A $1.5M funding boost will help improve active transport links in Wānaka.

Earlier this week transport minister Michael Wood said Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) was a recipient of some of the government’s $350M Transport Choices programme funding.

QLDC engagement and communications team leader Rebecca Pitts told the Wānaka App the council was now working with Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency on how to apply the new funding.

A project completed by the two organisations will determine whether it supports a series of road crossings for the Schools to Pool route (an active transport link to connect local schools with the Wānaka Recreation Centre) or the Anderson Road cycleway (an upgrade to improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians). 

“This scoping process will determine which project the funding will be tagged to,” she said. 

Active Transport Wānaka spokesperson Simon Telfer said the government funding was a big win.

“We pushed hard for QLDC to apply for these funds so it was great to have a positive outcome,” he told the Wānaka App. 

Three and a half years ago Active Transport Wānaka asked QLDC to prioritise the Active Transport Business Case process for Wānaka, to put the town in a strong position when these funding opportunities arose, Simon said. 

“That business case is yet to be undertaken and, unfortunately, cost us the chance of applying for a bigger slice of the pie.”

QLDC was one of 46 councils to receive funding from the government package, also receiving $10.3M for its Arthurs Point to Queenstown active travel route

“Our Transport Choices package will help make our towns and cities more people-friendly places to live, work and visit,” the transport minister said. 

“It will support more people to choose different ways of getting to where they need to go safely and enable more kids to get around under their own steam.”

Once refinement and scoping of the Queenstown and Wānaka projects are completed, construction of selected projects will begin in 2023.