroy some of the urban and coastal amenity that makes Wellington an attractive place to live. Secondly, it will undermine the investment in commuter rail, walking and cycling, by making it relatively cheaper and easier to drive. Of course, the total result will be higher car dependence, which means more money being spent on imported vehicles and fuel, and less on goods and services provided by Wellington businesses.

The smartest way to support Wellington’s economy is to make investments that substantially reduce the overall costs of transport to the economy – this means making walking, cycling, and public transport the priority. This would probably result in greater time savings for road trips than a new highway funneling more cars into choke-points. Investing in rail freight and coastal shipping will also reduce fuel costs and vulnerability.

Real economic development requires taking steps to support our manufacturers, investing in training and education, and thinking outside the box. I’m happy to report a lot of truly creative and productive activity is already happening in Wellington, at places like Enspiral and the Sustainability Trust. It may not be on the government’s radar, but it gives me great hope that Wellington has a smart, green future.

Let’s just hope National’s motorway madness can be stopped before it does irreparable damage to the coolest little capital.

This will attract development and people. Yeah right.

Late last week, Wellington City Council split on a vote to oppose the Basin flyover, after a report from officials recommended it as the best option. The council now has no formal position regarding the project, which is opposed by the majority of residents. The Dominion Post criticised the Council for not caving to the bullying tactics of the New Zealand Transport Agency and supporting the project.

They can be forgiven for believing the engineers at the New Zealand Transport Agency, Wellington City Council and the consultants supporting them.

Unfortunately, traffic engineers have never been economists, and the traditional engineering approach to dealing with peak flows of vehicles does not take into account the economic reality of price sensitivity of people.

Traffic engineers since the 1950’s have been approaching traffic like they did water – building bigger and bigger pipes to accommodate peak flows of vehicles.

The flaw in this approach is that people are not water. They make different choices about where to locate and how to travel based on price, availability and convenience. If we spend billions making it cheaper and easier to drive at peak, more people will drive. This undermines the initial benefits of time-savings, and results in higher overall costs of transport for the economy. It also undermines the investment in public transport, because it competes directly and makes it less commercially viable.

Motorways and roads with high traffic volumes also degrade the urban environment, significantly reducing adjacent property values. This causes more new development to go to far-flung green fields sites, which require people to travel by car, increasing overall traffic.

For some trips, the car will always be the best option. But once we have an established road network, the cost of expanding it to deal with peak flows a few hours a day has steeply diminishing returns – especially if each car is only carrying an average of 1.2 people.

Across the developed world, transport professionals have realised this, and are now investing heavily in solutions that maximise the productivity, that is the amount of goods and people moved, of transport infrastructure. Bus lanes, cycle lanes and heavy rail are all able to move many more people at lower cost. By making it easier for some to travel without a car, it frees up the roads for freight and those for whom the best option is driving.

But it takes a while for a new approach to filter into practice, especially in New Zealand.

The WCC report evaluating options at the Basin Reserve is inherently flawed because it is mired in the old approach. It evaluates the options in terms of vehicles, not people and goods. It also assumes huge, unrealistic growth in vehicle trips at any cost.

The benefits extolled by the report are a time saving of up to 1.1 minutes eastbound, and up to 7.5 minutes westbound, during the peak. The traditional approach to assessing transport projects adds up the minutes saved and concludes there will be a material benefit to the economy.

If this isn’t “voodoo economics, I don’t know what is. There has never been any empirical evidence to support this theory. Indeed, former chief scientist at the London Department of Transportation, David Metz, wrote a book and several important papers on this subject in 2008, called “The Myth of Time Travel Savings”.

NZTA published a research report last year that backs up the international findings: “There was a very distinct propensity of respondents to report both their estimated commute time and their ideal commute time in 5 minute intervals. This could indicate that very small units of travel time savings (eg several seconds, or a minute or two) may be relatively meaningless to them, and hence should not be valued.”

There has also been significant research published in the last few years showing the traffic and economic benefits of removing elevated freeways in urban areas, such as the Institute for Transport & Development Policy’s “The Life and Death of Urban Highways”.

The argument against the flyover is not anti-car or anti-road. The argument is this project will not solve peak traffic problems. The engineering evaluation of options doesn’t take into account how humans respond in the real world, nor does it consider the factors most meaningful for the economy – how to move the most people and goods at lowest overall cost.

Those who want better transport and economic outcomes for Wellington should be sceptical of the proposed flyover and other measures that treat the roads of the city like a traffic sewer. A people- and good-oriented approach will reduce transport costs and improve property values. That is a far more likely way to support Wellington’s economy than hoping a new road will save a few minutes for car journeys at peak.

I was waiting for my bus to the airport (the stop is literally right in front of my apartment building — I can look down from my bedroom window and see it), when I realised I had left my phone upstairs charging.

I ran back upstairs to grab it, taking only my handbag with me. I left my messenger bag and my carry-on suitcase sitting on the bench.

What caused me to be so careless? I suppose it felt secure. It was a sunny, still evening. Mt Eden Road was quiet and warm after the long Anniversary Day. I was only running upstairs for two minutes, and my flat is just above the stop.

But when I came back down, my bags were not on the bench. I glanced immediately across the road to the opposite bus stop, and Lovelock Ave, which heads west down the hill. A car door shut in a dirty, old red hatchback. I didn’t recognise the make, but my impression was that it was a 2-door.

A lone man waited at the opposite bus stop. I called out to him, probably with some panic in my voice, “Excuse me, did you happen to see who took the bags that were on this bench?”

He immediately looked to his left and pointed at the red car, which was just pulling out and heading away from me, down Lovelock Ave.

I took off sprinting and raised my right arm, waving. I must have yelled quite loudly, because my flatmate heard me from inside our kitchen.

It may not have been words, or if it was, it was something like “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. COME BACK! THOSE ARE MY BAGS….I NEED THEM” as I futilely pursued the vehicle. It squealed as they sped up, down the hill and around the sharp right turn Lovelock Avenue makes. I was trying to make out the license numbers, but it was hopeless as they disappeared from view.

A woman in an SUV with two kids happened to be pulling out in that direction as I ran by. I was nearly breathless,and must have looked desperate. She rolled down the window.

“Help, please can you help?! Those people just took my bags, in the red car. Can you…?”

She said, “Yes, I can drive, but it may be too late, I doubt we can do anything.” I watched as she drove off, and started considering my options, cursing myself and reflecting that although everything I had just lost was replaceable, it probably mostly wasn’t covered by insurance. A woman who happened to be in her yard asked me with concern what had happened.

