Jim Bunny Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

When's a cycleway not a cycleway? When it incorporates bus shelters. Then the cycleway becomes just bits of a cycleway.

Cycleway, bus shelter, cycleway, bus shelter.

I always thought that cycleways, by definition, are sacrosanct. They are special, separated facilities exclusively for the use of cyclists, for safe and convenient passage on a bicycle. And nowhere could I find a definition which provides for bus shelters in the middle of a cycleway. The two are mutually exclusive, incompatible.

Nowhere that is, except down the Boulevard of Dreams, down Cameron Road.

I could be wrong – the ex often suggested I was.

Cyclists are also advised if there are people who dared walk on the cycleway, you should ring your bell to get their attention. But that, at best, could end in tears, and at worst, fisticuffs, because pedestrians don't like being 'rung” at by smart-alec cyclists. And there is no recommended course of action for cyclists should someone have their butt parked in a bus shelter in the middle of their cycleway.

Because that too can happen on Cameron Road.

Ok - it's not an issue that will bring down a Government, but it certainly got right up the leg of one local bloke's Lycra. He doesn't want his name used.

Fair enough - a lot of people who want to have a bellyache don't.

'I get frustrated seeing wasted rate payers' money,” says A.Nonymous. That's the pretext for a lot of complaints.

'I took a photo on Cameron Road opposite McDonalds and what you see is a new bus shelter bolted down in the middle of the new cycle path.”

Well, total my 10 speed! He's dead right.

'Now,” says our guardian of the public purse, 'if you zoom into the photo (through the bus stop glass), you can see the cycle lane on the opposite side in the same line.”

Yep, there's a bus shelter obstruction in the middle of the cycleway which raises the obvious question.

'Where do cyclists go? Behind the shelter on the footpath, in front of the bus shelter? Where?”

The answer is certainly not immediately clear to anyone doing 20-30 km/h on a bicycle. There are no 'beware of bus shelters” or 'veer left into walk way” signs. If they cycle behind the shelter they'll run into pedestrians and if they cycle in front of the shelter they run into bus passengers. Or end up in the carriage way. No winners here.

A.Nonymous, then takes a swipe.

'This is the total incompetence of the people running these projects. Anyone with a bit of experience should have been able to see this.”

I say let's cut them some slack – when you are running a $97.5 million roading project, when you are organising all those orange cones and barriers, all those ‘road closed' and ‘expect delays' signs, there's bound to be the odd ‘snafu.'

Even curious, seemingly obvious ones.

Cycleways often involve some physical separation from pedestrians, like the lovely timber bollards down Cameron Road with their little signs indicating cyclists here and pedestrians there.

It's quite clear, until it isn't.

I went to see for myself, did a recce on my bike in the rain last Sunday.

A.Nonymous only knows half of it.

There are four or five bus shelters, not to mention rubbish and recycling bins in the middle of the cycleway.

”Just plain dumb, or laughable, or both,” one cyclist told me. 'One minute the traffic planners seem right on side with cyclists, then a hundred meters up the road, it's like they don't give a s**t. It's just so obvious and silly.”

It could become a quirky little tourist attraction - Ohakune's got its carrot, Kawakawa's got its funny dunny, Cardrona has got its bra fence, and we've got bus shelters popping up where they shouldn't be. Imagine the outcry if this had happened in the true cycling cities of the world – like Amsterdam.

'Niet grappig!” they would be saying. Not funny! 'Verplaats ze!” Move them! Some cities take cycling seriously.

It was suggested, facetiously I suspect, that the bus shelters were placed there so the homeless who often gather in them for drinks and chats can also warm themselves in the afternoon sun as they watch the world go by.

After some industrial strength chin scratching, an old bloke wondered aloud why bus shelters were needed when there were shop verandas to shelter under.

'Trying to avoid the likelihood of the veranda falling on someone's head.”

And there would be passengers playing Russian Roulette by dashing across the cycle lanes to catch their bus.

What a fiasco?

But not this day – plenty of buses, no passengers and empty bus shelters.

Admittedly, a cold wet Sunday afternoon is probably not the ideal day for bus shelter research.

It's also interesting that a manufacturer of bus shelters boasted how their product blended into the surrounds, and they were near indestructible. That's comforting for cyclists, with eyes down and pedalling into a head wind down Cameron Road.

Wouldn't you want one that implodes harmlessly on impact?

It's a cycleway but just not as you know it.

Photo: Someone's parked a bus shelter in the middle of the flash new cycle way.