$4.5m cycleway will join Omokoroa to Tauranga

Heath Lett of the Tauranga Road Cycling Club at the Wairoa River bridge near where a proposed cycleway was planned to be built. Photo / George Novak

Tauranga is poised to cash in on one of New Zealand's fast-growing tourist drawcards by helping to build a $4.5 million cycleway from Omokoroa to Otumoetai.

The proposed cycleway would link into the city's existing cycling network and ultimately form a continuous trail stretching all the way to Paengaroa once the cycleway associated with construction of the Tauranga Eastern Link is finished later this year.

The council will decide today whether to contribute $500,000 towards the $1.5 million Tauranga leg of the cycleway from the Wairoa River to Otumoetai. The other $1 million was proposed to be split between the New Zealand Transport Agency and the Government's National Urban Cycleway Fund.

Tauranga Road Cycling Club's ride coordinator Heath Lett said he was excited by the possibility of the bike track running through the Tauranga region.

Club members had done equivalent tracks in the Waikato, Paeroa and Thames and he was confident the extension from Omokoroa to Tauranga would be utilised. "We all use them as they offer a bit of variety from the roads."

Mr Lett said it would be good for people who did not like Tauranga's traffic to have somewhere else to take their children, and for the elderly to get a bit of exercise.

Bay of Plenty Community Trails Trust chairman Jan Booysen said it was about time the Tauranga area got a proper bike track for locals and tourists because other trails built around New Zealand had proven successful. He said hundreds of people cycled the Hauraki trail at weekends, pumping $1.2 million to $1.8 million a month into the regional economy. "It's a big boost for the area."

Western Bay District Council, the lead agency for the project, was committed to paying $300,000 a year in its draft 10-year plan.

Tauranga council's transport manager Martin Parkes said Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust (TECT) has given a strong indication it was interested in becoming involved in parts of the project.

He said there would be a missing link between the Wairoa River and Otumoetai if the city council did not fund its share of the project.

Priority trails for the Western Bay were Omokoroa to Tauranga, the Eastern Link, and Waihi to Waihi Beach. In addition, cycle groups were working on establishing trails from Waihi Beach to Katikati and through Katikati.

The Omokoroa to Otumoetai project included building a new "iconic" bridge across the Wairoa River, planned to be funded by the councils and external funders. The city leg of the trail would follow the East Coast Main Trunk Railway.

Government figures showed that visitors using the New Zealand Cycle Trail network were each spending $131 to $176 per day.