I was so upset and mind reeling with adrenaline, I could barely explain. I managed to say that some people had taken my bags and driven off.

“I heard that car just peel out down the street. Come, let’s call the police!” she said kindly.

I was shaking my head. “It’s no use. I didn’t see the plate numbers, I didn’t even see the make of the car. I can’t believe this!” I was on the verge of tears, filled with regret and frustration. I was inconsolable.

“Come on, we’ll have to call the police in any case.”

Before I could begin to cut my losses, and come to terms with the fact that I had lost the bags and everything in them, the woman in the SUV pulled up.

“It’s okay! We got them!” she said, smiling broadly.

“What?!” The woman on the street and I were both incredulous and confused. I simply could not comprehend what she was saying, or what had happened. My heart was still racing from the sprint not two minutes earlier.

I looked in the back seat, sure enough, next to her daughter, there were my bags. Both of them. Not a thing missing from either.

The woman in the SUV said, “they took them by mistake, I think. That’s what they said…”

“Oh my god! I can’t believe it. Thank you so much! Thank you!” I was overcome with relief, but still incredulous.

The kids waved as the woman in the SUV drove off to wherever she had been heading. The woman on the street grabbed me laughing and gave me a big hug.  I declined a cup of tea because I had to catch the next airport bus, and I walked back up to Mt Eden Rd. The man at the bus stop had caught his bus. My flatmate drove up — she had been looking for me. I explained what happened, still laughing and shaking my head.

I don’t know the names of the people in this story, but I am thankful to all of them. The innocent bystanders who saw what happened, and helped without question. The woman who got my bags back. Perhaps especially, the people who decided to give me my stuff back after taking it. It wouldn’t have been worth much to them, and frankly none of it was irreplaceable for me. It just would have been inconvenient.

We are lucky to call home a city and a country where strangers will come together to help someone they don’t know.

I won’t again leave my bags unattended at a bus stop, but I do feel reassured that we are all in this together. People can and will do the right thing, at least some of the time.

[Epilogue: the daughter of the woman in the SUV contacted me after seeing the Herald article! She said the people had pulled over and were unloading the bags when they pulled up. The young woman in the red car was very sweet and said they had taken them by accident...]

This is why it was such good news to hear Gisborne City Councillor Manu Caddie telling Morning Report this week that nearly $14,000 has been raised to pay for an independent economic review of Kiwirail’s decision to mothball the damaged Napier to Gisborne railway.

Given that donations have only been collected over a few days this is a clear signal from the community and local businesses that they want their railway to remain open.

Kiwirail has cited “economic reasons” for the closure. But Councillor Caddie and others in the community are worried about the accuracy of the numbers used to justify that decision.

They have every right to be concerned. Kiwirail knows the decision is unpopular, but is suffering massive budget pressure because of very short-sighted Government policy, which treats rail like a stand alone business, and expensive new motorways as an (unproven) economic development strategy.

The substantial economic benefits of re-developing our rail network cannot be evaluated in the narrow financial terms that make no reference to the rest of the transport system. Contrast the requirement for Kiwrail to turn a profit with the wide social cost-benefit analysis used to evaluate roading projects, and it becomes clear how ridiculous it is for National to demand rail turn a profit.

Ironically, Gerry Brownlee has announced $4 million worth of upgrades to State Highway 2 in lieu of fixing the rail line. In road works, this is a drop in the bucket; new passing lanes and upgrades between Otaki and Levin will cost at least $100m. Improvements will be short-lived with an additional 1,700 trucks per year wearing down the road and increasing the risk of fatal crashes.

But we already know that the Government’s fixation with highways has everything to do with ideology and nothing to do with economics or improving the transport network.

I completely support the review of the business case to mothball the line, and congratulate Manu Caddie on his initiative. Berl is commencing their review this week, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it finds Kiwirail’s numbers were overly pessimistic. But we need a much wider review of the economic evaluation and prioritisation of all transport projects to truly understand the value of investing in rail.

The Green Party can absloutely commit to reopening the railway if the closure goes ahead, because we know rail will play a critical role in the smart, green economy that New Zealanders want.

If you want to join the fight to save Gisborne’s railway, join the Facebook group.

The ad essentially uses the same techniques ubiquitously applied to sell cars, and applies them to the bus.

Given that car ads seem to be about one out of every three or four shown on television, and essentially no advertising is done for public transport, it is not surprising that we have more of a “culture of the car” in New Zealand.

However, as I often argue, there are a lot of people who will simply take the transport that is most convenient for a given price. Many more people would take public transport if there was more convenient, reliable buses and trains, and private cars weren’t subsidised by urban planning policies and government funding.

In fact, New Zealanders are driving less and owning fewer cars, despite car-centric policy. And more and more Aucklanders are taking public transport or walking and cycling, because it is more convenient than being stuck in a traffic jam, and owning an operating a car is expensive. The reality of car commuting around the city is a lot less sexy than the car ads make it out to be.

The video above is good because the effect is humorous. Certainly, advertisements like this alone won’t work if there isn’t a big improvement in transport policy and funding in New Zealand. But there is a reason why car manufacturers spend enormous sums of money on advertising. Perhaps more ads like this will help change attitudes about transport.

What do you think?

There were many factors at play, though certainly borrowing to pay for projects that were not the best at reducing transport costs certainly didn’t help.

From 2000 to 2006 alone Greece spent nearly half of its European Development aid on transport, and most of that on motorways.

During that time the international oil price more than doubled. By 2008 it had doubled again.

There is little doubt that when fuel prices increase much faster than inflation (and the fuel efficiency of vehicles), the economy takes a hit. This is because transport isn’t an economic activity in and of itself. It is necessary for economic activity to take place, and if the cost goes up, that eats into any profit margins.

So, what is the Greek lesson for us?

Quite simply that fancy new motorways are not up to the heroic task of creating economic growth, especially given the current oil price situation.

Of course, the National Government and all the pro-Roads of National Significance (RoNS) acolytes repeat a familiar mantra that these projects have been chosen because they “are linked to New Zealand’s economic prosperity”.

From the NZTA website:

Infrastructure development is one of the Government’s key planks for economic growth. A key departure from road planning in the past is that the RoNS projects represent a ‘lead infrastructure’ approach. This means the Government is investing in infrastructure now to encourage future economic growth rather than wait until the strain on the network becomes a handbrake on progress.

