Cycle Aware Wellington
Submission to Wellington City Council
ANNUAL PLAN 2011/12 - PROPOSED
Thank you for the opportunity to make this submission. Please contact Phaedra Upton to arrange an oral presentation
Contact details: 02102326726

Petrol prices

Wellington City Council is responsible for providing viable, safe and affordable transport options for people living in the city. This is especially important now, and will become more important in the future, as petrol price rises strain budgets and encourage people to look for alternative options. Cycling has the best potential of all modes to replace car trips as it is fast in urban areas, cheap and convenient. Wellington is the only city in New Zealand where the number of people riding bikes continues to grow, yet there is a significant percentage of the population that would like to ride but are too concerned about the road design. By improving the lay-out of the network to better accommodate people on bikes, cycling can become a viable alternative for peope who can no longer afford to drive regular, short trips.

Cycling Budget
We propose that the Wellington City Council increases it spending on cycle-friendly roading infrastructure. Currently, WCC spends 0.2% of the entire transport budget on cycling instrastructure, despite cycling making up 4% of the trips into the city on a weekday. Internationally, it is recognised that $5 per year per resident is the recommended minimum for spending on cycle instrastructure - Wellington spends $1.26. Popular areas in Melbourne, like the City of Yarra, spend over $20 per person each year, demonstrating we are well behind in this area. While improving cycle facilities is supposed to occur as part of everyday roading projects, this is not the case in Wellington with new road designs like Riddiford St and Wakefield St highlighting the continued lack of regard given to cyclists.

We propose Wellington City Council meets international minimum standards by increasing expenditure on cycle specific projects to $5 per resident, totalling just under $1 million dollars per year.

Deep pool investigation

We propose that the $600,000 assigned to investigating a new deep pool, is re-assigned to cycle infrastructure. With the continual rise in petrol prices, the need to provide viable, safe and affordable transport options for people is becoming urgent while the need for a deep pool in Wellington is less so.

Recommended projects for cycling infrastructure:

• More advanced stop boxes at key intersections, increasing the safety of riders in the city.
• Providing cycle lanes along Jervois Quay, in particular on the north bound side. Currently the middle lane of the road is 300mm wider than the lane closest to the footpath. Simply by swapping these lane widths, there would be additional space that could be assigned for cyclists.
• Providing a slip lane where Thorndon Quay meets Mulgrave St. The current design does not take into account the ease and safe passage cyclists have to continue through the lights. For a good example of how this can be done, see the T intersection in Christchurch at Buckleys St and Russell Rd.
• City-wide residential speed limit reductions
• Improvements to the Hutt Road to make it more cycle friendly

Ngauranga to Airport Corridor Plan

We support the WCC working with NZTA on the Ngauranga to Airport Corridor Plan and urge the council to make this an integrated plan for all road and transport users including cyclists, pedestrians and users of public transport as well as motor vehicles. We also support the partnership between the WCC, NZTA and Greater Wellington on the Wellington Public Transport Spine Study. We support a high quality public transport system which integrates with active transport between the railway station, the hospital and other possible connections within the urban growth corridor.

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