This is filmed in Los Angeles but hop on your bike (very) early in the morning or late on a week-night and the streets of Auckland are also virtually deserted. My midnight commute home is eerily silent and apart from the occasional boy-racer lobbing bottles or hamburgers at me I’ve got the place to myself. You begin to appreciate how much of our city is swallowed-up by roading.
I’m not anti-car, I’ve got two of them sitting in my garage, but too many resources are wasted trying to transport small light things (us) in big heavy things (cars). You build more roads to ease congestion and more people choose to travel by car, so pretty soon you are back where you started.
Auckland needs to get smarter.
Hi Antoine – do you really have issues with people throwing stuff at you often? If yes, that would worry me. If not, I wonder if we aren't giving people the wrong idea of how unpleasant cycling can apparently be…
That was an attempt at humour, but it is rooted in the truth.
I've been bicycle commuting for four years and have had two bottles and one hamburger thrown at me in that time. The scary incidents have been when cars drive right up to me in the bike lane (from behind – I don't hear them coming) and the passenger yells out to give me a fright. That has happened three times and I almost crashed once as I got such a shock.
The problem is I am on the road between 10pm and midnight and at that hour, especially on a Thursday or Friday, you tend to encounter a special breed of idiot.
We are trying to keep the tone of Cycling in Auckland positive and encouraging but I'm not going to candy-coat stuff.
Thanks for the comment.