We have seen a 50+ page RoNS communication strategy from the NZTA that specifies statements about economic growth and productivity as “key messages”. However, no amount of OIA requests or oral questions has found any underlying analysis or evidence that significant economic productivity will be created by the RoNS.

While National MPs and business lobby groups may ardently believe that a few higher standard highways are worth $12 billion (75% of the spending on new infrastructure over the next decade), the international evidence from transport planning suggests that new motorways are the least effective way (PDF) to achieve the critical aim of moving more people and freight at lower cost. There are steeply diminishing returns from duplicating or replacing an existing link in a road network.

The RoNS are being rushed ahead over this decade to prove that this Government is “getting on with it”. But this decade is likely to be the least opportune to throw billions at a few big motorway projects. Traffic volumes on state highways have been stagnant for over 5 years, oil prices are high, and the fleet is not becoming any more fuel efficient as most households & businesses don’t have the cash (or credit) to buy new vehicles.

It’s the perfect time to catch up on investment transport projects that will actually substantially reduce costs to households and business, while simultaneously reducing peak hour congestion. For a fraction of the RoNS budget, we could massively increase public transport, walking and cycling, and still have plenty left over to look after our existing roads. Rail freight and coastal shipping deserve a whole lot more attention as well.

In addition to building a lot of motorways, Greece also invested a lesser amount in urban transport and rail. Gerry Brownlee tried to claim the latter were responsible for its default. The test of the effectiveness of the investment must be in the use now, though, and it is the motorways in Greece that are nearly empty.

If we continue down the RoNS path, we may well be in the Greek situation of having a number of flash motorways that won’t get much use, and that can’t be a good outcome from a massive infrastructure investment.  Ordinary New Zealanders may well have to look to the Greek people to find a cheaper way of getting around.

New safety rules to avoid cycle deaths mooted during the Coroner’s inquest include innovative ideas such as mandatory high-vis clothing and compulsory use of cycle lanes.

A few years back, a colleague of mine explained to me quite clearly the provenance of the problem. He was a traditional middle-aged traffic engineer from Townsville who had worked at the Department of Main Roads in Queensland before joining our consultancy. He commuted in a company car, of course, and it would not be an exaggeration to say the man is seriously overweight and a regular watcher of Fox News.

He said, “Cyclists are a safety hazard. We don’t want to encourage people to ride bikes unless it’s on a separated path.”

Yup, folks. In the mind of many old school traffic engineers, and apparently the Coroner, people riding bikes for transport are a safety hazard, and they must be discouraged.

The problem with this antiquated approach to road safety is pretty obvious: even if we remove all the bicycles from our roads, there will certainly still be fatal traffic accidents. Whereas, if you removed all the cars… traffic fatalities would plummet to near zero. Just increasing the number of bicycles on the road reduces crashes (PDF).

There’s a clear relationship between road fatalities and vehicle kilometres travelled; countries with higher levels of walking and cycling for transport have lower per capita vehicle kilometres travelled, and fewer serious injury and fatalities on the road.

So what is the real safety hazard?

It’s human nature to focus on individual actions that contributed to a tragic crash, and the media regularly frame conflict in a tribal way; as “motorists versus cyclists”, as though people are necessarily one or the other.

But the truth is that individuals are behaving within a context set by traffic engineers, a context that has consistently prioritised the speed and volume of motor vehicles over people (often, strangely enough, in the name of improving safety!).

That context can and should be different. The best way to reduce road deaths, and health problems related to inactivity, it to normalise walking and cycling so more people feel it’s a realistic choice.

The more people on the streets on bicycles, the better off we all are.

Today’s revelation that the Government has spent $200 million in the past three years for transport consultants to work on its roads of national significance reveal a stunning waste of money.

The roads are not a sensible use of cash at any time let alone when finances are tight.

The money would be much better invested in improving existing roads, public transport and better walking and cycling routes.

While nearly all Government departments haven’t had any budget increases and have had to shed staff the Government is happy to shell out for its ideologically motivated policies that won’t actually help the country’s economy.

The Government spent over $9m on its botched Foreign Affairs Ministry restructure and is paying out about $120m to contractors to sell off our assets.

I’m not saying consultants can’t deliver good value, but these projects don’t justify the cost, which does seem very high.

TVNZ 7’s closure means the end of almost any commercial free public broadcast television in New Zealand (aside from the excellent Maori TV, which has a very specific cultural/linguistic mandate). In 2011, the then Minister of Broadcasting, Jonathan Coleman, effectively sealed the channel’s fate. The Government has never seriously considered alternative decisions since then.

However, that decision is now the source of a complaint to the Ombudsmen from the same group who have been fighting to prolong the life of public television.

Myles Thomas of the Save TVNZ 7 Campaign, with the help of public law expert Mai Chen of ChenPalmer, has asked the Ombudsmen to investigate whether the decision to close TVNZ 7 was made unlawfully.

As Green Party spokesperson for both Broadcasting and Justice this piqued my interest. Not only is the future of public broadcasting at stake but we are seeing a potential abuse of power contrary to the interests of justice more broadly.

The official complaint lists three possible ways in which the decision may have been contrary to the law. Either…

a)     TVNZ has effectively surrendered its discretion and acted under the dictation of Cabinet and the Minister of Broadcasting;

b)     In combination with Cabinet’s decision to decline additional funding, the shareholding Ministers’ demands for a substantial dividend from TVNZ left it with no choice but to cancel TVNZ 7. This is tantamount to an unlawful direction as to content; or

c)     TVNZ has not adequately assessed alternative options that would have allowed TVNZ 7 to be retained.

(See the full complaint (PDF).)

Cabinet documents indicate that the final decision would be left to TVNZ, but given the financial constraints and the obvious preference of the Minister for the channel to close, the decision was fairly predictable. In short, TVNZ 7’s closure was desired, foreseeable and pursued.

The Ombudsmen can act as an important check on the use (or, rather, misuse) of executive power and it will be interesting to see what their conclusions are. Unfortunately it is likely to be an uphill battle to draw an admission of wrongdoing from the Government, in large part because the Ombudsmen’s findings are not binding. And we know at least how the Prime Minister feels about non-binding authorities who might disagree with his Government’s view of the world…

The loss of high quality programming that has come with this decision, and the relative ease with which it was made, are concerning. Too little attention has been accorded to this issue in Parliament with most of the decisions being made behind closed doors.  It has been difficult for interested parties to get documents under the Official Information Act, and when released the information is highly redacted.

