24 October 2017
Preferred bike path designs listed for eastern suburbs
Following public feedback last month, Wellington City Council has now listed the preferred design options for cycle
routes in the eastern suburbs and prioritised which of these will go forward for formal consultation from 13 November.
During September, over 400 Wellingtonians attended open days and over 580 people provided 918 separate pieces of
feedback on a wide range of design options for over 20 streets in the eastern suburbs. Most of these options were
identified by the eastern community working groups earlier this year and the community feedback has helped the Council
narrow down the design options to a single proposed design for each street and prioritise when these could be built.
The Council’s Portfolio Leader for Public Transport, Walking and Cycling, Councillor Sarah Free, says people will be
able to see how the city’s cycling network is shaping up.
“The proposed two-way bike path on the seaward side of Evans Bay Parade (Carlton Gore Road in Oriental Bay to north of
Greta Point) will create a high-quality link between the city, Miramar and Kilbirnie, and will also join up with the
proposed two-way bike path through Miramar cutting which we consulted on in September. The Kilbirnie routes will provide
an important east-west connection through to Newtown.”
Cr Free says decisions on the design options and which of these can now go forward for consultation have been influenced
by what people told us, more detail about likely costs for the projects, and a need to start with busy routes that will
make the biggest contribution.
“The type of bike lane must be appropriate for the type of street. So what we are proposing does vary, depending on the
volume and speed of traffic. We also have to ensure that all of the bike-lane designs will work together between streets
to create connected biking corridors.”
Funding from the NZ Transport Agency is contingent on providing a network of routes and high-quality facilities. On busy
roads, protected kerbside bike lanes (between the kerb and parked cars) are proposed. These designs will include raised
buffer zones that provide kerbs for people to park against and step out onto from their vehicles. On quieter streets the
solutions are painted lanes or sharrow road markings in areas where bikes and cars can more easily share the road.
Cr Free says “in some streets retaining the current amount of parking isn’t always going to be possible, however we are
looking at ways to mitigate parking loss where we can in the detailed design process”.
The only streets going forward for the four-week consultation from 13 November are those which could be built by
mid-2019 to secure the Urban Cycleways Programme funding currently on offer. This funding isn’t enough to allow all the
planned work in the east to happen all at once.
“We need to take a staged approach and so we have made decisions about which streets to progress first. Detailed design
work on these is now under way.”
The projects now being further developed ahead of consultation starting 13 November are:
· Evans Bay Parade (phase 1) – Carlton Gore Road to north of NIWA/Greta Point – two-way seaward-side bike path separated
from the footpath and the traffic lane
· Rongotai Road – Onepu Road to Salek Street – kerbside bike lane (between the kerb and parked cars) on both sides,
parking on both sides
· Coutts Street – Te Whiti Street to the airport subway – kerbside bike lane on both sides of the road, parking on both
sides
· Evans Bay Parade – Rongotai Road to Cobham Drive – kerbside bike lane on both sides of the road, parking on both sides
· Yule Street – Rongotai Road to Endeavour Street – traffic-side bike lane (between parked cars and moving traffic) on
both sides of the road, parking retained on both sides
· Te Whiti Street – Coutts Street to Rongotai Road – traffic-side bike lane on both sides of the road, parking retained
on both sides
· a short section of Tirangi Road – Coutts Street to Leonie Gill Pathway – kerbside bike lane on both sides of the road,
parking removed on this short section
· Crawford Road – sharrow markings on downhill traffic lane, kerbside uphill bike lane, parking one side only
· Constable Street (Alexandra Road to Coromandel Street) – kerbside bike lane uphill, downhill sharrow markings, parking
removed on one side
· Wilson Street (two-way sections) – Coromandel Street to Daniell Street – sharrow markings on both traffic lanes
· Wilson Street (one-way section) – Daniell Street to Riddiford Street – sharrow markings in traffic lane and
contra-flow bike lane on one side only, parking removed one side.
Other routes in Miramar and Kilbirnie, and Evans Bay Parade (phase 2) south of Greta Point to Cobham Drive, are unlikely
to be progressed until 2019-2020 at the earliest. Councillors will make a decision in November on the proposal for a
two-way bike path through Miramar cutting and traffic lights at the Tauhinu Road intersection.
Information is available on transportprojects.org.nz
ends