Biking is a social activity. Like walking with a friend and driving with a passenger, people like to travel side by side, share thoughts and create new ideas, and humans are social by nature. This is the reason bike routes need to be of a bike-friendly width. Claudelands Park is a social place. It is also the home of The Refugee Cycle Training project being led by the Settlement Centre.
In the 1980s Heaphy Terrace was identified as a key school cycle route in the Roger Boulter Consulting report for HCC – Cycling Strategy Directions (2005). This report expected 2006/07 to be the year when the “Heaphy Terrace – Rototuna route [is] to be designed / built to completion (if not already completed)” and the 2007 Claudelands park management plan (p17 see bottom of post) says “The perimeter paths are shared use walkway/cycleway and follow a meandering line helping to integrate the park and streetscape.”
As with much of Hamilton’s biking network, there are gaps. Two significant ones are: (1) A mid-block crossing of Heaphy Terrace. Clearly the path network guides people to a place opposite #879 Heaphy Terrace, where there is no mid-block crossing (e.g. no refuge island, no curb cut down on opposite West side).
(2) The pleasant shared use path narrows to footpath width for 75m then reverts to shared-use again. It would be a really low cost build to make this a bike-friendly network. Anyone suggesting delays (now for decades) to widening this 75m section should explain in writing so the reasoning can be challenged.
Link to 2007 Claudelands park management plan (p17 below)