But surely a matter of significant public interest should be something that is discussed openly? New Zealanders have expressed a strong interest in the channel; thousands attended meetings across the country and two large marches in Auckland and Wellington. Over 36,000 people signed the petition to keep TVNZ 7 on air. A large number of experts and academics wrote an open letter. They have all (unsurprisingly) been ignored by this Government. Our loss has been not only a good public service broadcaster, but also Government openness and sensitivity to public opinion.

This is why the continuation of the campaign is so heartening. Moves are being made to form a charitable trust to take on the role of public broadcasting advocacy and to oversee the return to the airwaves of high quality public television that we can be proud of.

We won’t find that in reruns.

The Save TVNZ 7 press release can be read here.

Also, you can read about the process for Ombudsmen complaints here.

It is the death of public television.

We’re about to lose our only non-commercial free-to-air broadcaster (with the notable exception of Maori TV).

Last week I attended at the first of a series of public meetings to save TVNZ 7, but it started out with a solemn procession carrying the coffin of public broadcasting.

There was a great turnout; well over 300 people packed a large hall. We heard from excellent speakers, some of whom worked in television when there was a true public broadcaster in New Zealand. Much of the audience had white hair, probably remembers well that time, and understands what we have lost since.

It’s been a long slow journey to this point, which is why it may not be so noticeable. Let’s face it; successive governments slowly eroded the role of TVNZ to provide public service broadcasting. While Labour tried to improve the situation with the introduction of the charter, ultimately there wasn’t much additional funding to deliver it, and crucially Labour didn’t change the commercial imperative that drives NTNZ.

We did get TVNZ7 for a few years, and that has delivered some excellent programming, such as Backbenches and the Court Report. But as of 30 June, that will be replaced with TVNZ Plus 1. The exact same content as TV One, delivered one hour later. In case you missed it.

Why is having a public broadcaster so important?

There are many reasons, but here’s just one: an independent media is crucial for a healthy democracy. One needs only look at the uninformative rubbish that passes for television news in the United States to see that advertising revenue does not fund serious or critical journalism. It’s entertainment news.

It’s not too late to show your support for TVNZ7 – there’s another meeting Monday 21 May (tomorrow) in Wellington, and then in Nelson, Christchurch, Palmy, Dunedin, Hamilton, and I heard a rumour there may be one in Rotorua.

Also, the petition is up to 25,000! If you haven’t already, sign it online now.

As I said at the meeting, while it may be too late to save TVNZ 7 as it is now, this campaign could lead to something even better: a properly funded independent public broadcaster in New Zealand.

Here at home, Wellington City Council’s latest figures show that the number of people commuting by bicycle has almost doubled in the last three years. This is despite little dedicated cycle infrastructure in the capital, and little action from the Council to improve it, especially in the CBD. If cycling numbers are growing despite a lack of encouragement, how fast would they grow with better facilities – proper bike lanes, more bike racks, and lower speed limits?

We know now that getting people riding bikes is about providing the right infrastructure for them to do it. The latest published research shows that having bike paths and lanes available is the biggest determinant of cycling rates in a city. It’s pretty clear what we need to do to get the huge benefits of a high bicycle mode share.

Hastings has had dedicated investment in cycling and walking infrastructure from NZTA as one of its ‘model communities’, and cycling figures there have shown the results – a rise of 23% just a year after the iWay program began. Portland’s entire cycling network has an estimated replacement cost of one mile of urban motorway, and that city has seen a 400% rise in cycling numbers in the past 20 years (check out the PDF here). It now has the highest bicycle mode share in the US. In Copenhagen, a city where the bicycle is used for 37% of trips, they’ve just opened a set of ‘Cycle Super Highways’ to create better conditions for commuter cyclists, for the benefit of all road users – because cycling investment doesn’t just help people who use bicycles, it also helps those who choose to walk, drive or take public transport.

The popularity of cycling was demonstrated in London and Europe earlier this week. In London, ahead of the upcoming mayoral election, 10,000 people braved the British rain to show their support for proper cycling infrastructure. The ride was organised by the London Cycling Campaign, who are urging the mayoral candidates to support its calls for ‘Dutch quality’ cycling infrastructure  – check out the photos here. In Edinburgh, 2,000 people cycled together. In Rome, 50,000 (!) people made it out on bikes, at one point laying their bikes down to protest the deaths of cyclists and pedestrians on the city streets. This echoes 1970s protests in Holland, shown in this video, which provided the catalyst for that country to become world leaders in cycling for transport.

The problems that Holland faced back then are the same that New Zealand is facing now. Spending billions on new motorways kills our communities and creates more congestion, wasting valuable land on concrete and parking. With fuel prices expected to rise even further, New Zealanders want alternatives to burning up their incomes in their petrol tanks. They want safer neighbourhoods and more liveable cities, and the public health benefits that come from increased walking and cycling.

There’s no better time to stop spending billions on the National Party’s so-called ‘Roads of National Significance’ and start investing in cycling.

First, the bad news:

The Napier—Gisborne line is hanging by a thread after being washed out. This is a huge blow to the regional freight line, which thanks to local efforts had been running a full freight service three times a week since the beginning of the year. There is a serious risk that Kiwirail will use this setback to mothball the line, which was their watching brief to begin with.

Wellington Regional Council is putting up public transport fares in a bid to raise revenue. Unfortunately, without a comprehensive approach to transport, this will likely lead to the typical public transport death spiral wherein high fares mean fewer passengers and lower revenue, therefore hiking fares even more. Although, high petrol prices mean there is something of a captive audience… there is a better, more affordable approach to transport and this is not it.

No hint that the Government is going to defer or delay its programme of burning billions of dollars to build a few motorways with extremely poor business cases (henceforth referred to as the RoNS). I can report from my experience sitting on the financial reviews of Ministry of Transport and the New Zealand Transport Agency in select committee a few weeks ago that the general managers of these organisations are not able to give satisfying or compelling answers as to how these projects will deliver economic benefit to the country.

They did, thankfully, acknowledge that the forecasting of both passenger and freight volumes that had been used in the RoNS business cases had not eventuated over the past 5 years. But they did not seem to think that recent trends should have any bearing on near future travel forecasting or project prioritisation. The GM of MoT told me that he did not share my concern that higher oil prices and lower GDP growth would result in a need to prioritise different projects over the next ten years.

There was a surreal moment when he also tried to tell me that the Ministry did not decide which projects should be funded – that NZTA did the project evaluation and funding, and therefore selection. Given that the Government Policy Statement identifies the amount of money that will be spent in each activity class, including well over a billion dollars each year on new motorway infrastructure, and the RoNS were specifically announced in Government policy, I found this claim confusing. Even if all the economic evaluations for the RoNS are low, NZTA will still have to fund some of them. He then tried to claim that the RoNS were identified as priorities in Regional Land Transport Strategies, which in the case of Puhoi to Wellsford is patently false.

