Cycling continued to grow in 2017. There were 3.67 million bike trips counted across Auckland by 28 regional and city centre counters.
This is a 6.2 per cent increase on 2016, when 3.45 million trips were recorded. On average, this is 10,055 bike trips per day and means almost 7200 trips that could have been taken by car were instead taken by bike.
Better infrastructure helps increase cycling numbers
Kathryn King, Auckland Transport's Walking, Cycling and Road Safety Manager, says the extra 220,000 trips can be attributed to new cycling infrastructure, better cycling network connections, and more people discovering how easy and enjoyable trips by bike can be.
"If you look around at key infrastructure during peak travel times, you're seeing more and more people choosing to travel by bike," she says.
“It's not just people riding for exercise. There are more parents riding with their children in bike seats on their way to school, people commuting by ebike in their work clothes and more women and older people on cycleways."
November busiest month
November 2017 was the year's busiest month for the cycling network, with 355,088 trips recorded.
"This is quite unusual as we find the busiest month of the year is usually March, but this year it came in second place with 345,156 trips," says Miss King.
Tuesday 21 November was the busiest day for the network, with 17,529 trips recorded.
Cycling becoming normal in Auckland
Auckland Councillor and regular bike rider Chris Darby says the gains are showing the normalisation of cycling in Auckland.
"More and more people are riding bikes around the region. In 2016, 46,000 people, the equivalent of a full Mt Smart Stadium, took up cycling," he says.
"It's important that we connect up our cycling network to make these trips safer and easier, so that even more people can join the bike revolution."
In 2017, AT's Active Modes research showed that 35 per cent of Aucklanders cycled, up from 31 per cent in 2016. Of these riders, 41 per cent are cycling for key point-to-point journeys, such as to the shops, work, places of study and to get to public transport.
