Cycle Aware Wellington Inc.

Submission on the draft Regional Road Safety Strategy

About CAW

Cycle Aware Wellington (CAW) is this region's advocacy group for people who use the bicycle as a means of transport - for commuting, shopping, getting to school or for recreation. We are a voluntary, non-profit organisation which aims to both improve conditions for existing cyclists and encourage more people to bike more often.

CAW works with local and regional government for better cycling facilities. Amongst its other activities, CAW runs free Dr Bike maintenance checks, trains teachers to run cycling courses for school children, runs adult cycling skills and cycle maintenance courses, assists local authorities with National Bike Wise Week activities (including Bike to Work Day and Bike to School Day), and runs cycle awareness courses for police officers.

Introduction

CAW welcomes the opportunity to submit on the draft Regional Road Safety Strategy (RRSS). We are pleased to see acknowledgement that people who cycle on the region's roads face a higher risk of injury than those who use most other forms of transport, and that cyclists and other vulnerable road users have been made a priority road safety issue.

The region needs to encourage people to use bicycles for transport - this is acknowledged in the Regional Cycling Strategy. A key way to improve the likelihood that people will choose to bike is to make the roading environment safer for cycling.

As a chapter of the Regional Land Transport Strategy, the RRSS should play an important part in guiding the road safety policies and practices of road controlling authorities in the region. We believe the draft RRSS does this pretty well. However, CAW would like to see

§ more detailed regional cycle safety targets

§ clarification that the elements of the proposed Action Programme must take into account the priorities of the RRSS and provide adequately for cycle safety

§ improvements in the layout and readability of the document

§ more explicit linking of the RRSS and Regional Cycling Strategy.

Roles and responsibilities

There is no mention in the draft RRSS of the part road user groups and community groups could play in helping to achieve the strategy's targets. While official organisations have the most resources and bear the bulk of responsibility for road safety, voluntary bodies like Cycle Aware Wellington can make (and have already made) an important contribution at no cost to the authorities. We believe that this contribution should be recognised and valued in documents like this.

The RRSS should include an expectation that official bodies like road controlling authorities, LTSA and the Police will work effectively with community and road user groups.

Traffic Volumes

Internationally accepted priorities for improving safety for cyclists are (in order of preference):

1. traffic reduction

2. traffic calming

3. junction treatment and traffic management

4. redistribution of the carriageway

5. cycle lanes and cycle tracks[1]

There is no acknowledgement in the draft RRSS that the volume of motor vehicles is a major road safety issue (for motorists as well as for cyclists). This is common sense: a reduction in the number of motor vehicles will mean fewer crashes, and hence lower risks for other road users. The Regional Land Transport Strategy indirectly recognises this by including higher cyclist numbers as a safety objective - more cyclists is likely to mean fewer drivers.

CAW wishes the RRSS to specifically acknowledge and address motor vehicle volumes as a major safety issue in the region.

Relationship to Regional Cycling Strategy

The Regional Cycling Strategy contains a lot of the detail about how cyclist safety will be improved (including critical issues like standards). It therefore warrants more than a single brief reference in the RRSS (Appendix 1, p.15). It should be highlighted, for example, in connection with the Action Programme or in the discussion of the priority road safety issues.

Targets

The proposed targets are acceptable at a general level. However, if the RRSS is serious about real improvements in the key problem areas it has identified (which include cycle safety) then there need to be more detailed measurable targets relating to those areas.

CAW wants the RRSS to include detailed measurable regional targets relating to cycling. Suitable measures include:

· x percentage of journeys to work in the region made by bicycle, compared to current levels (note: the Regional Land Transport Strategy identifies “Encouraging greater use of cycling and walking for local trips” as a safety policy);

· x percentage reduction in cyclist risk (we are pleased to see this being measured on a regular basis, but we are surprised that it is not explicitly included as a target safety measure)

· an improvement of x percentage in perceptions of cycling in the region as “safe”, compared to current levels (ref. p.18 - Greater Wellington Regional Council have surveyed road user perceptions of the safety of cycling, but make no attempt in the draft strategy to use this as a measure);

· x percentage of the roading network with speed limits of 40 km/h or lower, compared to current levels

· x kilometres of cycle paths or cycle lanes (constructed to NZ Cycle Design Guide/Austroads 14 standard) in the region, compared to current levels

· x no. of Safe Routes to School schemes in place in the region, compared to current levels

These proposed measures are not included in the Regional Cycling Strategy.

Action Programme

CAW supports the proposed actions and associated performance measures. We can see, however, that unless Safety Management Systems, Road Safety Action Plans, Risk Targeted Patrol Plans etc. adopt the priorities of the RRSS and follow best practice guidelines they are unlikely to meet expectations with respect to their contribution to the RRSS outcomes.

We want the RRSS to state clearly that the proposed actions must be guided by the strategy's priorities and closely tied in with the work being done under the Regional Cycling Strategy.

We also want the RRSS to make it clear that Road Controlling Authorities can't use low cyclist numbers as an excuse for inaction over cycle safety - more people would cycle if the roads were safer, and more cycling is a national and regional objective.
Interventions

CAW would like to see a list of suggested interventions included after the action programme. Some interventions are already proposed in Appendix 1, but the visibility of these is poor, and there could be more of them. For example, a well-implemented Safe Routes to School scheme provides improved safety in more than one of the RRSS's priority areas and should be recommended as an appropriate intervention in the strategy.

Role of motorists in improving cycle safety

The draft RRSS notes that only cycle crashes involving a motor vehicle are represented in the statistics presented (p.15).

CAW wishes the RRSS to also state that cyclists involved in crashes with motor vehicles have the primary responsibility for only one third of collisions (LTSA road crash data, May 2004), as this should influence the content of road safety education campaigns and Police Risk Targeted Patrol Plans (i.e. there should be a strong focus on motorist behaviour).

5 July 2004

Cycle Aware Wellington Inc.

PO Box 11-964, Wellington

Tel/Fax: 04-972 2552

caw_wgtn@hotmail.com

www.caw.org.nz

[1] see, for example, Cycle-friendly Infrastructure: Guidelines for Planning and Design, Department of Transport/Institution of Highways & Transportation, UK, 1996