The Select Committee will hear submissions on Joe Clendons petition asking for childern up to 14 and their adults to cycle on the footpath. Living Streets Aotearoa ,the pedestrian association, will be asking about the safety of people who currently walk on those footpaths.
It is asking the committee to not change the law as the footpaths already function well. Currently only children using small bikes can ride on footpaths.
Footpaths are a sanctuary for the people who walk, children skipping, the elderly, pram pushers, wheelchairs, the physically disabled, blind and those with hearing loss. A safe place to walk, stop, sojourn, run and skip. Lets not compromise the safety of one group for the safety of another when calming traffic will cater for the cyclists needs.
We have always cycled on the roads, why change now, what has changed? Is it that vehicles need more space to go faster in the town? When we walk and cycle we need calm traffic so we can cross the street and use the intersections. When there is a great number of people walking and cycling this shows a civilized , friendly, healthy town that has not become a sewer for vehicles.
At a glance, footpaths may appear like a place no one uses but they are filled with constantly changing users during the day, all with different purposes. Starting with early runners, walking commuters, school children, shoppers and the elderly, lunchtime strollers, afternoon walking groups, home from schoolers and work, then the after dinner walkers or runners. This piece of the road (footpath) is being used all day and walking is now the number one recreation in NZ.
Japan is trying to get cyclists off the footpaths as their people get older; building segregated cycleways and slowing traffic is what has happened in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.
Reading the submissions (480 in total) we find others wanting no change to the law. Blind and sight reduced citizens, Grey Power, Disabled associations, Town Councils, Road controlling Authorities, lots of Nelson people (who are experiencing narrow shared paths) and bike groups like Spokes in Christchurch
Its NOT OK to cycle on the footpath.
25 October 2016
Bob Tait said:
Overall the petition seeks to erode and diminish the “pedestrian commons”, which are essentially our footpaths.
We walkers – us mere pedestrians, are essentially facing having our “habitat” under attack. How long will it be before we are facing a situation where we can only ‘walk’ safely if we enroll in some gym like Les Mills and perform our archaic ambulatory movements privately on a paid treadmill, separate from threatening and somewhat increasingly predatory wheeled machines such as aggressive cycles with wide handlebars like Brahma bulls horns, and automobiles, not to mention the killer trucks. As a regular cycling friend responded to me on this matter ” On footpaths, “PEDS” must rule”. But this cannot take place if the PEDS loose the territory.
A footpath is by definition a FOOTpath and we must defend this. In saying such, I would not object to children cycling alongside walkers if only their cycles were operated courteously and only at a walking pace. But we know that this is never going to happen, nor would it ever be regulated or policed.
Can you please circulate this response to the Walk Auckland members and others for comment.
Ta.
Bob
28 November 2016
Jean said:
My concern is that (from experience) cyclists on the footpath ride straight at pedestrians and either wobble all over the place or too close to the pedestrians. When there is an accident it is the pedestrian who comes off worse and who gets all the blame. Cyclists shoud pedition for separate cycle lanes instead of wanting to legally harass pedestrians. Shared paths are an accident waiting to happen,