What do we take from official obfuscation? These guys have no idea what’s about to hit them, and they have unerring faith in the complexity of the four-stage traffic model to provide the right outcome. You can’t really blame them, they have been employed to defend and implement Government policy.

The good news?

Cycling, bus and rail patronage all grew hugely last year in Auckland, and we can expect that trend to continue. The case will become stronger by the day for a reprioritisation of funding.

I sent a letter to the Transport and Industrial Relations select committee today laying out the case for an inquiry into the prioritisation and evaluation of the RoNS. We’ll see what happens when we meet Thursday.

On the one hand, we have a housing affordability crisis. The solution, we are told, in the very disappointing  Productivity Commission draft report, is to free up more land for development on the fringes of the urban area. This will presumably bring down house prices, though it will result in higher transport and infrastructure costs.

On the other hand, we have a chronic transport problem, which we hear about all the time. The Auckland Council has a huge funding gap, and have just released an (also slightly disappointing) paper on possible ways of raising revenue to fund all the big roading projects and the critical city rail link.

The Government’s supposed solution to congestion is to spend over $1 billion a year for at least the next decade on just a very few expensive motorway projects (which will do nothing to lessen congestion on existing local roads), raise fares on buses, and stymie the Auckland Council from raising revenue to pay for the city rail link.

I bet if I told you there is an extremely low cost solution to both of these problems, which will actually be better for business and households (and developers!), you would think it is too good to be true. But it is not.

Cars take up a lot of land. So much more than we realise.

For decades, planning rules have set aside huge amounts of land for car parks, which inflict large costs on developers and reduce the availability of land for productive uses including housing. These costs are passed on to us, of course, through higher rents, and higher prices for goods and services. Because we rarely pay directly for parking, we all collectively pay much more for it. And “free parking” and car oriented development, forced on us by traffic engineers and council planners (who meant well), has resulted in worse peak hour congestion, by 1) massively subsidising single occupant vehicle trips, and 2) making it nearly impossible to get around the city in any other way.

Proponents of car oriented sprawl claim they want to improve housing affordability, but try to deny the huge cost of minimum parking requirements.  One would think good free marketeers would support removing bad government regulations. They also attack ‘smart growth’ and compact development as being unaffordable.

But wait, why would compact development result in higher land values than sprawl?  It takes up less land, and per capita infrastructure costs are lower.

Is walkable compact development more expensive because in fact, people prefer it to sprawl, and the transport costs are lower?

It’s no accident that the least affordable cities in the world are the places where people want to live, and vice versa.

I’m not saying that everyone wants to live in walkable neighbourhoods. But the Urban Land Institute has done some research that has shown the market share in the US is something like 30%. The supply of housing stock that is compact and walkable is about 2%.

This is a significant market failure caused by planning and traffic engineering regulations, among other things, and it likely the reason why compact walkable neighbourhoods well-served by public transport are unaffordable — the supply is very low relative to demand.

This seems to be a problem in Auckland as well, as noted by Barfoot and Thompson yesterday on morning report (at 6’08″). The suburbs that have become the least affordable in Auckland are largely inner-city suburbs, many of which are fantastic and walkable, because people don’t want to waste time commuting if they can avoid it.

So in fact, the solution to our land affordability and our transport problems is one and the same: get rid of minimum parking requirements. Allow more urban land to be used for truly productive uses. Invest in better infrastructure for walking, cycling and public transport.

There are other tools we can use to improve housing affordability, like a capital gains tax and increasing the supply of state housing. But increasing car-oriented development on the fringes of Auckland is not a long-term solution to housing affordability. It will result in higher transport costs and worse traffic congestion, and we could just follow the USA down the path of financial ruin.

We can retrofit our existing low density, car-oriented urban areas for less than what we are spending now, and it will improve transport AND housing affordability, plus create lively, walkable neighbourhoods that New Zealanders obviously value. (Example below, or more here.) But we need to put the paradigm shift on the radar of the Productivity Commission, the Government, and the Auckland Council, because for the moment they are missing our best opportunity to respond to the environmental and economic challenges we are facing, and foster smart green towns and cities.

Use the slideshow controls at the bottom ^ to browse through.

Yesterday I took apart my bike and crammed it into the small rental car of a friend attending the festival. We drove back to Dunedin airport, where incredibly helpful people gave us materials to pack up the bike. Upon arrival in Wellington, I unpacked it, put it back together (with the assistance of friends I ran into in the baggage claim), and cycled back around the bays. I was slightly surprised and very proud that it worked properly!  A half hour bike ride now seems impossibly short.

The festival itself was a great success. Sunday was a community open day in the town of Mataura, where I (and hopefully quite a few locals) learned a great deal. The star of the weekend was a fifth generation Queensland farmer named Sid Plant, who has direct experience of a mine moving in and destroying a farming community. His community of 64 families has dwindled to 11, as the noise, dust, and other negative impacts of the mine have driven people to sell off and move out. He said the land would take at least a million years to return to its pre-mined state. His story was poignant, and actually brought tears to my eyes as he played a song written about the sad fate of his town Acland.

We are up against something big. The powerful corporate interests that stand to make a lot of money from selling fossil fuels, especially as liquid fuels and fertiliser become more expensive, have money and influence on their side. Local and central government tend to be optimistic and enthusiastic about the potential to increase growth, and reluctant or unable to challenge the proposals. The public are busy trying to make ends meet and raise their families. They usually just want to avoid conflict, and would like to trust in the professional competence of those proposing the mine and/or those charged with regulating activities. Given the financial challenges facing many families, survival of their nearest and dearest is paramount, and they may not feel they have the luxury of protecting an abstract entity called The Environment.

For decades the argument has been that there is a trade-off between prosperity and environmental protection. It was right there in the answers to the poll on the Southland Times website yesterday. It essentially asked: Do you agree with the protestors that coal mining will be bad for the environment, or do you think we should go ahead because it will make us rich? When it is posed as this kind of dichotomy, it is easy for people to believe the Government’s rhetoric about a ‘balanced’ approach — just a little more environmental degradation for a little more economic growth won’t hurt us.

The green paradigm shift is the recognition that we don’t have to trade off our health and well-being for a little more economic growth. All the additional fossil fuels we burn from now on will only make it harder for us to transition to an economy that is not dependent on fossil fuels, and will worsen climate change. We have the opportunity to do things differently, and in a way that benefits us all.

