https://www.cyclewellington.org.nz/november_2025_newsletter

Calls to action

Survey - proposed motorway extension through Wellington

Closes 11:59pm Sunday 14 December 2025

As expressed in our June newsletter, Cycle Wellington is very unsupportive of the massive roading project through Wellington city. The building of more traffic lanes will lead to more people driving cars, more traffic on local roads endangering people riding bikes, less healthy Wellingtonians, and comes with an eye-watering price tag!

Suggested survey guidance

Most of the NZTA survey collects details about you and your travel habits. Answer as appropriate.

There is a set of optional sections of the project to give feedback on. If you have particular views on any section, select those and you can give more specific information on your views. 

For all optional sections there are some common problems to consider or comment on, such as:

• This ill-advised car project will do little more than shift congestion bottlenecks while degrading the built environment through the central city.
• Wider roads and larger intersections proposed will decrease accessibility and connection between and within local communities for those not driving.
• The assertion that a bigger road through the city will lead to ‘Less traffic on local roads’ is misguided and misleading. Induced demand shows that any efficiencies from the larger road will be temporary until the resulting growth in private journeys once again overwhelms things.
• New time of use charging legislation should be used by the Council to provide a more effective response to congestion issues before digging ourselves into more traffic generating holes.
• The central government could invest $3.8 billion much more wisely at this time, in ways that strengthen our resilience, lift productivity, and deliver better transport options for people. Dropping that amount of money into some gold-plated holes in the ground ignores the real basic infrastructure challenges currently facing Wellingtonians, like making housing affordable, maintaining a stable climate, having safe streets for walking and cycling, great public transport, and keeping water management systems reliable.

Some extra points about two of the five sections

Basin Reserve

Apart from some new cycling space on the Sussex Street side of the Basin Reserve, the provision for people on bikes remains unimproved.

The designs do little to prioritise public transport, meaning greater numbers of people will continue to drive, making the area harder to navigate, more polluting, and noisier, and more dangerous for those not in vehicles.

Second Mt Victoria Tunnel

We remain skeptical of the anticipated growth in cycling due to inadequately designed facilities. A shared path design was clearly a huge mistake with the existing Mt Victoria tunnel - why would we repeat that failure here?? It seems more likely that a shared path in conjunction with more general traffic lanes will lead to little difference to mode share in the area.

Any project to improve travel to and from the east should focus on improving walking, cycling, and public transport. 

“Overall, how much difference do you think the SH1 Wellington Improvements project will make..”

To you personally:

Much worse

To the wider Wellington region:

Much worse

“Do you have any other comments about the SH1 Wellington Improvements project?”

The project will make a much worse difference for Wellington city itself due to the significant disruption, wasted opportunity to invest in more beneficial interventions, increased noise, air, and light pollution of more traffic, more expensive transport costs for everyone in the Wellington region, worsening harmful climate emissions, and long term harms of car dependency on health and wellbeing in general.

Share your views about what you hope for in the future when it comes to getting around Wellington for you, your family, and your descendants.

You could mention the new time-of-use pricing legislation and that WCC could work to implement first as a response to congestion challenges before NZTA builds extortionately expensive congestion generating projects.

You could call into question the value really being sought through ‘time savings’ for private motorists. If the point of personal time savings for some is to lift productivity and presumably contribute to happier, healthier people across the Wellington region, what are some better ways to invest billions of dollars?

You could question the sanity of this project given recent lessons from big roading projects such as Transmission Gully. That motorway project began in June 2014, with the original budget set at $850 million. The project later experienced significant cost overruns, with the final construction cost reaching $1.25 billion and the total project cost estimated at $2.5 billion over 25 years. What will the actual total project cost of these tunnels be over 25 years if the starting budget is $3.8 billion???

You could draw attention to the concern that the embedded carbon emissions of such a large construction project will mean a massive stalling of climate action for Wellington. This is not the time to throw caution to the wind when it comes to emissions..

You could reflect on the extensive public consultation that was conducted through the ill-fated Let’s Get Wellington Moving project that seems to be ignored and overridden by this project. While the level of delivery from that programme was obviously disappointing, the public input and insights that were gathered should be respected and incorporated. Wellingtonians have very different priorities to bigger tunnels and motorway-scale roads cutting through neighbourhoods.

You could lament that as a country we cannot keep entertaining the mythical fantasy of everyone driving cars everywhere for everything they want to do. Modern cities that are building strategically for a more resilient future are aware of the need to carefully reduce car dependency. We should commit to better systems that move more people using fewer vehicles, and enable people to access their daily needs and local communities where they are without having to drive.

Become a member of Cycle Wellington

Last year we brought our constitution into line with the requirements of the Incorporated Societies Act 2022 and have recently implemented a compliant way for supporters and followers to become members of Cycle Wellington.

We rely on support from our membership and donors to keep pushing for better biking for Wellington.

We consider you a supporter by being signed up on our website. Thank you! And thanks again to all those who have followed the process to become members already.

In order to vote at meetings or stand as an Officer there are some extra steps to take to be a member:

1. set up a regular donation of $5 per month (or more), or a donation of $60 per year (or more),
2. look in the receipt email from your donation for a link to become a member,
3. Complete the form and provide the extra details required.

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Upcoming bikeness

Next Cycle Wellington Meeting

6pm Tuesday 2 December 2025

Sustainability Trust, 2 Forresters Lane, and online.

