Making it easier for everyone to move around in our growing city
Connecting the places where people want to go
Opening up our streets for people of all ages and abilities
Reducing our emissions from road transport
Wellington is growing, and more people will be living in apartments or townhouses – in suburban areas on main transport routes as well as the central city. The 2021 Spatial Plan allows for more medium density living in the central city suburbs like Aro Valley.
To support this growth, we’re changing to a more sustainable transport system that will reduce harmful emissions and give new and current residents more choices for how they can get around.
Our goal is to be a city where people of all ages and abilities can move easily and freely by foot, bike, scooter, or public transport, and free up space for those who need to drive. Karori is about 5km from the city via Aro Valley, and Kelburn and Northland are only 4km, and Aro itself is just a 6-10 minute bike ride into the city.
Paneke Pōneke is our draft plan for a citywide network of connected bike/scooter routes that will be combined with improvements for people walking and taking the bus.
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.
We’re using adaptable materials so we can quickly install changes once the design is approved. This means people can start using the route sooner, then make suggestions to help refine the designs once they’re installed. Making changes in this way will help to get the bike network in place as quickly as possible so more people can benefit.
We're keen to understand how people are currently using this route, any difficulties or safety concerns that we should consider, and how satisfied people are with the current layout.
We're also gathering data such as traffic counts, safety data, speeds, and bike and bus trips. We'll use the data that we're gathering now, and in the future, to help us understand the impact of any changes we might make to the street.
If street changes on this route are installed, we'll ask some of these questions again to give us an understanding of what improvements have been made.
If you have a couple of minutes to share your thoughts, please fill in the survey.
We're working on designs now that we'll be able to share with the community later in 2022. We'll be seeking your feedback before taking the plans to Councillors for approval. If approved by Council, work to install this route with adaptable materials is likely to begin in 2023.
Once all the changes are in, we’ll be working hard to gather feedback and data on how it’s going and improve things such as signs, street markings, and parking.
The changes won’t be perfect or include much landscaping, but will enable more people to go by bike or e-scooter. Based on feedback and data, more permanent changes will follow in the next 5-10 years.
The changes along these streets will make things safer and easier for everyone using this busy route. Whether you walk, cycle, or catch the bus, more people will have more choice for how they can get to and from work, school, or tertiary study, dropping kids at day care, local shops, or sports and recreation.
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.
To stay in touch with project progress, sign up to the mailing list.
Got questions about this project? Email the team: arovalleyconnections@wcc.govt.nz
If the changes are installed, we’ll be monitoring and evaluating community feedback, local economic data, travel times for buses and traffic and use of short-term parking and loading zones.
Longer term, we’ll be tracking things like numbers of people riding bikes and taking the bus, diversity of people on bikes (age and gender), whether more people think the changes are positive, and kilometres of infrastructure installed per year and how long it takes to get things in.