Movement Trustees Bevan Woodward and Christine Rose present to Auckland Council's Planning Committee

We've been busy
Movement Trustees have been doing the rounds, talking to politicians about the People’s Path – the plan to trial ‘liberating a lane’ for walking and cycling across the Auckland Harbour Bridge. 
 
We have spoken with, and received a pretty good response, from the Devonport Local Board, Shanan Halbert Northcote Labour MP and Chlöe Swarbrick Auckland Central Green MP.
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On Thursday 6 May, Trustees also presented to Auckland Council's Planning Committee in support of reallocating a lane for the People’s Path on the westernmost clip-on. Most Councillors were very supportive, and it was officially resolved that NZTA be encouraged to continue discussions with Movement Trustees about liberating a lane, and pursue a cost effective solution as we have suggested. Unofficially, Councillors also agreed to undertake discussions with the Minister of Transport on the matter. You can see our presentation and their resolutions here.

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NZTA has issued a media release advising ""Further strengthening of the bridge is no longer feasible”. 

However this is simply not true.  Further strengthening of the AHB clip-ons can be achieved by load sharing to the main bridge - per the these plans prepared for NZTA as part of the SkyPath investigations.
 
This solution strengthens the clip-on lanes and, as explained on page 1, the main bridge itself can be strengthened by upgrading members of the external structure.

NZTA are reconsidering their plan for the Northern Pathway across the Waitemata. There are significant technical issues and cost blowouts (well above the recent costing of $240 million and the original estimate of $100 million last year).

NZTA want to build a new bridge for the busway, walking and cycling. Whilst we support this approach in principle, we are very concerned by the delay this means for walking and cycling. As such a bridge would be a decade or more to complete, we have requested NZTA to get on with the SkyPath design as the elegant low-cost, light-weight, interim solution.

SkyPath is already consented and was approved as buildable at the August 2018 NZTA Board meeting.  Any concerns about loading capacity and movement of the clip-on's can be addressed by dynamic load-sharing to the main truss bridge.

Tragically, NZTA could have delivered SkyPath by now, instead we are back to square one with NZTA proactively involve us in their decision-making.  We had hoped that NZTA had learn from their previous apology to us for poor communication.

National announces a $31 billion transport and infrastructure that does not include 
walking and cycling across the Auckland Harbour Bridge.  Judith Collins says they would probably not proceed with walking & cycling over the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

However this isn't smart...

• Suggesting ferries as the alternative for walking and cycling across the harbour is completely unacceptable.  It’s like suggesting that the next harbour crossing for vehicles should also be by ferry. In short, ferries disrupt the journey and add travel time/cost, have limited capacity and can cause inconvenience.  
• This is typical conservative party thinking on transport.   National is under the delusion that we can build our way out of congestion. National’s approach would turn Auckland into LA.  National’s  transport plan ignores climate change, health & the damage to our cities caused by motorway building
• SkyPath has massive support amongst Aucklanders, National is shooting itself in the foot.  Internationally, countries are quickly implementing new and improved walking & cycling facilities due to the many significant benefits.

During lock-down it was clear that when the roads are safe New Zealanders love to walk & cycle, but we suspect that National does not appreciate the value in active transport.

Our submission to NZTA presents our feedback on the proposed Northcote Point and Westhaven landings.  We provide an alternative design at Northcote Point to avoid removal of houses.

​We commend NZTA for its commitment to providing a high quality walking and cycling provision across the AHB to Takapuna (and beyond).
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NZTA has provide addition information:

1. NZTA's AHB Shared Path Single Stage Business Case dated 6 January 2020, this includes the multi-criteria assessment  (pages 63-70) used to select the Northern Pathway design as the preferred option
2. The Northcote Point Landing options report prepared for NZTA date 14 April 2020.
3. Plans of the Northcote Point anchorage and NZTA's preferred landing dated 5 February 2020.

For more detailed information and good analysis of NZTA's preferred route for the Northern Pathway, see the blogs by Greater Auckland and Bike Auckland.

​NZTA released design work for SkyPath and SeaPath which they call the 'Northern Pathway'. Please go online to give your feedback, especially your thoughts about options for local connections along the route, and opportunities to improve the designs.

Completing the Northern Pathway quickly is very important for Auckland.  We’re still concerned about delays introduced by the re-design, new resource consenting and funding risk (plus we don't feel good about knocking over houses at Northcote Point).  However it appears NZTA are committed to getting on with it so we're working with them the best we can to assist.