Light the Lanes Bike Rave

Saturday 6 December 2025

Wellington Pukeahu War Memorial

6pm-7pm family boogie and ride

8pm main rave and ride start, meet from 7:30pm

'Tis the season for glowing lights, excited crowds, and mysterious jingling sounds approaching from afar...that's right, it's time for another Wellington Bike Rave! 💃

Once again we're turning the streets of Wellington into a two-wheel dancefloor - a celebration of everything cycling and Wellington. Pull out your most offensive neon, your brightest lights, and your sparkliest glitter, because this rave we're lighting the lanes like never before! Our luminous navigator of sound, DJ Hades, will be setting the night aglow with his high-beam beats 🔊

Meet us at the Pukeahu National War Memorial on Saturday 6th December for a night that'll help you lighten up ✨

Family Boogie (6pm - 7pm)

We'll start the evening with a wholesome warm-up: a chill, kid-friendly disco that you and your little ravers can enjoy together. Around 6:30pm we’ll do an easy little cruise up and down Cambridge/Kent Terrace.

Main Rave Meet (from 7:30pm)

Get your moves on as we power up for the main rave! Shine your lights, fuel up, and get ready to get down!

Rave and Ride (from 8pm)

Shortly after 8pm we'll start rolling through the streets at party pace, spreading light, love, and serious rave energy with our beloved city. Along the way we'll be hitting all the best bike lanes and urban dance floors. We'll follow an easy pre-determined route, soon to be revealed!

A few other details:

When we say bike, we really mean anything micromobility, so feel free to turn up on your unicycles, rollerskates, or scooter etc. - If it rolls, we're cool with it 😎

Safety is an event priority. We will be giving a briefing on the night, but for a successful event we ask that you follow all traffic rules and laws as much as possible. Look after yourself, and look after your mates. Have fun and spread positive vibes - this is a rave, not a riot.

After the rave, around 11pm, we'll wind up at Rogue and Vagabond/Glover park where you park up your rig and refresh with a cold beverage.

Brought to you by Cycle Wellington through the Alastair Smith Memorial Fellowship.

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Recent goings on

New Old Hutt Road Path gap campaign

At this year’s AGM, Cycle Wellington launched its latest gap campaign - where a weak point in the emerging bike network is identified, explained and some responses proposed.

The New Old Hutt Road Path proposal is calling on Wellington City Council, Waka Kotahi and KiwiRail to improve the shared path on Old Hutt Road to properly support the soon to open Te Ara Tupua coastal path between Wellington and Hutt Valley.

The proposal involves two main configurations along the 1.4km in question. A fully separated footpath and two-way cycleway at the south and a less spacious approach for the northern half given the available space.

2025 Annual General Meeting

Our AGM was held earlier this month. Thanks to all who attended and spoke. As detailed in the Chair’s Report; we have still enjoyed a productive year as a city, but the headwinds are significant and we’re working to understand how to adapt our advocacy posture in order to get back to the level of investment and progress we still need to see for people on bikes in Poneke.

Wellington ranked 47th in global ranking of bicycle-friendly cities

The latest Copenhagenize Index of Bicycle Friendly cities around the world has been published and Wellington comes in as 47th! The Index, produced in collaboration with EIT Urban Mobility, was last compiled four years ago. Christchurch also features in the Index at 38th place, also placing first in the Asia & Oceania Regional ranking with Wellington placing 3rd.

Wellington’s score for the Index breaks down as:

Safe & Connected Infrastructure	39.7
Usage & Reach	31.8
Policy & Support	74.3
Overall score	44.2

We’re really excited and proud to see Wellington featuring in this index. It sets the challenge for the next edition: - how many places can we climb in the rankings??

In the index commentary for the Asia & Oceania ranking expresses some encouragement, and a warning:

“In Oceania, New Zealand cities emerge as top performers, thanks to a comprehensive cycling policy framework. However, recent political shifts and tighter budgets have introduced uncertainty in infrastructure investment, raising concerns about long-term momentum.”

WCC

New councilors and new Mayor

The results of this year’s local body elections have brought six new councillors and a new Mayor. Cycle Wellington encourages members and supporters to reach out to the new council members (especially those representing their ward) and share their views and hopes for the new term and how they can help keep making biking better.

• Mayor Andrew Little
• Matthew Reweti - Te Whanganui-a-Tara Māori
• Afnan Al-Rubayee - Thorndon
• Jonny Osbourne - Motukairangi
• Karl Tiefenbacher - Motukairangi
• Sam O’Brien - Motukairangi
• Andrea Compton - Northern

Transport projects

In the first meeting of the new council, the Golden Mile project was delayed in order to undergo a review citing ‘financial constraints’.

Consultation on the Harbour Quays bus priority route is being pushed back to the new year. There is no cycling component planned as a part of this project yet. 

Brooklyn Road implementation is in progress with next steps waiting and coordinating with the road resurfacing schedule over summer.

Evan’s Bay - Greta Point to Cobham Drive is still in progress. Hataitai Beach sand will return in due time via natural processes

Renewal of micromobility operators tender process is underway. There are some curly challenges with the opening of Te Ara Tupua coming and how this might impact the range of scooters and share bikes.

Christmas in the Quarters - Look out for a planned valet service for people on bikes at Swan Lane carpark.

Te Atakura October 2025 report - including reduced emissions from transport changes