It may not be good for mining companies, who have a mindless and ethic-free imperative to return a profit by doing the same old thing. But companies are not people. The people working for mining companies can do something different, and possibly much more enjoyable. We need government and regulation to step in and create the incentive for new activities that won’t result in catastrophic climate change, that won’t threaten our essential farmland, and that will build up (rather than destroy) our communities.

We must start with education and outreach, listening and learning. The more people involved in the conversation, the more robust our collective decisions about the future of our economy will be. As someone said at a closing meeting of the festival, a tiny flame as been kindled in the community of Mataura. I look forward to watching it grow.

This is how the story begins.

A bit anti-climactic, isn’t it?

I woke early this morning, and headed for the hilly route west along the Clinton-Mataura highway. It was a great 50km ride on reasonably still and chilly morning. I got to the festival just in time for morning tea.

I’ll post an epilogue with some reflections on the journey and the festival after it has ended. So far it’s been a day of very productive and interesting conversations, delicious nourishing (and unquestionably ethical food), and some great live music. I’m very keen to see what the community open day tomorrow will yield.

View the first post in this series

It was exhausting then, though I didn’t have much weight on my bike and hadn’t spent the previous week cycling five to eight hours a day.

Oh, and I was probably fitter, too.

Eight years later, I thought if there were enough hours in the day, I could cycle the 110+km to Gore today.

I might have pulled it off, as I did leave Waihola at 7:20am. Arriving in Milton less than an hour later, I passed a cyclist with the same bike as mine, heading in the other direction. He stopped to say hello. He was cycling to Dunedin from Balclutha like it was no big thing. Clearly a regular journey for him. He gave me some good advice about routes, and I left with renewed hope about making it to Gore tonight.

Sometime around 10:30am the weather intervened. You can tell there’s a strong headwind when you have to pedal hard to go downhill. Between hills and headwinds, my average speed fell from 18 to less than 10km an hour, not including breaks.

On the bright side, the Clutha countryside is gorgeous, and the trucks became much less frequent as the day went on. I probably had the energy to cycle for another two to three hours. But with the strong headwinds, it would have taken me AT LEAST four more hours to get to Gore.

It was just after 6pm when I rolled into Clinton at barely more than a crawl. I was relieved to find a pub/motel with vacancies. It was actually being outdoors in the high winds that was most intolerable, even more than cycling at a painfully slow speed.

For most of human history, nature had a much greater say over what we did and when we did it. We slept when it was dark, and worked when it was light. We ate fruit and vegetables that were in season. We did less in the winter and more in spring, summer and autumn. When there were extreme weather events, we took shelter and waited it out, and quite often suffered.

The more predictable cycles of the days and the seasons are still embedded in our physical and cultural reality, such as our holidays, even if we have forgotten their seasonal significance (especially in the southern hemisphere). The industrial revolution led to advances in technology that have allowed us to extend our working hours and ignore the natural cycles — but our bodies can’t. Studies have shown, for example, that people who work nights suffer from a number of health problems.

We haven’t mastered the unpredictable side of nature either, though we keep going as long as possible despite horrific weather. In fact, one of the objections to the practicality of walking and cycling is that it doesn’t work in bad weather. We need to drive to work because some days it rains a lot. But wouldn’t it be easier to adjust our schedules to account for the conditions outdoors, rather than use high energy transport systems just to be able to travel at a certain time every day?

Are the activities we currently undertake really so important that we need to work well into the night, or go out in horrendous weather, if it means we will jeopardise our health and safety? Analogously, is growing our fossil fuel based economy so important that we must jeopardise our stable climate?

As we face the many challenges of sustainability, it may be that our economy needs to take more account of nature, rather than just the human clock and roman calendar.

I can’t change the wind, so I’m content with my decision to wait it out tonight, and at least get a good night’s sleep before tackling the last 50km. I’ll still make it to Mataura tomorrow, perhaps a few hours later than I originally planned.

Next post: Day 8 — Made it!

I left beautiful Karitane this morning, after an incredible breakfast that included gluten free pancakes made by my exceedingly generous hosts. The morning was cool and overcast, perfect conditions for cycling, and still very beautiful. The ocean was a still blue grey mirror reflecting the sky, with hints of light coming in through on the horizon under the layer of cloud.

The Coast Road had a lot more ups and downs than I expected. It was perfect for interesting cycling, but I was running late to meet fellow cyclists at the top of Mt Cargill. I note that when you’re not pressed for time, cycling is nearly always enjoyable as long as you travel at a good sustainable pace. Many people find it difficult because they try to travel faster than is comfortable for them. I did that for a while and then resigned myself to being a bit late, and started enjoying the ride.

The journey up Mt Cargill took me just under 90 minutes, during which I saw about three cars and one heavily-laden German cycle tourist who was pushing his bike. More stunning nature, lots of endorphins, how could I not feel fantastic when I reached the top? A cyclist and Green Party member had come up (and part way down) the hill to meet me, which made the last few climbs even easier.

In less than 20 minutes we were down the other side in Dunedin, checking out the bike lanes on North Road with fellow cycle advocate, Dr Hank Weiss, who researches injury prevention and rides a well kitted-out electric bike, with room for a passenger or cargo on the back.

We went through town and met up briefly with Metiria, and then spontaneously joined Hank for an afternoon presentation/workshop on an innovative road safety curriculum being developed for school kids by teachers and the NZTA. It was heartening to meet the committed and talented people working in these areas, in all different roles. I’ve no doubt that this work is a small but important step in changing the transport culture we have in NZ.

Unfortunately, I do believe that culture follows infrastructure to a great degree, and that as long as we continue developing infrastructure that is designed to increase the speed and flow of vehicles, innovative educational intervention will be unlikely to have a huge impact.

We see examples of the misguided and unintended consequences of traffic engineering principles all around us. Ever find it hard to keep to the speed limit on the motorway or a wide empty arterial? Roads are deliberately designed to have sight lines and take high speeds to be ‘safer’. But because they make you feel comfortable travelling at a higher speed, subconsciously you will tend to speed up.

Increasing the speed and flow of vehicles is also the quickest way to discourage people from walking or cycling. It feels unsafe, it can be very unpleasant, and it usually creates environments that are long and boring. Have you noticed that you can walk 20 minutes down a street full of people and shops, like Lambton Quay, and not even notice? Whereas walking along a suburban arterial, bordered by car parks, strip malls, surrounded by noisy cars and trucks, where you’re the only person walking feels like you’ve been crossing a desert for hours after about 10 minutes?

