The ratepayer funded $84,000 bike rack

The Post reports:

There are cyclists, keen cyclists, then there is Richard Martin but even he is aghast at Wellington City Council spending $84,000 on a bike rack that is barely used.

The bike rack in question is beside Freyberg Pool in Oriental Bay. Martin took photos of the rack twice a day, for five days last week.

Six times there were no bikes, three times there was one, and once – and this was the most he had ever seen – there were two.

Martin describes himself as a “biker of old”. Until a decade ago he was riding about 300km a week and now regularly takes 30km rides around Miramar Peninsula.

But it was the unnecessary cost that irked him at a time Wellington pipes were falling apart. Last summer, Wellington was under strict water restrictions and faced the chance of water outages with excessive leaks in the system of ageing pipes blamed.

We have rates going up 20%, failing water infrastructure and WCC spends $84,000 on a bike rack!