Keeping the Wheels Turning
Many of us want to live in a neighbourhood where we feel confident enough to get on a bike and make our way through the local cycleways - to work, to school, or just to feel the sun on our back and the wind on our face.
For plenty of people in West Auckland, that's already true. Pathways throughout Project Twin Streams, the Northwestern Cycleway and Te Whau Pathway already connect Henderson, Te Atatū, Avondale and beyond, with people out riding them every day. But for others, the paths are an unknown and riding somewhere for the first time, alone, on a bike you haven't touched in years, is a different proposition altogether.
That's the gap Bike Te Atatū set out to close - not with new paths, but with company. The local group had the appetite to get more of their neighbours riding; Simon Vincent, Community Developer for Climate Action at Community Waitākere, worked alongside them to help make it happen. Securing a Neighbours Day grant, the group of local volunteers organised a ride for their community to discover the joys of the newly opened section of Te Whau Pathway.
“The new section of the pathway is wonderful, and we didn’t want it to be a secret,” says Carol Green, of Bike Te Atatū. “Bringing neighbours together on a ride of discovery is just the start. These connections can lead to so much more.”
In addition, through the Western Line Connections project, Community Waitākere focused its efforts encouraging people to pedal beyond West Auckland. In partnership with Auckland Transport and Crank Consultancy, Community Waitākere and Bike Henderson ran rides from Henderson that connected with train trips, so people could get further from home than a bike alone would take them.
“Riding a bike can take you much further than just around your neighbourhood,” explains Vincent, “and being able to combine a ride with a train trip makes so much more of the city available.”
The first ride focused on shorter rides to-and from-train stations and focusing on getting bikes on and off a train. The trips progressed to riding into Henderson and taking the train into the city centre, followed by a ride on the Waihorotiu Path alongside Queen Street to a free Big Bike Film screening.
One Henderson local, who uses his bike as his only form of transport was amazed, “he’d not been in the city for so long and now feels the whole of Tāmaki Makaurau is open to him,” Vincent shared.
Another ride aimed to show how our West Auckland pathways interconnect. The group set off from Henderson and took in the Project Twin Streams paths, the North Western Cycleway, Te Whau Pathway and Waterview paths ending in a well-earned hot drink in Avondale.
There were smiles the whole way round. And at one stop, a group of adults listened to a young student explain, matter-of-factly, that riding to school every day was the most fun, adventurous, independence-giving part of his day.
“Riding somewhere unfamiliar for the first time, by yourself, is often enough to keep a path unused no matter how good it is. Riding it with a group removes that barrier outright - and once it's gone, people are free to explore their city,” says Vincent.
The rides work, in part, because everyone who turned up already had a bike under them and knew how to ride it. That's the piece of this work still ahead.
Vincent is confident though,” fortunately we have great Bike Hubs in West Auckland that can help people get affordable bikes and learn how to care for them. We are now looking at how we can help locals discover these wonderful hubs.”