Riding your bike to work in Tauranga can now be faster than taking your car.
That was the conclusion of a car versus bike challenge at Tauranga Hospital aimed at encouraging more people to cycle.
In five locations across the city - Mount Maunganui, Brookfield, Pyes Pa, Welcome Bay and Hairini - the journey times to the hospital were recorded. Multiple trips were made along each route across several months and yielded average times for both modes of transport.
For Welcome Bay the average journey time was more than 11 minutes quicker by bike.
The experiment was the brainchild of Bay of Plenty District Health Board reporting analyst Tom Larkin and comes in the lead up to February's month-long Aotearoa Bike Challenge. He said he wanted to encourage people to commute by bike.