Caroline Shaw, Anja Mizdrak, Ryan Gage*
Wellington City Council is currently consulting on a cycle network for Wellington. This is a big deal. WCC are proposing a 147km cycle network around the city, the vast majority of which is new. This will mean most suburbs in the city have cycleways that connect to the central city and three quarters of people in the city will be within 5 minutes ride of the network. Following the approach of some of the most innovative cities in the world, WCC plan to roll out a lot of the network using temporary infrastructure (e.g., planter boxes) in the next 3 years, to be gradually hard engineered into the fabric of the city over the next decade. This means people can start cycling soon instead of waiting for everything to be completed and that aspects that don’t work well are adjusted before they are concreted in.
The cycle network will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport, improve health through increased physical activity, reduce air pollution and make our city a better place to live by reducing traffic and noise.