Wellington councillors mull over how to fix Island Bay cycleway mess

Island Bay cycleway. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Wellington City councillors have been presented with 10 possible options to fix Island Bay's botched cycleway.

The 1.7km cycleway, which was completed in 2016, has been the subject of court action, safety concerns and budget blowouts.

The project that initially cost less than $2 million to build was unsuccessfully pitched as a $14m shovel-ready project last year to fix.

A solution to remediate the cycleway was agreed to more than three years ago, yet nothing has been done to date amid several cost blowouts.

The cycleway is currently set between the footpath and parked cars with the road on the other side.

Tonkin and Taylor presented possible short-term improvements and long-term improvements at a briefing for councillors today.

The short-term improvements included physical separators and a wider buffer between parked cars and the cycle lane, resurfacing to remove ghost markings, and wider traffic lanes.

The proposals also included setting parking spaces 3m back from driveways and 30m back from intersections.

There are four options implemented at varying degrees along The Parade which have a cost range from $0.6m to $2.5m.

The first option only makes changes between Reef St and Mersey St, resulting in the loss of up to 40 residential car parks.

But the other three options involve the stretch all the way to Dee St resulting in the loss of up to 75 residential car parks to accommodate all the changes.

A traffic resolution will come back to council on finalised short-term measures in August, with work to be completed by the end of this calendar year.

Council officials have advised existing funding can be used to pay for this.

Tonkin and Taylor have also put together six possible long-term upgrades for The Parade.

This is to inform councillors on how much bang they could get for their buck when they decide on a funding envelope for Island Bay in Long Term Plan deliberations on Thursday.

The draft Long Term Plan lists a "high investment" option as the preferred way forward for the city's cycleway network, which is $120m of capital expenditure. Within this, $6m is allocated for the Island Bay cycleway.

But there's also an "accelerated full investment programme" option which would increase the overall spend to $226m and provide for a $14m envelope at Island Bay.

Almost 70 per cent of people who submitted to the council as part of the Long Term Plan consultation process wanted the accelerated programme.

Based on Tonkin and Taylor's options, the most change the council might be able to achieve with $6m would be to add raised tables at intersections and bus stops in the residential zone.

A dedicated cycle lane would also be implemented at road level through the town centre with parallel parking only.

Short term improvements would be retained and all this could cost between $5m and $9.1m.

There's a big step change between this option and the two most expensive of the six proposals, which involve kerb changes.

They both propose moving the kerb to achieve the preferred carriageway and cycleway widths, meaning some car parks could be saved.

The most expensive option, between $9.3m and $16.9m, would also bring the cycleway up to the same level as the footpath.

The council has previously looked at securing funding from Waka Kotahi for Island Bay cycleway improvements.

But NZTA will only consider this as part of a wider project to link Island Bay cycleway with a route through Newtown and into the city.

Emails released to the Herald under the Official Information Act revealed that as of early last year the council didn't even have a funding request or business case progressed with Waka Kotahi for the work.

Southern Ward councillors in particular have pushed for the council to clean up its own mess at pace, hence the options mulled over today.