Wellington is a great city but when it comes to transport I fear it is continuing to make foolish decisions. The latest news comes in relation to cycling in the city. In December we learned that a fantastic looking cycleway to Island Bay had been approved that used parking protected lanes and even continued the cycle lanes behind bus stops.
Unfortunately that and other cycle projects are now in doubt after a group of councillors decided to strip the council’s transport committee of it’s powers and require the cycleways get signed off by the entire council. This could put at risk how much money Wellington is able to get from the government’s Urban Cycleways funding.
The controversial handling of the Island Bay Cycleway project has ended with a Wellington City Council committee being stripped of some of its powers.
All decisions about Wellington’s cycleways will be made by the entire city council from now on, rather than just its transport and urban development committee.
Some councillors say the change will delay the rollout of better cycling infrastructure across the city, while others argue it will speed things up.
The full council voted 11 to 4 in favour of the rule change yesterday.
It came about after eight councillors called for the transfer of power, angry at the transport committee’s management of the $1.7 million first stage of the Island Bay to City Cycleway.
The three-kilometre section from Shorland Park to Wakefield Park has divided community opinion after 18 months of research and nearly a year of consultation.
Construction was pencilled in to begin later this month, subject to the transport committee’s approval. But after yesterday’s rule change, the full council will now get the final say.
Before the vote even Prime Minister John Key thought the idea of trying to delay was a stupid move saying in his post-cabinent press conference on Monday
“I think we’ve got the capacity with the government resources, and working with the council, to complete some of those cycleways in a reasonable timeframe. I don’t know why the council is slow at the moment on these particular issues given the mayor is a keen advocate of cycling. The government has got resources there and I’m hoping the Council can sort it out.”
“The whole purpose of us putting in the money in terms of urban cycleways is a reflection of the amount of demand that’s there and interest that not just Wellingtonians but people around the country have for a much safer cycling environment. If you look at the Petone foreshore into the Wellington CBD for instance, what a magnificent cycleway that could be and how safe it could be, and how dangerous it can be currently.”
I guess if Wellington doesn’t want its share of cycle funding that Auckland – or other cities – would love to have it.
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Looks like Wellington needs a proper grown-up Council structure. Too many little empires at work?
What a leap in logic – we have a democratic council structure that works as well as any. What we don’t have is an integrated view of transport and sensible discussion about it – picking off one mode at a time is no way to get that. It polarises opinion. What would be good is if we can get funded for the projects Wellington needs and not that NZTA insists.
You will note no change for pedestrians on this ugly poorly maintained footpath, and where is the bus priority lane?
Fully agree, whole corridors need treating for all modes, just noting that in many cases [not all] in Auckland the new size of AT means it can balance the power of NZTA, in a way not possible previously with many little councils, or with one Regional Council and four bigger City ones. Amalgamation has had unexpected value in this area.
Indeed, it’s very disappointing. Are Wellington’s politicians trying to wreck their city?
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Stop spamming us Mike.
perhaps you didn’t read the post?
Seems like incoherent foreign ad-spam.
Mods this spammer has had enough chances.
There is a lot of petty politicking going on here, with particular councillors positioning themselves against others and demanding power. There are also councillors who have decided that choosing cyclists means losing other voters (noisily represented by a few with on-street parking). Some want to be Mayor, other people want to be re-elected, and others just want their narrow and antediluvian vision of Wellington represented. It’s a shambles.
This isn’t the end of the road for cycleways in Wellington, but it does mean a slower and longer process in which Wellington gets left behind by Auckland and Christchurch.
This is an outrage. The whole purpose of the transport subcommittee is to make these decisions. Are we going to now strip every council committee of it’s decision making? Absolutely ridiculous, nonsensical stuff.
Presumably ROADS still get decided by the subcommittee. Only cyclists are so controversial that all Councillors need to vote together. Fu**tards.
Surely the outrage for most on here is that John Key is quoted as wanting to put money into Cycling infrastructure, perhaps that is why the Greens are trying to slow it down as they normally oppose everything he says…….
“the Greens are trying to slow it down”
citation needed.
The current wellington council are so inept ive become a fan of the supercity just to get rid of them. The reputation as a do nothing council is proved.
My god Wade-Brown is useless. And I say that as a leftie.
