ECan Councillor
Christchurch East
As an ECan councillor most of your questions relate to the provision of infrastructure which is a City Council responsibility.
ECan is responsible for bus services. We promote all modes of transport. Most of my work related trips are on foot, but yes I have a bike and a less utilised van in the garage. As a pedestrian I am a bit worried about bike/ pedestrian conflicts on the footpaths. I understand that this accounts for most cycle accidents in Vienna, even though there are clearly marked lanes. People step out and !!!
Bikes on buses is a good idea but it would play havock with our trip time reliability. We have invested heavily in speeding up boarding and getting off the bus, Metro card has improved this considerably. Bikes could be a real problem here especially if you had to take one or more off to get yours. Trip time reliability is critical as in order to get people out of cars you have to compete with the motor cars performance. Which brings me to bus prioity, also a city council responsibility (infastructure on the road) as they are the road controlling authority. Our trip time reliabilty is slipping as road congestion increases. We need bus priority lanes in ChCh but at the moment this does nopt seem to be a prioity for the CCC. We have had our reliability times fall on some routes from 95% to 78% and this is a major concern to us.
Yes I support as many people as possible using the bus, cycling and walking. Recent studies shoe the numbers of cyclists continues to drop. Safety is a major reason given for this so anything that helps this is well worth a look. Not so sure about helmets though, chances are that it would be some time before you could cycle anywhere and not come into conflict with traffic.
Cheers
Richard Budd
ECan Councillor
Christchurch East
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