Cycling User Groups: support your Council with the Model Communities Project

Congratulations on being a Model Community winner.  Having resources for the next two years to really sort out cycling and walking in New Plymouth and Hastings district is a great opportunity. The rest of the country is hoping for a great result so they can fast track projects in their area.

Here is a toolkit of ideas on how your group can contribute to making sure your Model Community money gets spent well.

1 Communicate

Ensure the person(s) from your group on the Model Community Steering Group regularly reports back on what is happening, and feeds ideas and recommendations from your User Group back to the Steering Group. Put "Model Community report back" as a regular agenda item.

2 Upskill

Encourage your Council Staff and decision makers, the Consultants that undertake transport projects in your area (e.g. Abley Transportation Consultants, Beca, MWH, Opus, & Viastrada), and advocates to attend the Fundamentals of Planning and Design for Cycling course

The course introduces the principles of planning and design for cycling in New Zealand and are aimed at anybody planning, designing or reviewing roads or other facilities used by cyclists. This includes planners, road and traffic engineers and managers, road safety practitioners, decision makers, and cycling advocates. The course is endorsed by NZ Transport Agency. Anybody involved in land transport should do this course, from the new graduate to the engineer with 20+ years experience.  

More upskilling
Encourage your Council to send Senior Transport staff (Engineers, Planners) to the Advanced Cycling Course . This course focuses on intersections, which is a problem area for cyclists, with a large proportion of crashes occurring here.

3 Update best practice standards

Work with your Councils on updating/revising their Engineering Standards to ensure these reflect best practice. First determine when this was last undertaken. Nelson City Council recently revised their Engineering Standards, and although there are a couple of standards we think could be improved on, overall it is a great effort.

Cycling infrastructure best practice guidelines used by Councils and NZTA Highways and Network Operations (previously Transit) in NZ are:

Austroads Guide to Traffic Engineering Practice: Part 14: Bicycles (1999) (often abbreviated to "Austroads Part 14") and

The NZ Supplement to Austroads Part 14 (September 2008) indicates where NZ practice is different to Australia http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/nz-supplement-austroads-gtep-part-14-bicycles/

Austroads Part 14 is no longer available to purchase as it was integrated into the General Roading Manuals. Unfortunately the NZ Supplement information was not integrated at the same time. The roading manual chapters are available free to Councils, others must pay for these.

If you would like a copy of Austroads Part 14 (which is still very relevant) let us know at CAN and we will get you a copy.

4 Cycle Training

Get funding for this from Council and buy-in in terms of promotion (e.g. on the Council's website)

Bikeability is CAN's brand for cycle skills training.

Our programme follows New Zealand's cycle skills guidelines.

CAN can help get Cycle Training happening in your area. For more info ask patrick [at] can [dot] org [dot] nz

5 Bike Wise

Get in early with planning for Bike Wise month. If you register early you might get the promotion pack with goodies to give away.

Bike Wise 2011 dates

• Bike Wise month - February 2011

• Go By Bike Day - Wednesday, 16 February 2011

• Bike Wise Challenge - throughout February 2011

• Mayoral Challenges - any Saturday or Sunday between 1 February and 6 March

Does your Mayor bike to work? We recommend you get the decision makers (Mayor and Councillors) to model the behaviour we are encouraging for all.  So, focusing on this area for Bike Wise might be the go.

6 Ask your Council to undertake a Non-Motorised User Audits for all Roading Projects

The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) funded the development of a the Non-Motorised User Audit (NMUA) currently listed on NZTA's website for "trial and comment".

http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/cycle-network-and-route-planning/docs/nmu-guidelines-interim.pdf

If a NMUA was required for every roading project receiving Central Government funding this would result in better infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists. Advocates' time spent being ever vigilant responding to roading projects could be spent working more with local and central government planning and strategising to increase the cycling modal share.

