He tāone e hāngai ana ki te anamata
A city fit for the future
We’re rebalancing our existing street space to make it safer and easier for people to walk, ride, scooter, or use public transport. The Aro Valley connection project will make it easier for more people to bike/scoot into the city from Karori, Highbury, Kelburn and Aro Valley.
Project at a glance
Karori is about 5km from the city via Aro Valley, Kelburn and Northland only 4km, and Aro itself is just a 6-10 minute bike ride into the city centre.
Bus and bike improvements along the route will include:
- New street layout with a separated uphill bike lane on Aro Street and Raroa Road
- Extended 30km/h zone from 148 Aro Street down to Willis Street
- New raised pedestrian crossing by Aro Park and four speed humps introduced on Aro Street
- New car share parking spaces on Epuni Street
- New mobility car park on Epuni Street
- Better bike parking in the shopping village
- Footpath widening at the bus stop outside Aro St Cafe
- Changes to widen paths through Aro Park and Little Palmer Street to create shared paths
- A new bus stop on Raroa Road at the bottom of the Harrold Street path
- Extending the path on Raroa Crescent uphill to Northland Tunnel Road and making it a shared path
- Changes to parking on Aro Street, Raroa Road and some side streets
How the work is happening
This project will be delivered in two stages, with the first work starting from April 2023.
Stay in touch and get involved
We're keen to involve the community as we go, so we will be sending updates when there are opportunities to get involved or have your say.
Got questions about the project? Email arovalleyconnections@wcc.govt.nz
This is a primary route in the bike network plan, and connects to future planned routes to Karori and Thorndon, as well as planned work down Willis Street through Let's Get Wellington Moving. This will also then connect to the Brooklyn uphill bike lane.
We worked with groups in the community and wider stakeholders to design the improvements along the route. We made changes in response to feedback from the community on the preliminary designs. For full plans, artist impressions, parking impacts and more, see the project details.
We took the proposed plans and community feedback through a traffic resolution consultation. In December 2022, Council approved the plans. Work to install the first stage of the route with adaptable materials is expected to begin in March 2023.
Once all the changes are in, we’ll be working hard to gather feedback on how it’s going and improve things such as signs, street markings, and the position of dividers between the bike lanes and traffic.
From June 2022, we began engaging with residents and businesses about planned improvements for people walking, riding or using buses along this route.
Following discussions with groups in the community and stakeholders, we included the following changes in our proposed designs:
- Retaining all short stay parking in the shopping area
- Changing one P20 car park to six bike parks in the shopping area
- Changing one unrestricted car park to a mobility car park near shopping area
- Providing car share parking as an alternative to private car ownership
- Proposing a staged approach over two years to make it easier for people to adapt to change in parking availability
- Reallocating parking - changing coupon car parks to residents' car parks, and changing unrestricted side street parking to residents' parking
- Relocating bus stops to make it easier for people to get on and off buses, and moving one to avoid blocking entrance ramp to Waimapihi Reserve
- Installing a new bus stop on Raroa Road
- Removing one bus stop outside 47b Aro Street.
As part of our engagement, we’ve worked closely with groups in the community and stakeholders to make changes to the proposed design.
These groups included:
- Argo Trust Residential Community Trust
- Aro Valley Community Council
- Bus Driver Union
- Cycle Wellington
- Disability Action groups
- CCS Disability Action
- Blind and Low Vision
- Greater Wellington Regional Council
- Let's Get Wellington Moving
- Living Streets Aotearoa
- Local businesses
- Metlink
- Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency
The options we considered
Explore the options that we considered for this project. Full analysis report avaliable.
How we're rolling out changes
We're rolling out the changes in two stages to help residents and business time to adjust to changes
Supporting documents
Read all the detailed plans, traffic resolution report, project assessments and more