***For immediate release***

PO Box 961
PALMERSTON NORTH

Thursday 27 November 2003

City Heart project needs to be visionary rather than adopting the 20th century’s worst models of urban design, say city’s cyclists.

Cycle Aware PN is calling for a major rethink of the City Heart project steering group’s latest plans. 

The steering group has advised that there will be no cycle lanes on the section of Ferguson Street shortly to be 4-laned.  Instead, the inner ring road will be for “faster traffic”.  A new speed limit of 60 km/h is to be introduced for the ring road.  There will be an education programme to advise motorists to use the ring road system if they want to bypass the Square.  

Cyclists, on the other hand, will be discouraged from using the ring road and instead are expected to use quieter side streets for their safety.  

Cycle Aware PN co-secretary, Dr Christine Cheyne, describes this as “bizarre and faulty thinking.”  

“You can’t keep cyclists off the ring road.  There are education facilities as well as supermarkets and other businesses on the ring road that cyclists want to access.  In addition, many cyclists use the ring road precisely because they prefer to avoid congestion in the Square.” 

“We’re particularly concerned about the Intermediate Normal, Boys High and UCOL students who cycle on the ring road.  And we are also concerned about the danger and difficult access into the CBD for people in wheelchairs and on mobility scooters and pedestrians, especially those with young children who want to cross the ring road”.  

Dr Cheyne notes that overseas, similar ring roads have been condemned for being dangerous and for ‘severing’ communities from the heart of their inner city.  Costly work has been needed to provide safe and convenient access for people where those ring roads can’t be removed, or completely redesign traffic flows.  “We say it’s better to rethink now rather than later.”

“As well as being backward, it is unsustainable in every respect to increase vehicle speed and numbers in this area and to make travel so much more hazardous and difficult for cyclists, pedestrians and people with disabilities. What other streets does the Council plan to increase the speed limit on?  There is no logic in having a higher speed on one short section of road.  Instead the logical thing to do is to connect and complete the existing cycle lanes.”

Contact person:
Dr Christine Cheyne, CAPN Co-secretary
ph (06) 3505799 ext 2816 (work)
(021) 2467095
(06) 356-3588 (home)