January 2020

Welcome , to Chainlinks newsletter. Thanks for supporting better biking in New Zealand.

, Looking ahead in 2020

Where will your bike take you this year?

Whether it's from Cape Reinga to Bluff, like CAN supporter Jess Mazengarb, or across town, there's never been a better time to get on your bike.

Our Government has firmly grasped the value of investing in cycling. It's making connections with health, better cities, and well-being. There's more funding than ever for cycling projects. I'm delighted that full funding for SkyPath and SeaPath was confirmed yesterday.
A new Towards Zero strategy focuses on road safety, and a great Bike Ready programme is delivering bike education to more and more children. CAN's voice is well represented in news media, and we use social media to tell our story. E-bikes, cargo bikes, share bikes and scooters are changing the way we get around.

But it's not all easy cruising. Some Councils have lost momentum in their cycling projects. Bikelash is a thing. I think we've got better at making our case and building relationships, but we have much to do. There's never been a better time to push for better biking, healthy streets, and great cities.

Whatever your riding plans this year, I wish you tailwinds.

Patrick Morgan

Project Manager, CAN

Contents:

CAN needs you

Supercharge your bike advocacy at CAN Do 2020 in Cambridge

Unravelling the cycling city

Riding makes me happy

New Zealand Cycle Trail are a great alternative to highways

Reflections on 2019

Road to Zero - A New Road Safety Strategy for New Zealand

Summer Near-cation

RIP Alastair Smith

By Patrick Morgan

It is with a sad heart I must share the news that CAN volunteer Alastair Smith passed away on 20th November.

I will always remember Alastair as a caring, considerate and funny man. He devoted huge energy to his passions. High among these was his love of riding a bicycle and sharing the simple pleasures of companionship and adventure. He kept the flame of bike advocacy burning, and we are all better off as a result. I will miss him.

In July 2018, Alastair received a Bike to the Future Award for Outstanding contribution to a bike-friendly future. This award recognises the outstanding contribution made by an individual to the promotion of cycling.

In June 2017, Alastair was honoured with an Absolutely Positively Wellington Award, recognising his years of outstanding service to the people of Wellington.

More at https://can.org.nz/alastair-smith

CAN needs you

By Claire Sherrington, acting CAN Chairperson

We are looking for fresh ideas, talent and enthusiastic people for the CAN Board and management. Last year I stepped down from the governance/management role after over 5 years of volunteering. But I am keen to still be involved in a role of seeking funding opportunities. Also, I am still involved in cycling. I will doing more cycling coaching and getting local people more active.  If you are interested in a governance or management role please get in touch claires@can.org.nz and/or come to CAN Do More hands make light work! 

This is a big year of opportunity for CAN work, as it’s an election year. We advocate to candidates across New Zealand with a set of key messages from CAN. We use these messages to highlight their transport policy, and specifically their election promises around cycling.  The 2017 election was successful, with a growing number of cycling-friendly MPs.  

Let’s do this again! 

Supercharge your bike advocacy at CAN Do 2020 in Cambridge

Welcome to CAN Do, CAN's annual get-together. The weekend includes our AGM, workshops, training, rides, plenty of food and drink, and a chance to catch up with fellow "CANners" from around New Zealand, at the home of High Performance Cycling in New Zealand.

Date: 29 February, 2020

Location: Avantidrome, 15 Hanlin Road, Cambridge

Registration: On-line
Register by 1 February to get the early-bird rate.

You will supercharge your advocacy skills, with training on effective messaging, networking, and campaigning.

This year you get to try track cycling on a UCI track. acting CAN Chair Claire Sherrington, as an accredited cycling coach will be running sessions for those of us who want to pedal the boards.

Don't worry if track cycling is not your thing, the Avantidrome is one of the stops on the Te Awa, The Great New Zealand River Ride. From the Avantidrome it's a short pedal in to Cambridge, which after having State Highway 1 moved from traversing the village is undergoing an urban resurgence, with cycling being one of the key transport modes.

Unravelling the cycling city

By Patrick Morgan

Do you want to learn more about how cycling fits into city life? In 2019 I attended Planning the Cycling City at summer school in Amsterdam. Now you can take the same course online, at no cost. Highly recommended.

Here's the blurb:

Obscured by its apparent simplicity, cycling is a complex phenomenon. Being an almost perfect human-machine hybrid, cycling is deeply rooted in a plethora of socio-technological systems.

Around the world cycling is embraced as an important ingredient to tackle a wide variety of individual and societal challenges. The Netherlands is often seen as an ideal living lab, because cycling has retained its significant share of mobility throughout the country. At the same time, there are large differences in developments across time and space, that allows for a better understanding of potential causal relations. This is also increasingly recognized by (inter)national top tier researchers from many different academic fields. They are uncovering reciprocal relations of cycling with spatial, ecological, historical, social, cultural, economic, biological and political structures.

