Street changes approved for installation
Koata Hātepe, Council's Regulatory Processes Committee, approved the street changes for Thorndon Connections on Thursday 11 May. This included numerous changes as a result of community feedback. You can watch the meeting and find the minutes from this meeting on the Council website.
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 Thorndon connections project will be part of connecting Thorndon and Wadestown to the city, making it safer and easier for more people to walk, bike/scoot or use public transport.
The most important connections
Thorndon has a special character, rich in history and heritage. The area is home to our parliamentary precinct, the Wellington Cathedral, and the routes we’re looking at connect to many large employers as well as primary schools, high schools, and Victoria University of Wellington campuses.
Thorndon and the Tinakori Village are just a short five-minute ride from the central city, and an easy walking distance from the train station and bus terminal.
To make it easier for more people to use low carbon transport options to get to, around and through Thorndon, and make it a nicer place to visit and live, we’ll be using adaptable materials to install:
- New separated bike lanes
- New raised pedestrian crossings
- New car share spaces
- New mobility car parks
- Bike parking, seats, and planters in Tinakori Village
- Extending the 30km/h safer speed zone through Tinakori Village to Botanic Garden and down Hill Street
- Removing one bus stop to improve bus travel times
- Better provision for school pick-up and drop-off car parks
- Removing some on-street parking in the area
Overall, the changes along these streets will make things safer and easier for people getting around this area and provide more options for how people can get to and from work, school, or tertiary study, drop kids at day care, visit local shops, churches, and businesses, or live in the area without needing to own a car.
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 May 2023, Council approved the plans. Work to install the first stage of the route with adaptable materials is expected to begin in August 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 November 2022, we began engaging with residents, businesses, organisations and schools about planned improvements for people walking, biking or using buses along these streets. These discussions led to numerous changes in the proposed designs we took to the public for consultation.
Following community feedback through this formal consultation, we took our original proposal along with changes from the community to Koata Hātepe, Council’s Regulatory Process Committee, for a decision.
The changes we made to the original proposal as a result of community feedback include:
- a one-way bike lane only on the right-hand side of Molesworth Street, rather than the original section of two-way bike lane proposed on Molesworth Street between Lambton Quay and Aitken Street
- This also means that the proposed one-way restriction on Kate Sheppard Place is no longer required and will not go ahead, nor will a proposed section of shared path on the corner of Aitken Street and Molesworth Street.
- a separated bike lane on the southern side of Aitken Street will no longer go ahead, preserving the existing angled parking
- bus stop 5112 outside Wellington Cathedral was proposed to be removed but will now be retained
- motorbike parking on the northern side of Aitken Street will be kept
- one of the three proposed diplomatic car parks will be retained as a metred P120 car park.
We will also proceed with a separate traffic resolution to change 11 coupon car parks on Hawkestone Street to P120 car parks, in response to feedback seeking further short-stay parking in the area.
As part of our early engagement, we worked closely with groups in the community and stakeholders to make changes to the original 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
Keep up to date
We're keen to keep the community involved 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. If you've got questions about the project, email the team at thorndonconnections@wcc.govt.nz