This is the most common news type.
In February 2014, the New Zealand Transport Agency announced the members of a Cycling Safety Panel. The Panel was created following the conclusion of a coronial review into the deaths of a number of cyclists on New Zealand Roads. It was comprised of ten experts in the fields of cycling, transport and human behaviour, who were tasked with developing recommendations for making the country’s roads safer for cycling.
Season's greetings to all our clients, colleagues and peers from the ViaStrada team. We hope you enjoy a relaxing holiday. Our office will be closed from Christmas Day (Thursday, 25 December). Some of us will be back from Monday, 5 January.
Congratulations to Megan Fowler for putting together an award-winning presentation. At the two-day Signals NZ User Group (SNUG) workshop in Christchurch, Axel Wilke presented on legal issues that Separated Bicycle Facilities experience at traffic signals. The SNUG committee awarded "best technical presentation" for this contribution. Well done, Megan!
You probably think that it's not possible for the community to love its city council for fundamental changes to its parking management. Well, most of the time, any changes to parking result in hot debate. Not so in San Francisco, where things have gone through a thorough revamp over the last four years. ViaStrada's Axel Wilke went to have a look, and spoke to those in charge.
We are very happy to announce that Megan Fowler has returned to Christchurch and will be starting work back at ViaStrada on 1 July.
Megan left New Zealand in March 2010 to explore new and different opportunities in France. Prior to that she was a key member of the traffic engineering and transport planning team, working on a number of projects from policy to practice, in land use and especially transportation.
The Velo-city 2014 conference was held in Adelaide, the first time that this global event has been held in the Southern Hemisphere. And what a fantastic conference it was. Given its great reputation, it attracted a huge number of Kiwis (49 by the latest count) of an overall attendance of around 600. The conference was held from 27 to 30 May at the Adelaide Convention Centre.
ViaStrada was commissioned by Austroads to undertake research into the effectiveness of on-road bicycle lanes at roundabouts in Australia and New Zealand. The purpose of the study was to obtain objective evidence of the effectiveness of on-road bicycle lanes on and near roundabouts that supports the formation of nationaly consistent policy and design advice to be included in the revision of the Austroads guides.
ViaStrada's Axel Wilke and John Lieswyn (now overseas) worked with Dr Cameron Munro of CDM Research, Melbourne, to undertake research and an extensive literature review.
ViaStrada's Jon Ashford was recently awarded his Master of Engineering in Transportation from the University of Canterbury. Jon, an associate and senior engineer at ViaStrada, has six years' experience in traffic engineering together with over 30 years' experience working in the consulting engineering environment, both in New Zealand and overseas.
Following the deaths of a number of cyclists on New Zealand roads in recent years, a coronial review of cycling safety in New Zealand was undertaken and reached its conclusion in November 2013.
Statistics New Zealand has released the 2013 travel to work census data, and cycling participation has increased since the previous census was taken. In 2006, the proportion of people cycling to work on census day was 2.5% nationwide. By 2013, this had increased to 2.9%, which represents an increase of 13%. There's no surprise in this, and this is certainly consistent with our impression that more people are interested in cycling.