Auckland Transport is holding an open day to discuss their plans for a shared path between Waterview and Mt Albert which was required as part of the Board of Inquiry for the Waterview Connection project.
Auckland Transport is about to unveil plans for a new walking and cycling link between Waterview and Mt Albert.
Delivered as part of the Waterview Connection project, the shared path will add to Auckland’s growing cycling and walking network, connecting with the north-western (SH16) cycle route and existing shared paths to Onehunga and New Lynn.
Auckland Transport has investigated a range of options, talked with property owners and developed a concept design for the path. We’re now ready to show our designs to the public, so come along and give us your thoughts.
The Waterview shared path will be around 2.4km long and around 3.5 metres wide, running from Alan Wood Reserve off New North Road, following the route of Oakley Creek and connecting with Great North Road (map attached).
Two new bridges will be built along the route – one across Oakley Creek and the other over the western rail line – to connect communities to the path. There will also be easy access to the path at various points along the route, such as Phyllis Reserve and the Unitec campus.
Details on the Waterview shared path will be revealed at two public open days – the first on Wednesday 23 July, 3pm to 7pm, at Metro Football Club, in Phyllis Reserve, Mt Albert; and the second on Thursday 24 July, 3pm to 7pm, at Avondale Baptist Church, 1288 New North Road, Avondale. The project team will be on hand to answer questions.
AT’s Community Transport manager Matthew Rednall says the shared path will be great for the local community.
“Not only will it mean safe traffic-free links and improved access to local schools, colleges and other community facilities, it’ll be a great place to get some exercise,” he says.
“The path will be well lit and have a low gradient to make it safe and easy to use.”
Construction is expected to begin in late 2016 and take around 12 months to complete.
This is the route the path will take
I’m please to see this being progressed however there are already a number of questions in my head about this project.
- Why is it only starting construction in late 2016. This seems especially odd considering how fast the NZTA seems to be moving on the Glen Innes to Tamaki Dr Cycleway which has construction starting in a few months.
- The route seems more about recreation than transport with the indirect route it takes and sharp slow speed turns – AT have said that this is to provide links to the community, not build through the sports grounds and that closer to the creek isn’t suitable for building.
- Will AT be installing lights on the intersection of Soljak Pl/New North Rd/Bollard Ave? New North Rd is a high volume four lane arterial road that without any kind of crossing is going to be difficult to cross.
- We’ve started seeing a lot of design being incorporated in pedestrian/cycle bridges in recent years, the concept for the bridge across the Oakley Creek that AT have on their website seems to shun that completely.
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Yay! This means I can get to the supermarket without risking my life on New North Road. 🙂 🙂
On my bicycle, BTW.
The long delays are something that has been a worry for Cycle Action and the local community for, yeah, years now. Sadly, the walk & cycleway wasn’t included in the motorway consent, and so, all the tricky business of getting consent for it required a separate process. Seeing that it goes over private land at Unitec, some places near Phyllis Reserve, and also crosses a rail line, there’s some difficult processes to be gone through. That said, 6 years between getting funding and opening is not any speed record – and also means that the resource consent intention that makes it construction-phase mitigation for the motorway works (not just long-term mitigation) will not be fulfilled…
As to the route – well, that is partly defined by the future sports fields not being cut into diagonal. Overall, it isn’t all that twisty – compare for example with the Twin Streams paths in Waitakere that meander much more…
And yes, there’s to be traffic lights at Soljak Place.
As for the bridge design – the AT staff member presenting at the last Community Liaison Group was asked about the rather simple look, and noted that the funding was relatively tight, so they were keeping to this design to ensure costs didn’t blow out. For a more artistic design, extra funds would have to be found.
It’s a pity there is no plan for it to connect up to Blockhouse Bay Rd along the railway line
I understand there is a separate plan for a shared path alongside the railway line to New Lynn, so hopefully the 2 should connect.
That is planned, and indeed the local board put money towards a study of that leg. It will link up near Trent Street. The money question as usual is “when”.
Very disappointing about the poor bridge design. Missed opportunity due to imbalanced funding priorities.
How does this all tie in with if unitech gets developed? Don’t they want to build a bridge? Are we doubling up on bridges unnecessarily? The area is really quite nice to amble through.
Doubling up? Why? There’s no other bridges on the horizon at all.
Rather than enhancing the bridge aesthetics, if extra funding were available I think better value would be got from spending it on functional aspects of the cycleway or expanding the cycleway network to new destinations / filling in missing connections. Agree with your other concerns though.
Not a question of ‘extra funding’ it’s about sufficient to do a proper job. Why do we now have a shitty built environment? Because we stopped thinking long enough term. Do it once, do it right.
I’d agree that the bridge is a rather simple design. But don’t really feel it is ugly. The slimness will help the looks too.
Pretty sure the decision that NZTA must pay $8M towards this also described the path as being 4m wide.
It is wigglier than necessary. It could easily be straightened through harbutt reserve, the route through the phyllis sports fields doesn‘t match either of the slightly straighter versions presented with the park redevelopment plans some months ago.
I‘d like to see the route through unitec to the nw cycleway formalised, especially as unitec is being gifted a bridge to gt nth rd.
