Community rejects badly designed cycleway

Stuff reports:

A survey of Island Bay residents has revealed overwhelming opposition to the southern suburb’s kerbside cycleway.

The Island Bay Residents’ Association sent out a survey to all the suburb’s residents, and the results have revealed that 87 per cent of those who replied do not want the cycleway that has been constructed along The Parade.

The results were presented to a packed public meeting on Wednesday night, at which people called on Wellington City Council to change the road layout back to the way it was before the cycleway was created.

Survey responses were checked against the electoral roll to verify that the opinions were those of Island Bay residents. Of the approximately 5100 registered voters, 1792 replied – about 30 percent of the population. Organisers said that represented about 60 per cent of residents who voted in the last council elections.

The council conducted its own survey in 2014 of 486 people, which found that only 16 per cent supported the kerbside design. 

Yet they went ahead.

You can be pro cycling and pro-cycleways, but anti this particular cycleway design. It has been a fiasco with the local community ignored and bullied.

Cycleways are meant to make it safer for cyclist and motorists. In the few months it has been going, we’ve had the first cycling accident in that area for ten years.