Make Wellington an even more attractive and sustainable city
Create places and neighbourhoods where people want to spend time
Move more people with fewer vehicles as the city's population grows
Provide safer and easier ways to go places on foot and by bike
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 citywide network could be developed and changes made much more quickly. You can now have your say on Paneke Pōneke – our citywide bike network plan 2021–2031.
In September, Councillors gave the go-ahead for work to start on interim improvements on two critical routes:
These interim improvements will be made in advance of permanent upgrades in the Newtown Connections area that will happen in the future as part of Let’s Get Wellington Moving’s plans.
As well as the people who already cycle, we want families, children learning skills on school bike tracks, and anyone else who would like to be able to go by bike sometimes, to have routes where they feel comfortable riding.
This can only happen by making changes on some streets, so we hope you will continue to work with us to help develop the best possible plan for your wider neighbourhood.
There are several big city-wide projects that will influence the types of changes we make in the Newtown and Berhampore area.
Te Atakura - First to Zero — a plan for Wellington’s future as a zero carbon capital by 2050 that includes reducing the city’s carbon emissions from transport. Read more
Let’s Get Wellington Moving — a plan to develop a transport system for Wellington that moves more people with fewer vehicles. Read more
Planning for Growth — the city’s District Plan (planning rules) is up for review. In the next 30 years we will have 50,000 to 80,000 more people living in Wellington and this will have a big impact on all of us. Read more
On-street parking is a finite resource, and we know over time, space for car parking in the wider Newtown area will increasingly be in short supply. Planned public transport and other changes will mean less on-street parking in the main streets than there is now, and fewer spaces in some residential streets.
Parking is already under pressure from commuters and residents. This will get worse as our population grows.
In late 2018, we sought feedback on three options - different packages of routes and street changes. Four public drop-in sessions were held, and we also met with a range of groups and organisations. The proposed package of routes and street changes that we will seek feedback on in mid-2020 is likely to be a combination of the three options. The proposal will take into account feedback to date, as well as other things we must do and carefully consider.
We heard from more than 770 people during the first phase of community discussion (5 June–17 July 2018) on the Newtown Connections project. Of those, 85% thought it was important or very important to make it easier and safer for more people to ride bikes in and around the wider Newtown area. This information was used to develop a community brief which includes a set of community objectives that were used to help guide the development of the three proposed packages of routes and street changes that we sought feedback on in late 2018 (13 November–11 December). More than 1000 people gave feedback on these three packages. You can read more in the feedback analysis report.
There are many potential cycling routes between Wakefield Park and the central city, through Berhampore, Newtown and Mt Cook to Pukeahu National War Memorial Park or the Basin Reserve. Previous investigations and discussions over the last few years have shown a huge number of possibilities, each with advantages and disadvantages. In 2014, a Citizens’ Advisory Panel, and others, began assessing potential cycling facilities in Berhampore and Newtown. In 2017, the Our Town Newtown project also sought feedback on the future of Newtown. You can read more about the Citizens’ Advisory Panel and other historic work in the issues report.
Keep up to date with how the project is going and understand the process so far. New events will be added as the project progresses.
Read moreView supporting documents for the project.
Read moreView the package options that we consulted the community on in November 2018.
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