The Wrong Side of my Car

The blog that wants to go obsolete

Riding the bicycle from Birkenhead to Takapuna

A while ago I filmed my ride from Birkenhead to Takapuna. You can do this ride mostly on quiet streets. Mostly, but not entirely.

It doesn’t start out too promising. Birkenhead Avenue is hardly welcoming on a bicycle. I would put it in the “Enthused and Confident” category. I’ll explain in the next post what that means.

Somehow you have to turn right towards Takapuna at this point. The right turn into Pupuke Road is uphill and very tight, I wouldn’t do it on a pushbike at all. It is sort of OK on an electric bike. I’m turning a bit earlier at some pedestrian shortcut. Even here getting across the street here requires a bit of confidence.

We take a few of these shortcuts. Those are very tight on a bicycle, and you may have to back out if someone comes from the other way on a mobility scooter. Overall it would be nice (also for pedestrians) if these lanes were less tight, and if they didn’t just have 1.8 m walls on the sides. This lane could be amalgamated with the driveways on both sides of it.

From here on the ride becomes a lot more relaxed. Traffic is quieter. In effect these streets form a quiet parallel route for cyclists, away from the churn of arterial car traffic. Once we are down the hill on Moore Street, it is also mostly flat. Although it’s quite a climb up to Pupuke Road when going the other way.

The area could do with a proper circulation plan, so people genuinely get some space where they don’t have to watch out for fast traffic all the time. I also wish we were a bit more progressive when it comes to speed limits. There is no need to allow cars to drive 50 km/h everywhere. At least there is some traffic calming present.

At some point we reach Northcote Road, and we join the last bit of the Northcote safe cycle route. This stretch is brand new, with two pedestrian / bicycle bridges over the motorway built last year. The track leading up to it is a shared path. Not ideal but it is at least wide enough.

One thing that needs to die though is this stupid pump track design, where the path drops down to street level at driveways. We ought to know what a continuous footpath is by now.

There’s also the traffic lights at the motorway interchange, and well, let’s just say if you’re not in a car they really like to waste your time. You can easily wait an entire minute where they stop you, not to let people through, but just in case someone might be coming.

And then we reach Taharoto Road.

This is basically Takapuna’s answer to the Great American Stroad. Not quite as big, and also not quite as fast—with the speed limit at 50 km/h (that is ‘only’ about 30 mph). We are only on this road for about 200 m, but nevertheless it is a big barrier to all but the most confident. The right turn on the way back is especially gnarly. And even though the road has official bike lanes, they are too narrow to actually work: cars can’t overtake you at a safe passing distance while staying in their own lane. It is misleading infrastructure, watch out for this if you are driving a car here.

The remainder of the trip happens once again on a quiet parallel route, this time parallel to Taharoto Road and Anzac Street. This area has a lot of potential as as low traffic area, which would provide some breathing space for people living in the many apartments here.

Finally we reach Takapuna town centre. You can park in the new Toka Puia parking building. For some reason the curfew for cyclists is distinctively earlier than for cars—you have to get out by 7pm. Well, here’s to hoping it will extend a bit if it gets used more.