The only good news in Wanaka’s long-awaited active transport network project, in which a number of new and upgraded cycleways have been proposed but still not even started, may be that the upgrading of the Aubrey Road cycleway will go out to tender during the next two months.

The detailed design stage of the Anderson Road cycleway has been completed but the start of its construction is held up by a colocated three waters project which is still in the planning stage.

And in April last year, the four metre wide promenade connecting one end of Wanaka’s lakefront development to the town centre was put on hold while further information was sought.

The enthusiasm generated by hundreds of Wanaka residents who took part in a mass bike rally in March 2018, as well as the many who have taken to bicycles during the recent five weeks of lockdown, has had little impact on the glacial speed at which the improvements are made to Wanaka’s cycle network.

Council’s slow pace of implementation is causing significant community frustration, Bike Wanaka spokesperson Simon Telfer said.

“Our community has been advocating for protected cycleways for over three years now,” he said. “No protected biking infrastructure has been built in Wanaka for years.”

In November 2017, a public meeting attracted more than a hundred locals who expressed a desire to develop a safe cycleway from the cluster of schools in the Scurr Heights area to the public swimming pool in Three Parks.

Between 350-400 attended the mass bike rally in Wanaka in March 2018. PHOTO: Barkingcat Photography

The Schools to Pool route was considered a priority in the network of cycleways proposed by the council and an underpass of the Wanaka-Luggate highway (SH84), adjacent to the new Three Parks roundabout, was incorporated into the design and construction of the roundabout.

The roundabout is underway and the Wanaka App asked the QLDC to provide an update of when it might be finished. In response, the QLDC passed the buck to the NZTA, which is managing the project, which in turn passed it to Fulton Hogan - the company constructing the project. A week later there has still been no answer.

Simon said Bike Wanaka restates its call “for the Wanaka community to be taken seriously” - for the QLDC to commit sufficient resources to the planning, designing and implementation of safe biking infrastructure – at scale and with pace.

Wanaka Ward councillor Niamh Shaw said Wanaka’s three councillors were in agreement that active transport should be a priority.

“It’s sustainable, it fits with the council’s climate action plan and it directly benefits residents. It’s a no brainer to proceed,” she said.

Yet the desire for a cycle network, “not sporadic parts of a network” as Simon said, remains caught in an eddy of the black hole otherwise known as Wanaka’s masterplan.

This year’s annual plan, endorsed by the Wanaka Community Board, adopted a new staged approach to the Wanaka masterplan called a “Wanaka network optimisation and mode shift business case”. 

In layman’s terms, the business case will focus on delivering a big-picture approach to various modes of transport in and around the Wanaka CBD, optimising traffic flows, providing parking, and safe, accessible active travel.

Pre-pandemic, the gathering of data to support the business case was expected to be completed in the second half of this year. It would then go through further public consultation and the resulting active transport plan would be included in the council’s 2021-2031 10 Year Plan.  

Post COVID-19, the goal posts move again.

Simon urged the council to complete designs and implementation with some haste, suggesting it could harness central government’s desire to spend money in the regions on active transport.

“Let’s not squander the present government’s willingness to invest in active transport. Post COVID-19 lockdown requires decisive leadership … and timely action,” he said.

None of Wanaka’s active transport network proposals were put forward for the government’s Crown Infrastructure Partners' funding as “shovel-ready” projects, however. “They did not sit well within the scope of the CIP’s guidelines,” the council said.