Unraveling the Cycling City bundles the state-of-the-art knowledge that emerges from research and practice on the Dutch cycling system. As such, it provides an easily accessible platform to learn about important causes and effects, to open minds for the complexity of the entire system and to support group deliberations around the world.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/unraveling-the-cycling-city

Riding makes me happy

By Jess Mazengarb

Four and a bit years ago I was rudely reminded of my mortality when I was given a cancer diagnosis and told that my prognosis was not good. Treatment was torturous, but even worse was the crippling anxiety. One of the few escapes I had was to get on my bike and ride. It let me pretend that I was still in control of my body and forget that it was staging a mutiny. Riding gave me a way to live in the moment - important when you don’t know how many moments you might have.

Two and a bit years later, I was NED (no evidence of disease, which means you get to assume you’re cancer-free) and starting to recover from treatment.

On the evening of my 38^th birthday, I was riding around the Wellington bays with a friend when I came around a corner and found myself face-to-face with another abrupt reminder of the fragility of my existence. A head-on collision with a car on the wrong side of the road left me with two broken vertebrae, a broken scapula, a broken tibia and fibula, bruised lungs, and a traumatic brain injury.

I was asked many times in the following months why I would ever want to get back on a bike. The answer was easy - riding makes me happy.

Although the road was a scarier place for me than it had been, I was determined not to let fear (or injury, or illness, or really shitty luck) win. So instead, I decided to double down. I decided to make a bucket list of bicycle adventures. The first item on the list was the Tour Aotearoa. In February I plan to set about ticking that item off.

Hopefully my broken body will last the distance. And hopefully I can raise some money for Cycling Action Network in the process, because the only thing more satisfying than getting on a bike, is helping someone else get on one.

Peace, love, and bicycles.

Donate at https://givealittle.co.nz/fundraiser/jesss-tour-aotearoa-2020-adventure

New Zealand Cycle Trail are a great alternative to highways

By Sarah Bennett

OPINION: Talk about right time, right place. Former prime minister John Key is at a job summit early in 2009 when an attendee bends his ear about the potential of recreational cycle trails.

Nek minnit, there's $50 million government bucks in the bank to build a continuous cycleway running the length of the country.

And so Sir John's name will forever be synonymous with one of the most significant recreational assets created in New Zealand in my lifetime.

Not so well known are names like Rod Peirce, Phil Rossiter and Glyn Wooller, all of whom had new shared-use trails in their sights well before a national cycleway was mooted.

More at https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/118680191/new-zealand-cycle-trail-a-great-alternative-to-highways

Reflections on 2019

By Claire Sherrington

I am saddened by the number of cyclist deaths. In 2019 year we recorded 16, nine more than 2018. The youngest was Jonathan Michael Woollaston, just two years old on the Pioneer Highway shared path in Palmerston North. The oldest was Tangiwai Lyola Cotter, 80, on Marine Parade, Napier. Jonathan and Tangiwai were somebody's son, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister, friend, and neighbour. I have ridden in both these places myself, is that just luck it wasn't me? Or CAN we make it safer for all people on bikes?

In contrast, I cycled from Picton to Bluff in December, which exposed me to riding on many highways and secondary busy roads. I experienced massive improvement in motorists’ attitudes, 95 percent of them treated me as an equal road user. (I gave up road cycling for 10 years in Wellington due to the danger, and started back over the last few years in the Waikato). Even oncoming motorists gave me a wave!  I believe the tide is starting to turn with motorists’ attitudes, even if it's only in parts of our country. We still have much to do.

Road to Zero - A New Road Safety Strategy for New Zealand

By Bevan Woodward

The Government has released its Road to Zero road safety strategy and action plan.

An initial review of the action plan reveals some key initiatives:

• adoption of the Vision Zero principles
• greater adherence to the safe system approach
• inclusion of health, wellbeing and liveable places as fundamental objectives
• a target of 40 percent reduction in death and serious injuries (from 2018 levels) by 2030.
• a new approach to tackling unsafe speeds. This will remove the current bylaw-making requirements, require lower speed limits around schools and support greater walking and cycling.
• Enhance the safety and accessibility of footpaths, bike lanes and cycleways
• Review infrastructure standards and guidelines including: update of the Pedestrian Planning and Design Guide, Integrating Safe System with Movement and Place for vulnerable road users, replacing the One Network Road Classification (ONRC) with a framework that accommodates both movement and place, integrating land use and transport, Public Transport Design Guidelines, urban street design guide, Accessible Streets Regulatory Package.

It may not meet all of our expectations but I thought this was a pretty good Christmas present from the Government.

CAN members have been on three advisory groups, helping the Government create the new strategy.

More at https://www.transport.govt.nz/multi-modal/keystrategiesandplans/road-safety-strategy/

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Cycling Action Network of New Zealand (CAN)

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Get social with CAN

Social media is an important tool for cycling advocates. It helps us make a compelling case for change. We use it to tell our stories. It helps us connect with our members and grow support.

Follow CAN and join the conversation.

Twitter: @CyclingActionNZ and @patrickmorgan
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The views expressed in Chainlinks are not necessarily those of CAN. Some images courtesy of NZTA. Editor: Andrezza Marques