Councils shouldn’t capitulate to every complaint about bike lanes, but progress requires some flexibility.
Windbag is The Spinoff’s Wellington issues column, written by Wellington editor Joel MacManus. It’s made possible thanks to the support of The Spinoff Members.
Last week, Wellington City Council’s regulatory processes committee voted 6-2 to review sections of the Glenmore St cycleway that run past the Wellington Botanic Garden. The cycleway is part of a 5km route between Karori and the city centre, which was only completed within the past two weeks.
Cycling advocates are understandably upset about the vote. They feel the bike network has been a hard-fought victory against the powerful forces of the status quo, a hostile media, and now a big-money attack ad campaign run by Better Wellington. They feel that progressive councillors who voted for the review (Ben McNulty, Sarah Free, and Nureddin Adburahman) have handed a victory to conservative councillors who wouldn’t have negotiated if the shoe was on the other foot.
Green councillor Geordie Rogers, who voted against the review, wrote on X: “It’s a shame to see the safety of cyclists, and potentially pedestrians, being compromised. This is merely a decision based on the reckons of councillors who never supported cycleways in the first place.”
When I spoke to Patrick Morgan of Cycling Action Network, he was concerned the review would give oxygen to the naysayers. “It’s a signal that tells them, ‘if we made enough noise, the council will rip them out’.” He said it made progressive councillors look like weak flip-floppers and compared it to National agreeing to support the Treaty principles bill to the first reading. He thinks the cycleway needs more time to bed in before it is subjected to a review.
Labour councillor Ben McNulty, who is a strong supporter of the Paneke Pōneke cycle network and voted for the review, focused on one salient point: “social licence”. Major transport changes like the cycleway network are disruptive and will necessarily require trade-offs. Streets are negotiated spaces, and when you give more room to one transport mode, you have to take it away from another. The key to maintaining social licence for the cycling network is to walk the tricky line of maximising benefits for bike users while minimising the negatives for others.
Having a connected and protected cycleway through to Karori is important. Karori is a highly populated suburb, but it is hilly and has narrow roads that often back up with traffic, so the option to commute by e-bike offers greater flexibility for residents. But it’s fair to say the Glenmore St section of the cycleway has been a particularly sharp pain point due to the loss of on-street car parks outside the Botanic Garden. Those who claim it’s impossible to access the gardens are obviously exaggerating, but it has made it more difficult for many people.
One of the big problems is that the council hasn’t provided reliable data on how many people are using the bike lane, which has turned the debate into a baseless reckons-fest. The council’s transport staff are following the playbook of former New York City transport chief Janette Sadick-Khan, but they’ve forgotten a key point that she repeatedly emphasised during her visit to Wellington last year – “In God we trust. Everyone else, bring data.” Anecdotally, it’s clear the Karori connections cycleway doesn’t have as many users as the popular Newtown-to-city cycleway. Of course, many people complain about the Newtown-to-city cycleway too (including James Cameron), even though it has been enormously successful – which shows why the council shouldn’t capitulate to every complaint. But progress does require flexibility.
The reason Wellington has been able to make such rapid progress on the city-wide cycling network is due to the council’s commitment to a transitional programme. Rather than spending years bogged down in pre-construction consultation, it has embraced tactical urbanism, where street changes are installed quickly and relatively cheaply using plastic bollards rather than concrete strips. The point of this process is that people can experience the changes for themselves, and it is easier to adjust the design based on feedback.
Thankfully, there are a few alternative options for how the Glenmore St cycleway design could be tweaked to restore some on-street parking to the 500-metre stretch alongside the Botanic Garden without ripping out the entire thing.
Councillor Diane Calvert, who introduced the notice of motion, is keen to turn the bike lane into a clearway that only operates during rush hour. The downside is that it would require removing the plastic barriers, offering less protection for cyclists.
Council officers said they would explore options to run the cycleway through the Botanic Garden. This will undoubtedly lead to complaints from some garden users, but it could be managed if it was an uphill-only route along the outer path of the garden, which doesn’t have as much foot traffic.
Another option, suggested by Morgan, is that the cycleway could run on the footpath of Glenmore St. Taking space away from pedestrians would usually be an awful idea, but in this case, the parallel walking path running inside the garden wall makes the footpath outside the wall somewhat superfluous. Most people who walk along Glenmore St prefer to cut through the garden for the scenery. However, this could create conflict points with people exiting and entering parked vehicles.
None of these options are perfect, but having no protected cycleway to Karori is even worse. This is a negotiation where all sides need to be willing to meet each other halfway. If Wellington is serious about developing a world-leading cycling network, these are the difficult conversations we need to have.
