A safe, healthy, sustainable transport system

Wellingtonians love their city. It’s relatively compact and a great place to live. With all the benefits of city life as well as the sea, hills, bush and birds. It scores well worldwide for quality of life.

To make living here even better, we’re changing to a more sustainable transport system.

Our goal is to be a city where it’s easy for people of all ages and abilities to choose low or zero carbon transport options. Where kids can get themselves to school in ways that are great for their health and the environment. Where people can easily choose to live without a car if they want, and where our suburban streets are quiet, safe places.

Creating a citywide network of connected bike and scooter routes in tandem with walking improvements and big public transport changes will make that possible.

This is an ambitious plan. We must act swiftly to change how we move around to reduce the city’s carbon emissions and get the network completed in 10 years. To help us get there, we’ll be making interim improvements where we can, using lower-cost materials and involving local communities.

The bike network plan includes finishing Tahitai, the walking and biking connection around Evans Bay between Miramar and the central city, and The Parade upgrade in Island Bay.

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As part of decisions made in June on the Long-term Plan 2021–2031, Councillors agreed to invest $226 million in a safe, connected bike network for the city.

They requested a new plan for how the network could be developed and changes made quickly – to make things safer and easier for more people of all ages and abilities to bike (or scoot), and to reduce transport carbon emissions as part of Te Atakura, the city’s climate action plan.

Paneke Pōneke updates the 2015 Cycleways Masterplan with much more detail showing the streets that are included in the network and how it will be built. 

Councillors will consider Paneke Pōneke / the bike network plan in early 2022.

Councillors will consider the overall network of routes, along with feedback from the community, in March 2022. The decision to create a bike network was made in May/June as part of the Long-term Plan 2021–2031.

We're already making a start on improving two critical routes. The next stage is to prioritise where and when work will happen on other streets.

Wellington City Council and Let’s Get Wellington Moving are launching three exciting plans that will transform how we live, invigorate our city, and create attractive transport choices that help to reduce our carbon emissions. The plans we’re working on affect the future of the city in different ways but they are all connected:

  • draft District Plan
  • mass rapid transit (Let's Get Wellington Moving)
  • bike network plan.

As the city grows and more of us live in denser neighbourhoods, we want our precious open spaces to be much more pleasant and inviting rather than for the storage of private vehicles. To support this growth, plus for environmental, safety and health benefits, collectively we need to change and more fairly share the public space in and around our streets so more of us can choose low or zero carbon ways of getting around.

In the longer term, where we live and how we get around will also help to address the housing crisis – new District Plan rules and better public transport, such as mass rapid transit, on main routes with stations would allow for more people to live along these streets so people can get places without the same need for private cars.

More about the network plan

The draft plan includes a map showing the streets where changes will happen. These are primarily the main routes that people use now to move between suburbs.

 

View the details

Webinar

Online session via Zoom

We held an online session about the bike network on Tuesday 16 November. 

Shaping our city tomorrow

Find out more and have your say on other big plans for the city 

See what the kids said

Over 300 kids shared their thoughts on riding bikes in Wellington.

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