So what cycling facilities did the Board of Inquriy actually write into the conditions of the Waterview Project (for Auckland Transport to consent first, and NZTA / the construction alliance to build):
(i) A pedestrian and cycleway to AUSTROADS standards between Waterview and Owairaka/New Windsor… …subject to any modifications necessary to address design, property or engineering constraints.
(ii) The “Alford St Bridge”.
(iii) The “Soljak Pl Bridge”.
The Waterview Cycleway
Simple (?) things first: From where to where will the cycleway go? In regional terms, it will connect the existing SH16 cycleway (Northwestern Cycleway) from near Waterview / Point Chevalier to the existing SH20 cycleway, which currently stops in Mt Roskill. At the northern end, the beginning will be near where the existing Great North Road cycleway peters out – near Alverston Street / Alford Street. At the southern end, it will tie in with the cycleway from Onehunga that currently goes as far west as Maioro Street.
The route in between was debated a lot during the Board of Inquriy, and is still not fully fixed (NZTA and Auckland Transport are currently working on defining it). Various factors were being discussed. An original NZTA concept proposed crossing the relatively deep Oakley Creek valley near Phyllis Street, using a little reserve access already giving onto the Great North Road / Blockhouse Bay Road intersection. Other routes crossed further north (such as the finally chosen “Alford Street” bridge location), while some others connected SH16 and Sh20, but came nowhere near Waterview at all, running further east, such as along Carrington Road.
Routes debated mid/early 2010 – North is to the left. The Board did NOT condition a specific route, but the purple route (Nr. 3) comes closest to the constraints set.
Click through twice to embiggen.
While the Board of Inquriy had clarified that it considered the walk- and cycleway a very important feature of the mitigation, it was faced at that stage during the process with the fact that no serious, deeper planning had gone ito it, as NZTA had not intended to provide the cycleway themselves (see earlier post). The process could not be stopped for months while this part of the design caught up with it – plus there would have been the need to re-notify the whole application, as the cycleway was outside the lodged project scope!
Therefore, the Board only decided the route and paramaters of the cycleway in very broad terms (as set out above). Essentially, only the end points, and two points in between (Alford Street Bridge and Soljak Place Bridge) are fixed. Otherwise, the route will have to be determined, taking into account engineering issues still to be reviewed and the need to receive permission from various landowners (such as KiwiRail, Unitec etc…), as well as feedback from consulting about the project.
Note: If that sounds cumbersome – it is part and parcel of any such large project. And let it be said from CAA’s perspective that we are very positive about the chances of this clearing the hurdles relatively quickly, i.e. being built within the next 2-3 years. The conditions are also phrased in a way that parts of the works can be built while others are still being resolved, in case any section hits major approval snags.
Regarding the quality of the cycleway, it will be as per AUSTROADS standards. This is likely to mean a 3m off-road path with very good surfacing and gentle gradients, though short sections are likely to be on road. AUSTROADS standards for cycleway generally result in high quality, and the relevant guidelines are very up to date (like much of New Zealand cycling design guidance – we just don’t have enough facilities built that way yet). So overall, we can confidently expect something like the Kingsland section of the Northwestern Cycleway – but in a much more natural and pleasant setting, with large parts of it running along Oakley Creek!
The Alford Street Bridge (and why it isn’t the Phyllis Street Bridge)
The Alford Street Bridge over Oakley Creek wasn’t really CAA’s preferred idea. We felt that crossing at Phyllis Street (the yellow connection on the above map) made much more sense. You could connect the SH16 and SH20 cycleways through Unitec land and/or along Carrington Road with little fuss – and at Phyllis Street, you’d link the network west-east. The main advantage would be that cyclists coming from Avondale Way to the east and northeast (City Centre) would not have to cycle along Great North Road between Blockhouse Bay Road and Alverston Road anymore – that being one of the most hostile bits of road in Auckland, and so tightly used (read: congested at peak time) that there was little chance of getting a cycleway through there in any near future.
However, the Board noted that at the end of the day, it was requiring the walk- and cycleway to be built primarily for the benefit of the local communities that were being damaged by the motorway and the multi-year construction period. Regional cycle network links were a useful side benefit, but not the decisive factor. And a link at Phyllis would not benefit Waterview residents nearly as much as as a link further north, much more central to their suburb. And so the new bridge will be built there, which at the end of the day, is fair enough. Without them, the cycleway would never have happened.
The bridge itself has not received any design work yet, but may end up a relatively long structure, to avoid affecting sensitive wetlands in the Waterview Glades part of Oakley Creek, as well as to keep pedestrians and cyclists on the “higher level”, for security reasons especially at night and to ensure cycleable gradients (one can already cross Oakley Creek at various places using nice bridges and walkways down at stream level).
On the eastern side, the path from the bridge would then link through Unitec land turning south towards the Council park at Phyllis Reserve. Note: Unitec have not yet formally agreed to allow their land to be used for the walk- and cycleway – however, CAA (and of course, the Board of Inquriy, as well as NZTA and Council) have been in contact with Unitec at various stages in the last two years, and we have found them very open and positive about the project. So there’s a reasonable confidence that an agreement beneficial to all will be able to be found for this northern third of the cycleway.
The Soljak (Place) Bridge
This bridge, usually shortened to just Soljak Bridge, is to cross the railway line at Soljak Place, a short cul-de-sac just to the south of the Pak N Save. This location was always pretty much fixed, though who knows how many years or decades it would have taken to find the money for it if it had not been included in the Waterview Connection!
The bridge does however include a number of complications. NZTA did some very early concept design for the bridge before lodgement (but then did not bring this forward as part of the project), but essentially the bridge will have to climb to a relatively high level to get over the electrified train lines, then drop back down in a tight corridor between Oakley Creek and the rail line to turn north into Harbutt Reserve. Further complications are that KiwiRail at some stage in the future (10 years? 50 years?) wants to be able to build the Avondale – Southdown rail line (or, more likely, the Avondale-Onehunga line), and thus the bridge will either have to make provision for a new railway triangle in the area, or be built with the caveat that once KiwiRail builds there line, the bridge will have to be removed again (or, more realistically, be adapted at Council’s cost).
Harbutt Reserve in particular will profit from the project of a bridge at the southern end, which many locals quickly picked up as a highly valuable idea, cycleway completion or not – at the moment, the southern part of the reserve is an “appendix” with no way to get in or out except from the far northern end. With this lack of through movement and access, it is severely under-used, and on one of my site visits, I found it a dump – literally, with people having dropped of truckloads of construction trash in the hidden parts of the reserve. It will be great to see this otherwise lushly green area reclaimed by the community, and cycled through by hundreds – maybe one day thousands – of people a day.
Part III of this blog post – to come – will discuss associated improvements to existing cycleways, in particular the Northwestern Cycleway.
[Max is the grandly-named "Infrastructure Liaison" of Cycle Action Auckland. It was that or call himself "The Infrastructure Guy"]
Prior to the supercity, the Avondale community board had budgeted & approved an on road cycle lane on one side of Gt Nth Rd, north of Blockhouse Bay Rd. What happened to that project?
I cycle through there twice a day, rain or shine, and would appreciate any improvements.