Council projects using Central government funding require a Road Safety Audit. Advocate's can ask for a copy although this Audit tool does not give sufficient detail about the quality of cycling infrastructure.

7 Help your Regional Council set up an Active Transport Forum

This is something really fun to do, it means you get to hear the latest goings on in your region and beyond. It is a great forum to get feedback about a project underway or proposed, it can be kind of like peer review.

Canterbury has a successful Forum that meets quarterly. Topics for discussion/presentation come from the forum members and guest speakers, with Environment Canterbury responsible for hosting and facilitating the Forum. The sessions are well attended (25-35 people, with heaps more on the invite list) and it is helping to dessiminate useful knowledge about best practice for cycling throughout the region to support a more integrated regional transport network.

"The Canterbury Active Transport (CAT) forum was set up to encourage information sharing and cross-sector action in Canterbury between agencies with an interest in Active Transport, including representatives from such sectors as education, environment, health and disability, recreation, sport, tourism, transport and local and national government. "

On the Environment Canterbury website there are terms of reference -so you don't have to reinvent the wheel and examples of past presentations - have a look at the ones that interest you they have some great info.

If you would like help to set a Forum email Fiona on fiona [at] can [dot] org [dot] nz

8 Benchmarking Tool

What's that?  NZTA in conjunction with stakeholders, is developing a tool that will enable Councils to measure how well they are doing for different parameters e.g. Cycle Skills Training, Cycle Facilities, and amount of funding spent on cycling etc. 

NZTA ran workshops (August 2010) on developing this tool in Hastings, New Plymouth, Christchurch, and Wellington.  One of the issues is to build on what data Councils are already collecting so as not to create too much extra work for Councils e.g. cycle counting data, Residents Survey, & Household Travel Survey etc.  The benchmarking tool enables Councils to compare how well they are doing in relation to cycling compared with other Councils (and it is hoped to ultimately also enable comparisons to Australian cities too).  The tool helps Councils striving to achieve best practice for cycling.

Talk with your Council to find out what data on cyclists they currently collect. 

Does your Council do automatic or physical counts? 

How will Council know if there has been an increase in the numbers of children cycling to school or adults cycling to work?

How does the Council know what cyclists think of the cycling facilities they are providing?

9 Campaigns

Share the path courtesy campaign: Cruise the Waterfront
Follow the rules: Stop at Red.
Ask CAN about putting a campaign together.

10 Cycle Audits

Talk to CAN about formalising the process for undertaking cycle audits.  We have great tools for streamlining this process. 

11 Dr Bike, or Fix up your bike Events

CAN groups run bike maintenance workshops as part of supporting their community and community events (e.g. 10:10:10 climate day of action). Bike maintenance workshops are an ideal way to show Council that your group is actively contributing, and is a very practical way of getting more bikes on the road. 

Cycle Aware Wellington (CAW) has been holding Dr Bike clinics for years, often in conjunction with Bike Wise events such as Go By Bike day.

A few hints & resources are provided in the link above, from "Souped Up Cycles" ("Icecycles" is the name of the group) in Christchurch, who have learnt a few things from running a few bike maintenance workshops. Workshops are continuing with a goal of three a year in spring, summer, & winter.

How about organising a "Big Bike Fix Up" for Bike Wise week in February 2011?

12 KiwiRAP: a tool for arguing the case for more shoulder width on State Highways

Model Communities have been allocated money for their proposed Model Community projects. However, there are also likely to be rural roads in the surrounding hinterlands of Hawkes Bay and New Plymouth that could do with some improvements to support more cycling. People enjoying recreational cycling may also begin to appreciate the bike to work. It would be great to talk with NZTA Highways and Network Operation (HNO, ex Transit) about what State Highway Renewals are in the pipeline and look at what KiwiRAP has to say about your region in terms of shoulders on highways .

Use KiwiRAP to work with partners such as NZTA and AA, to reduce fatal and serious injuries on rural roads. More here.