The psychological reaction to different urban environments is very real. Jan Gehl reports on some of the research in this area in books like Life Between the Buildings. This impact of urban form influences our choices about how we travel, and where we want to be. Dunedin could do a lot better by prioritising people in the town centre and environs. There would be economic benefits for the city and for shop keepers, as well as a reduced road toll.

I stayed too long at the workshop, and the weather turned for a while. A strong westerly wind was blowing and it was starting to rain, and it was after 4pm. Looking at my options for getting out of town, I succumbed to safety and time concerns and got a ride to the end of the motorway.

Good thing I did, it was nearly 2 hours straight into the westerly wind, along the beautiful, empty side roads like Henley Rd, to Waihola. Slow going, but the sun came back and I was happy to be away from the big trucks on the highway, and just paced myself.

Tomorrow (Friday) is my biggest challenge day. Well over 100km to Gore, and strong headwinds are forecast. If the winds are too strong, the distance may be too ambitious for one day. I’ll do my best, though!

Next post: Day 7 — Serenity to accept that I cannot change

The plan was to cycle from Oamaru to the little village of Waikouaiti, where I was to stay in the only pub/hotel available. I heard about Beach Road, a coastal route out of Oamaru, from a Green Party member who lives near Hampden, who had contacted me after reading the blog and offered to ride part way with me today. I enthusiastically accepted, and we made a tentative plan to meet somewhere on the coastal route.

Beach Road is the perfect cycle route. Rolling hills, gorgeous expansive views of pristine beaches, and hardly a car in sight. It was a dream. I was quite tempted to go for a swim in the shimmering crystal blue sea, but I was already behind schedule. So I pushed forward as quickly as possible. When I met up with my cycling companion, he had been chatting with a group of 6 Russians who are cycle touring the entire ring of fire, and have been in NZ since early December.

It is a pleasure to be able to cycle and converse at the same time. You don’t notice the uphill effort as much, you can share your awe at the magnificent scenery with someone else. It’s usually just nice to have company,  just as it is nice to share a car with others for long journeys. Funny, it’s taken for granted that cars take up at least twice the width of a cyclist all the time, even when they’ve only got one person in them. Yet often those in cars seem outraged that two cyclists should ride abreast and converse as they are travelling together…. We discussed many things, including possible routes for my next two days, as I was getting nervous about being able to arrive in Mataura in time for Saturday.

Leaving the coastal route at Wainakarua, there is literally no alternative (not even a steep, up-hill, out of the way one) to SH1 until Moeraki. And this stretch is where the shoulder of SH1 becomes much more narrow, and significantly bumpier. It would have been terrifying but for the company to distract me, although it did get much more difficult to converse.

We stopped in Hampden for lunch, as that was the turn off for my cycling companion. (The fish and kumara chips in Hampden are about the freshest and most delicious I’ve had. Highly recommended as a stop if you’re on the road.) Sitting outside eating our freshly caught lunch, we chanced to meet a woman from Karitane (just past Waikouaiti), who is quite involved in a number of community and sustainability initiatives.

“You must meet her, I’ll introduce you,” said my cycling companion. And so he did. She and her daughter were coming back from a workshop on food security that had been held in Oamaru this morning. We got to talking, and she proposed that I stay at hers tonight.

I had been contemplating canceling my booking and trying to make it further along today, anyway, and when she proposed that she could ring a number of people involved in the East Otago Walking-Cycling Network to see of they wanted to come over for a chat over coffee and cake, I couldn’t refuse.

After lunch, I headed off alone towards Palmerston with Kanye West’s “Stronger” as my motivating soundtrack, steeling myself for the grueling hills ahead, aiming to be in Karitane by 6pm. There was a slight complication, as I was probably going to have to pay for the booked accommodation anyway, but I figured I’d sort that out when I went through Waikouaiti.

About 9km out from Palmerston, I stopped for a water break at a beachside rest area, the last point before the State Highway turns inland. I started heading up the hill, slowly overtaking a truck (that had previously overtaken me) which was pulled over on the side of the road. The driver, a classic kiwi truckie in his early 60s, struck up a conversation with me as I passed.

I’m not quite sure how it happened, but he offered me a ride (anywhere I wanted on the way to Invercargill) and though I initially declined, I impulsively accepted. I’d gone just over 50km and had about another 30 to my destination. I thought, this is a great opportunity to see what it’s like to be inside a big truck, and chat with a truckie about the issues he faces, and save a bit of time and energy so I can make the next two huge days and not miss part of the festival. So we strapped my bike on the bed of the truck, between two giant rain tanks, and I hopped on in.

My observations were as follows. It is damn comfortable to be up high, gliding along in a truck. You get excellent visibility of what’s in front of you. We passed 3 cycle tourists going the other direction. You have NO IDEA at all what it’s like for the small slow moving objects you pass. It’s easy to see how drivers, even if they give wide berth as this driver does, could become quite cavalier about overtaking bikes at close proximity, at high speeds. They’re quite insulated.

We had a great chat about transport, truck driving, and the demand for goods around the south island, and I heard a lot about his family and life story. But it all happened quickly, because we were through Palmerston and to Waikouaiti in no time. Maybe 15 minutes and we were where I was planning to be in 3 hours. And it was so easy and comfortable. This could get addictive.

Just as I was starting to feel guilty about all those kilometers I hadn’t cycled, things started to work out. I popped into the motel to see if I could cancel for the night, only to find they were in the midst of trying to arrange a last minute hotel in Palmerston for a long staying guest because they had double booked. They were in the process of booting out some poor gold miner for me, but he’d been out of contact up a mine shaft all day. I got there just in time, so the hotel owner could cancel the arrangements and we were all happier, with the gold miner none the wiser.

Arriving in Karitane at about 3:30, I was able to do laundry and visit with my exceedingly generous hosts, who had arranged an impromptu cycle advocates meeting and even baked a chocolate cake since I last saw them in Hampden. I watched the child poverty documentary that has been the centre of a serious political maelstrom (more on that from me later) this week, and I ate about twice as much as every one else of a delicious home cooked dinner: fish, rice, veggies and salad. What a miracle.

At 7pm, a number of locals heavily involved in the East Otago walking-cycling network started coming by, some with home baked desserts. We had a fantastic korero about their projects and aspirations, about transport policy and advocacy, and we even got a surprise visit from Dundedin City Councillor Jinty MacTavish, who is from nearby. At least one of the people was heading to the Keep the Coal in the Hole festival this weekend as well, and she was able to provide me with alternative route advice for my  last 2.5 epic days.