References to a 4m wide path
https://at.govt.nz/media/imported/3790/AT-Agenda-Item-10(v)-Proposed-Waterview-Cycleway-June2012.pdf
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2012/07/03/changes-to-the-waterview-interchanges-cycling-route-moves-closer/
Hi Anthony
Checked the consent conditions, and a width is not specified. The relevant (part of the) conditions only states:
(a) The NZTA shall, subject to conditions (b), (c) and (d) below, construct the following:
(i) A pedestrian and cycleway to AUSTROADS standards between Waterview and
Owairaka/New Windsor (as generally indicated on drawing labelled as
“Indicative SH20 Cycleway Route” (refer to Schedule A, Row 40)), subject to any
modifications necessary to address design, property or engineering
constraints.
(ii) The “Alford St Bridge”.
(iii) The “Soljak Pl Bridge”.
Generally speaking, 3.5m is pretty wide. Not quite as awesome as separate walking / cycling paths like they would have in Holland, but it should work well.
As for the (rather slight) wigglieness of the Harbutt reserve path, this follows the existing gravel path (but won’t be gravel). The curves are rather gentle – certainly fine for cycle commuters, for example.
Oh, and the relevant Austroads guideline has a 3m minimum width for a “recreational shared path” (higher than for the other available shared path categories) and a 3.5m width for the “desirable minimum width” – so it seems like they based it straight on that rule.
Shame about Austroads, hardly an exemplary set of standards for human transport. It’s a step removed from Forester with regard to cycling, but that’s very faint praise. What will it take to move on to better standards of practice here?
At 4m we could build it once, provide separate pedestrian and cycle lanes and prevent the inevitable ‘share with care’ signs and ‘cyclists are dangerous’ discussions. But this is Auckland I guess…..I wonder what they would do if this was Utrecht?
Hi Bryce – realistically, to separate cyclists from pedestrians you’d need 5m, or even better, 6m (3m cycleway, 2m footpath, 1m separation strip).
The widths needed are all in NZTA’s own gudelines for shared path design, in Section 14 of its Pedestrian Planning & Design Guide http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/pedestrian-planning-guide/docs/pedestrian-planning-guide.pdf.
All the necessary stuff is there, in black and white (and colour), but NZTA doesn’t even mention it here (just as it didn’t with respect to the Basin Bridge path, designed to be 3m wide but which its own guidelines said should have been 5m.)
At the Phyllis street end the track goes through private land. There are a bunch of sections, some of which have been subdivided with houses on the back. It will be interesting to see if they are willing to knock down houses to put in a cycle way. The alternative would be to cut down some trees (still private land) and shore up the embankment. Had I bought a section there when I had the opportunity, I don’t think I’d have minded sacrificing a piece of land a cycle way out the back, though I don’t know whether NZTA gives fair compensation (that land ain’t cheap). The real-estate agent only very grudgingly mentioned that NZTA had an interest.
The route along Phyllis does go through I believe 3 private properties. I understand they may have already agreed some property purchases, but may have to take a small strip of land from the rear end of at least one another long private section.
Any purchases – or hopefully non-required compulsory acquisitions – of that land would be made by Council (not NZTA, as Council via AT is the consenting party). They would either pay an agreed price if the private owner sells freely – or go through a valuation process as required in the compulsory acquisitions process.
Well the press release does say they’ve been talking to property owners so presumably they feel they’ve talked enough to be able to announce it.
While those curves are not 90 degree corners, given the piles of dirt, bushes and privet they wiggle around, site lines are not good. I’d prefer a bit more warning of dogs, random joggers dressed in black and whatever is lurking around the corner.
The area is a former rubbish dump, and has not been developed past a rambling off lead dog park, railway service track and hideaway for the homeless (southwest corner.
It wouldn’t take long to drive a bulldozer through the southern half of the park and straighten the track out.
“It wouldn’t take long to drive a bulldozer through the southern half of the park and straighten the track out.”
“The area is a former rubbish dump”
At which point the project would grind to a halt, as any disturbance of an old rubbish dump would require major remediation. I suggest we cut back some of the vegetation instead, and leave the remediation of old tips for other budgets than walking & cycling!
The material that forms the mounds above the clay cap on the rubbish dump appears to be truckloads of broken concrete and soil. It is only this material that I suggest needs moving and levelling. The existing gravel access track forms a low point through the reserve area.
Google maps is a bit out of date in this area, but will this shared path connect with the path along the south western motorway? I regularly ride from west to a friend at Hillsbrough. Once you are on the south western path it is plain sailing. If this will provide a safe connection from Waterview it will be great as I have yet to find a route that I like so far
Yes it does – one of the key points Cycle Action made in calling for it initially. We need to connect up the network, in this case from SH20 shared path to SH16 shared path. Plus, the spur route to Avondale that is also being planned.
Does anyone know what is happening to the Holly St to Heron Pk link?
That’s struggling because it goes through the marine reserve, which isn’t supposed to have anything developed in it (except motorways, it seems). The Local Board is still pushing for a walkway there, I understand.
The local board are currently seeking feedback on what the community feels are the priority sections of their Greenways network, with that being one of them.
http://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/AboutCouncil/representativesbodies/LocalBoards/Whaulocalboard/Pages/whauplans.aspx#draft