What I saw at the cycle terror attack

Diary of the last 30 hours

Yesterday morning

A glorious Sunday morning to be a cycle terrorist. I am so excited by the prospect I am making coffee before sunrise.

Karren is up as well because given half a chance she too will turn into a cycle terrorist. The seaside village is full of anarchists like us, also road maggots, also cockroaches, indulging our selfish entitlement, to use some of the  words that will be thrown our way today by angry men with keyboards.

But it really is a quite lovely morning and off we go to the other side of the harbour, to Pt Erin to be appalling with our  fellow anarchist terrorists. We really have gone to a lot of effort. Most of us are in the costume of regular reasonable people; few would be able to pick the difference.

At the appointed hour I take hold of the mic and do some tubthumping

You ghosted us, Waka Kotahi I say.

This is a rally addressed as much to the people who aren't there as the ones who are.

I say:

All we can get from you, or the minister, is: 

“We’re working on something else, And we’ll have something soon.”

And:

We can't ride your ghost bridges Waka Kotahi

I lay out our agenda:

We want something that is real and doable 

We want something that can happen this summer

We want to see you liberate a lane on the bridge

We now have a way around Auckland that is very close to changing everything. Make it safe and unmolested, and the riders will come.  Make it safe and unmolested, and the riders will come across the harbour bridge in their thousands, because the bridge is the missing link that connects this all together, all those cycleways, all the way around Auckland, that can carry those riders completely separate from the city’s roads and its bristling drivers. Everybody wins. 

It might sound like voodoo but taking away capacity for cars actually makes things better.

The more those riders take to their bikes, the more the pressure comes off those roads. WE ALL WIN.

Chlöe Goddam Swarbrick gets fully stuck in and brings her mate Julie-Anne Genter up on stage to speak as well, which is excellent because no politician in this country knows the issue better. Councillor Pippa Coom has some excellent memories, and vows. Bob Harvey is as galvanising a campaigner as ever and Barb Cuthbert brings it all home.

We do not say a word about storming the bridge because this is what we had resolved, and it is what we assured the authorities we would not be doing, and we do not bullshit people. But we also do not stand in the way of a crowd that might be so full of frustration after twelve years of waiting and promises that it might decide to express its feelings. 

Off goes the wave of cyclists of many colours, many postcodes, to express its feelings. This is a diverse group, no matter how much  some lazy low-wattage talkback host might want to persuade you otherwise. Down Curran St they all roll, coming to a halt at the barrier blocking access to the bridge lane that Waka Kotahi has closed to cars in expectation of this. 

The police stand in the way but they do not draw batons or go in any way Red Squad. The weight of the throng bears down on the barrier and physics goes its natural way, and on to the bridge they sweep. 

At this point I am still at Pt Erin standing next to the stage truck, talking with the people still hanging around.

Eventually I make my way down. If I cross the bridge it will be on foot because I’m still post-surgically prohibited from riding. 

But by the time I get there the barrier is back down and the police are lined across the barrier with arms folded. This is no big deal to me, I took the ride last time, I don't need to see it again on foot. I wait here to welcome everyone home. 

If you want to see unalloyed joy, stand yourself at the bottom of the harbour bridge watching people roll through at the first experience of riding on it. You will see surprise, delight, and beaming smiles.

The delight is the pleasure you get from taking in an incredible view at a bicycle pace, and boy you should hear people rhapsodise about the visitor potential in this.

The surprise is in discovering just how very easy a ride it is.

Hello MTAF reader Laila posting a selfie at the roof of the bridge! Looking good! Or, as autocorrect thinks I want to say, looking for food.

There is also the joy you get of people travelling together and enjoying being part of a group chatting as they go, because it really is a great way to move. The buzz goes on for hours afterwards, and just as an aside: hello hospitality venues in the vicinity! Did you notice all those bikes parked outside your places? You can park a lot more bikes in front of a cafe than you can cars. You could have these customers all summer if there's a lane trial. 

Meanwhile there is discontent amongst people affronted by the very suggestion that there might be a better way to move people around a city than clogging it with cars. How dare we?

Let's do a quick fire round of the objections from the comment boards, leaving out the abuse and epithets (A sample from the email correspondence the protest has been getting: CUNT, road lice, fuck you, refund me my petrol )

Objection 1. Yeah, well you can get a licence fee and plate for your bike and pay for it.

Most of us have cars and pay registration. When we leave the car at home and use the bike, you're actually ahead on the deal. Also, would you like to see an itemised bill for all the externalities you're not being charged on that petrol car of yours?

Objection 2.You morons will all get blown off.

Ever actually ridden a bike, Sparky? Ever worked out how to turn around and go home if it's too windy? Ever lived in Wellington or Manawatu? I've ridden bikes there and I've crossed  the harbour  bridge on foot and on bike and in a car and I would rate that as one of the least worrying places I could ever take a bike. 

Objection 3. No-one rides bikes in the lanes. I never see anyone.

Come with me now to the city's best cycleway and let’s count the bikes using the northwestern cycle lane. Holy crap that’s a lot eh. It throngs. 

Secondly, here's a little physics lesson about humans and cars and bikes and space. Let me know if you need any further assistance.

Objection 4. Don’t you idiots see you've got yourselves in the foot? Look at the blockage you caused. There's obviously no room if you take a lane away.

Cast your mind back to those couple of weeks the bridge had its truck crash and they had to restrict access. People adapted, people adjusted. That's what they do if they have a warning. A sudden closure of yesterday's sort is nothing of that kind. But a trial would be entirely different. 

I mentioned earlier that it might sound like voodoo but taking away capacity for cars actually makes things better.

I was referring to the most exhaustive study yet. Details are here, are but its conclusion is:

When you make big changes, people get out of cars and stay out of them.

Often, when you propose to reallocate some roadspace from general traffic to make things better for pedestrians or cyclists or buses or light rail, you buy a fight. People will say IT WON’T WORK and IT WILL BE A DISASTER. 

But the study shows that people will make a wide range of changes and responses. They adapt and change. And generally what happens is: cars disappear.

Still don't buy it? Well, that's the idea of the trial. To test the proposition that has worked so well time and time again in other places.

Objection 5. Some weirdass Bridgerton shit or, god, who the fuck knows

I’ve never been much of a fan of Kerre McIvor’s style of writing which seems to entail simply typing up the bleeding obvious as artlessly as possible, but this is something else altogether.

I bet they were ever so thrilled with their smug, lycra clad moment of derring-do and bravery in taking on the police. 

Later that night, sitting around Auckland's leafy suburbs with a median house price of around 3 million dollars, they would have sipped their chardonnay or pinot noir or for the younger ones, kombucha, and thrilled to the excitement of telling the story of the day they took over the Harbour Bridge - a story that will be told and retold in years to come as they push around the gourmet sausages on the BBQ at the beach pad in Omaha. 

That they won't have cycled to mind, because how would they get the toys and the Farro hampers up there if they were biking, but by crikey, the grandkids will know and their kids will know too of the day their courageous forebears took on the authorities and won.  

Bless. It’s a nice first try at satire, but honey, to make it work you can’t just describe the ghastly company you keep and their surroundings and ascribe it all to a bunch of strangers.

For the next effort you might want to go and stand amongst them and find out the first thing about them.

But thanks for kicking off a lively Twitter thread. I’d better go back to it now.

David Slack @DavidSlack

Just guffawed at a NewstalkZB producer and hung up on him. Sorry innocent producer asking for help with Heather's show, you might have got a fairer hearing if I hadn't just been reading this McIvor bilge.