This is how we can and must develop the solutions to the challenges we face. With community. Sharing information, ideas, food, rides, passion. I feel so lucky to be a part of it, and to receive such kindness and generosity from strangers.

Tomorrow I plan to meet Metiria at the top of Mount Cargill around 10:30am, for a ride into Dunedin with public health expert Hank Weiss, and hopefully some local cycle advocates.

Next post: Day 6 – just 110km or so to go

There’s something I want to say to all of you. It’s a little personal.

It’s not your fault.

It’s not your fault that it’s difficult, inconvenient and expensive to take the bus or train most of the time. It’s not your fault that it’s difficult and frightening to walk, cycle or send your kids to school on their own.

It’s not your fault that the goods you buy or sell are mostly moved by truck. And you can’t change the transport system on your own through your consumer choices.

But you CAN tell the Government that you want a smarter transport policy. One that will make it easier for you (or others) to spend less money on cars and petrol. One that will stimulate economic development in our town centres. One that will reduce the road toll, and reduce our collective carbon emissions. One that will make it possible to travel between some cities on a train, or even a bike, if you choose.

We can do this, and the Government can SAVE money. And you don’t have to stop driving if that’s the best option for you. (Though you may have pay a little more directly for parking and fuel emissions, but you’ll find it easier to find a park and you’ll get stuck in fewer traffic jams).

That’s my message, just wanted to make sure it was coming through clearly…

Today was a fantastic day. I cycled the 80-some km from Timaru to Oamaru with the wind at my back. The highway signs informed me it is called “The Strawberry Trail”. I stopped for an excellent lunch at a cafe that’s just over halfway to Oamaru, at the turn-off to Waimate. They even had gluten free pancakes and organic museli! But I opted for a salmon frittata.

I passed a few fellow travelers on loaded touring bikes, both going the opposite way. Liz, from San Francisco, has been cycling all over the South Island for the past 5 weeks, and this is her last week before heading home. She’s loved her trip, but finds the trucks overtake uncomfortably closely and the shoulder of the road is significantly bumpier than the road itself.

Shortly before arriving in Oamaru, I saw the typical road signs that had been informing me just about every kilometer how far it was to Oamaru and Timaru, but something was different. These signs had the distance to the South Pole and the Equator — and I was just over halfway. The 45th parallel. Pretty sweet. It’s the sort if subtle thing one might miss if not on a bicycle.

Tonight I cycled into the heart of old Oamaru and watched the little blue penguins come in from their day at sea. Unbelievably cute. The town has a well preserved and very charming historic quarter, but typically the main street is mainly oriented to cars and car parking, and development stretches out thin along the state highway. Still, there’s a bike lane the whole way and it’s well lit. It’s got potential.

The cycling seems to be getting easier (knock on wood), though everyone I meet warns me about the big hills into Dunedin, and I am starting to worry about the 75km I have planned for Thursday. I may yet have to revise the itinerary down a bit.

Tomorrow, I leave the highway for a while to cycle by the sea, and then I head up into the hills. Eek…!

Next post: Day 5 — Serendipity and Community

“Oh, but you may just want to have a lie in after all that,” she smiled.

“I’ve got 5 more days of cycling ahead of me,” I insisted, full of good intentions to hit the road early.

In fact, I slept in until about 830 and then made breakfast and packed. I didn’t leave until closer to 930, and then I only cycled about 1km to the cycling gear store, where I proceeded to go on a shopping spree.

Cycling gloves? Check. Merino top? Check. Padded bicycle shorts? Oh yes. As much as I adore my Brooks leather saddle, to make it then next 460km I will need shorts that feel like they have a built-in adult diaper. (Never fear, normal-looking shorts cover up the padded Lycra portion).

So I embarked on the day’s 80km journey slightly after 11am, but very happy with my purchases, which should suffice as my long-cycle-trip uniform for years to come.

Yesterday I mentioned that I had a big choice to make today: would I cycle a longer and much slower route to avoid potential loss of life and limb, or go straight to Timaru on SH1?

I chose the latter. When cycling for transport, you want to get where you’re going, just like anyone traveling by any other mode. Yes the journey can be enjoyable, but I’ve got a deadline of Mataura by Saturday midday, and adding additional kilometers seems impossible at this point.

The trade-off of safety and comfort for directness happens in the city too.  People traveling by bike and on foot are often instructed by council transport planners to take more circuitous routes to avoid traffic. It’s ironic because when you’re traveling under your own steam, a few extra kilometers is a lot more of an ask than when you’re in a car. Yet it is usually those on foot or bicycles that are asked to mount the over-bridge, cross three times, or go downhill to the off-road path, only to climb uphill at the end of it.

Commuting to the city centre from St Luke’s in Auckland, I found the fastest way to cycle was New North Road to Ian McKinnon Dr, a weird semi-motorway route frequented by vehicles travelling well over 100km an hour (and usually even unwilling to change lanes to overtake a bicycle, though the middle lane was inevitably empty.)

Perhaps the years of being overtaken at half a metre by speeding buses and trucks in Auckland have desensitised me. I found today’s ride quite enjoyable, despite the noise and immanent threat of the passing trucks. (Sorry the mysterious iPad is not allowing me to upload pictures to the blog, but you can see some if you follow me on Facebook.) I arrived in sunny Timaru around 530pm, surprised to encounter some small hills, and had plenty of time to walk to the supermarket and make a healthy dinner.

We shouldn’t have to choose between directness and safety. It is entirely possible to build infrastructure that welcomes people on bicycles and on foot, and doesn’t make them travel twice as far. In fact, building our towns and cities so they are welcoming to people (as opposed to funneling vehicles through as quickly as possible) will cost us less in many ways. It’s a perfectly understandable mistake of traffic engineering that so many of our towns and cities are impossible or terrifying to navigate without a car.  It’s a mistake we can undo relatively easily by adopting different traffic engineering standards, changing some of our planning rules, and redirecting money towards walking and cycling infrastructure, which is much more cost effective than infrastructure for motor vehicles. However, our political and business leaders haven’t quite grasped this opportunity yet. I’m hoping I can use the next few years to get that message out.

But for now, I’ve got to focus on the remaining 345km (not all of it flat!) to Mataura. Tomorrow I’m definitely going to be up and on the road by 7am…

Next Post: Day 4 — The strawberry trail into Otago (after a slightly emo pep talk)