Wade-Brown doesn’t have full council support on this. She’s limited in what she can do.
She voted with the right wingers to remove responsibility for cycle lanes from transport committee. The ultimate ditherer.
Five years after she was elected on a platform of advocating for cycling, how many cycle lanes have been built? One. In Tawa. Her record speaks for itself.
Local government needs to go and be replaced with sensible national policy on matters of national significance such as urban planning, sustainability and design. Councillors are as good as their advice usually coming from bureaucrats skilled only in cloak and dagger power games, a far cry from the public service they are being paid public money to provide. GIve the power back to communities. Reform local government .
It is quite extraordinary down here, in this otherwise brilliant city we live in. Wellington seems to have more back-stabbing bitches (of both sexes) than a city deserves to. Wellington.Scoop.co.nz have been covering it quite handsomely, but it still makes no sense to me. Incompetence and obfuscation rules it seems! But at the base of it, there are some simple facts. Firstly, that while WCC undertook reasonable consultation, some of the locals didn’t see it. Don’t read their local paper. Didn’t go to the public open day. Didn’t read the flyer in their letter box. Don’t trust the Council to have actually done that already. Lesson to be learned: Councils should always “consult” long and loud, just to show that they have done so.
Secondly, that people are very fond of their on-street car parking spaces. Never mind that of all the Wellington suburbs, Island Bay probably has more off-street parking than any other, the proposal as it exists is set to lose about 30 out of 350 carparks, even though they are almost never used anyway. Opponents have scaled that figure up and claim “hundreds” of carparks lost, just to scare the horses. Well, it worked.
Thirdly, that Councilors like Paul Eagle and Nicola Young can be incredibly vindictive, and that they really don’t like Councilor Andy Foster, the current head of the Transport committee. Vindictiveness in extremis.
Steady on. It’s not that bad. Yes, some Councillors are using cycling as a wedge issue. But most legitimately want to have a say on an important and controversial issue. I welcome that. All Councillors voted to triple Wellington’s cycling budget. All state support for cycling. This will allow them to demonstrate that. The delay on building Island Bay cycleway is a pity but we ought to get a better overall cycling network. In the meantime, the Govt has sweetened the deal by offering $2 for every Council $1. What a great deal! Every major Council in NZ should be scrambling for a piece of that pie. Get busy, people. Patrick Morgan, Cycling Advocates Network can.org.nz
Yeah , but the vote split on this was really wierd, 11-4
The ones who voted to keep the decision at the transport committee level were,
Andy Foster (responsible for transport), Justin Lester, David Lee (A green councillor) , and Malcolm Sparrow
Everyone else voted for it to go to full council including the Mayor and all the other green councillors, (Pannett, Free)
So its actually really unclear WTF is going on with cycleway planning
Actually this will speed up and simplify cycling in the medium term. At present it has to go to the Transport and urban development committee and then to full council. This way it doesn’t need to go to a committee with little power, that doesn’t have the delegations to make half the decisions anyway. The debate also raised the point that without a network plan the funding cant be uplifted- it might all be straight in Andy Foster’s head but none of this stuff seems to be in place in reality- at least this way it might actually materialise.
Don’t know the first thing about Wellington politics (and don’t want to) but I would guess that they have a much bigger problem than who decides on cycleways.
The Ngauranga – Petone cycleway is another example of local government being unable to co-operate, its been described as urgently needed by multiple agencies since 2008 yet here in 2015 it remains, unresolved.
Hutt City Council, Wellington City Council, NZTA & GWRC simply couldnt organise a booze up in a brewery. A supercity could only simplify matters in this regard.
Having read the Dom Post article earlier in the week, I sent a tirade to councilors expressing my frustration at the lack of progress on cycle lanes in Wellington. Got four responses too, mainly agreeing with me. It’s not clear to me whether this model or the other model is better for getting a cycle network, but that doesn’t matter to me. Just get it done already Wellington.
I’ll post the full text of my rant as soon as I can figure out how to get that much text in a response box…
Very disappointing. At least things are moving apace with cycleways in Auckland despite the beareaucracy
Good editorial on the subject:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/editorials/65885779/Editorial-Waiting-too-long-on-cycle-lanes
Wellington seems to be suffering from poor governance in general given the unusual transport decisions in last few years.