News

Here at ViaStrada, our team members don't just plan and design facilities for cycling, but are all active users. This gives us first-hand experience of what works and what is important, and it sets us apart from many of our peers. We sometimes go out on urban bike rides as a team, and from our most recent trip we have developed some important practical pointers. Have a look what we have to say about surface, gradients, debris, rubbish collection, and generic traffic management plans.

In February 2014, the New Zealand Transport Agency announced the members of a Cycling Safety Panel. The Panel’s vision was the creation of a road network which is safe for cycling, where there are no cycling fatalities and fewer serious injuries. Their report was delivered to the Ministry of Transport in December 2015 and the work has been well received. ViaStrada’s Axel Wilke was a member of the Panel.

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 have a primary goal of making it easier for drivers to find a park. Your secondary goals are reducing traffic in search of a car park, double parking, greenhouse gas emissions, and parking infringements. And you want the public and retailers to accept and respond well to fundamental changes to parking management. Impossible? They've done it in San Francisco, and ViaStrada can achieve this for you in New Zealand. Talk to us.

We are very happy to announce that Megan Fowler has returned to Christchurch and will be starting work back at ViaStrada on 1 July 2014.

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.

We look forward to working with Megan again at ViaStrada and expect that she will receive a warm welcome back into the industry.

Welcome back Megan!

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 (Axel Wilke of ViaStrada compiled a list of 49 names) of an overall attendance of around 600. The conference was held from 27 to 30 May at the Adelaide Convention Centre. It featured an outstandingly large number of keynote speakers (we counted 28 of them), and some of them were truly inspiring.

ViaStrada was commissioned by Austroads to undertake research into the effectiveness of on-road bicycle lanes at roundabouts in Australia and New Zealand. The resulting Austroads report was published this month and documents the research undertaken.

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.

Congratulations Jon!

ViaStrada's Axel Wilke is a member of the NZ Transport Agency's recently announced cycle safety panel. The panel, which aims to improve cycle safety for cyclists in New Zealand, was formed following a recommendation made in November 2013 at the conclusion of a coronial review of cycling safety in New Zealand. The Transport Agency selected a group of ten New Zealand-based experts to develop recommendations for making the country’s roads safer for cycling.