‘Don’t get off your bike’ Dunedin plea
Stories of anticyclist rage have coloured the news in Dunedin recently as major cycle lane construction fills the city with road cones. David Loughrey speaks to an academic who says a culture change is needed to shift people’s attitudes, and discovers t
WHEN you put the numbers together, it is not surprising car drivers feel they own the road.
New Zealand is in the top four of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries in terms of car ownership.
‘‘We’re over 800 cars per 1000 people,’’ University of Otago Assoc Prof Ben Wooliscroft says.
The 1000 people in that statistic included everyone, even babies and children too young to own a car.
‘‘We have an excess.
‘‘It’s also very cheap to own a car here.
‘‘Insurance here is tiny, and the cost of maintenance is tiny.’’
Dr Wooliscroft, a cyclist who works in the department of marketing and has researched barriers to active transport options, said he regularly spent time in Austria, where the cost of owning a car was ‘‘horrendous’’.
The low cost of ownership in New Zealand meant more people owned cars, and it was easy to keep them on the road for a long time.
Other countries provided incentives to get old cars off the road, or introduced emissions levels, meaning cars were tested and failed if they produced too much pollution.
High vehicle numbers here and a rise in cycling for both health and environmental reasons — as well as council and government initiatives to provide cycling infrastructure — meant roads in New Zealand and overseas were now a place of ‘‘stress’’ between the two transport modes.
‘‘It’s cultural.
‘‘We have conflict between drivers and cyclists, drivers and pedestrians, drivers and trucks and so on, when we have culture of entitlement that is carcentric.’’
The result in Dunedin has been anger as people struggle to learn to live together on the road.
But Dunedin is just one of many cities across the world trying to promote healthy and sustainable travel.
In Canada, for instance, the Vancouver City Council says despite a 4.6% population increase since 2011, there has been a 32% decrease in the distance driven per person since 2007.
Its Transportation 2040 plan includes strategies to enable more trips to be made by walking, cycling, and public transport.
In Austria, the Vienna City Council has reduced the price of annual public transport season tickets and provided ‘‘a massive boost to cycling and public transport’’.
Dr Wooliscroft says Vancouver is a good case study.
He was there 15 years ago when it was ‘‘cardominated’’. ‘‘They decided to change.’’ That included reducing traffic in the inner city by pedestrianising some streets, and putting in cycling infrastructure.
There were separated cycle lanes and some streets where the top speed for everyone was 30kmh.
He said people’s behaviour changed, and their attitudes changed.
That needed to happen here, even if it meant supporting the exercise options — and fashion options— of middleaged men who had taken up cycling.
‘‘We need to be a bit more tolerant about not judging why other people are doing things, and what clothing they’re wearing.’’
Middleaged men were the most likely to die of heart attacks.
‘‘This is a group of people who are getting out there, who are doing a lowimpact exercise and protecting their health.
‘‘We should be cheering them from the side of the road.’’
Dunedin also needed to pick up on some of the ideas developed overseas.
He said that a 30kmh speed limit should be introduced in Dunedin’s campus area, running from the oneway system to Anzac Ave.
‘‘That’s best practice all around the world now.
‘‘We don’t need people going through at 50kmh.
‘‘We have a massive number of students who walk to their lectures. They shouldn’t be exposed to fast traffic.’’
The speed reduction would mean vehicles would take ‘‘a couple of seconds’’ longer to drive through.
He would also like to see George St as a pedestrian zone.
Mayor Dave Cull said some sort of pedestrianisation of George St was ‘‘definitely’’ on the cards as the city’s central city plan was developed.
He said transport infrastructure was, historically, oriented towards cars, and worldwide it was realised there needed to be a reprioritisation.
‘‘What I would like to see is a greater understanding on the part of the whole community — everyone, not just motorists, not just cyclists — there is a finite amount of space and it has to be shared.
‘‘They do have to recognise the status quo isn’t going to stay the same, it’s not going to be a total priority for motor vehicles as it’s been up to now.’’
The city would see more changes to roading to reflect that in future.
On a social media post last week Mr Cull called on the city to ‘‘move away from this usversusthem narrative’’.
He noted road user charges and petrol tax were not the only revenue sources for roads and cycle lanes.
Everybody who paid rates directly, or indirectly through rent, contributed to the cost of local roads and cycleways.
‘‘We all have a right to be there, and we can all be a bit more considerate of and patient with each other.’’