Why Ōtūmoetai Peninsula?
By 2050 the Western Bay of Plenty will be home to around 258,000 residents, which will create one million extra trips on our transport network every year. There is already significant congestion in places, and because our city is built on narrow peninsulas there isn’t room to build more roads.
The Accessible Streets project also supports the Ministry of Transport’s Road to Zero Strategy to improve overall travel safety, so no-one is seriously injured or killed in road crashes. Over the past five years, 112 people have been injured along the roads where changes are proposed, including people that were driving, cycling and walking. In addition, previous community feedback shows people want safer walking and cycling routes in this area.
Due to the expected population growth on the Ōtūmoetai Peninsula and the large number of local trips that could be taken by foot, bus, bike, or scooter to school and work in the city, we need to look at providing safe, healthy and environmentally friendly transport options. While people will still travel by car, we also need to plan ahead to give our community better options.
Map of the primary cycling, bus route and multimodal areas
We have identified the primary cycling and bus routes that will connect the Ōtūmoetai Peninsula to the city centre and Te Papa peninsula via Cameron Road at two central locations: Chapel Street and Waihi Road.
These two locations will be what is known as multimodal areas. A multimodal area is a road that supports the use of a number of different transportation modes such as cars, buses, pedestrians and cyclists.
We are also proposing to have two neighbourhood street, or safer streets areas, which are proposed to include a range of traffic calming methods around schools.
What happens after this?
Community feedback will be considered as part of the development of a business case. We will also undertake an economic evaluation to determine if money invested would return the benefits we anticipate. This project will only proceed if the business case is considered feasible and approved for funding by Council and central government later this year.
Previous community consultation
In August and September 2022, we asked the community and key stakeholders to tell us what they thought about options for cycleways and ways to help improve bus journey times and facilities in the community along each section of the identified primary cycle and bus routes.
Accessible Streets for Ōtūmoetai Peninsula - emerging preferred option with maps (716kb pdf)
Accessible Streets for Ōtūmoetai Peninsula – Alternatives and Options Assessment (8mb pdf)
Accessible Streets for Ōtūmoetai Peninsula – Engagement report October 2022 (782kb pdf)
In 2020, people living in Brookfield, Judea, Bellevue, Ōtūmoetai and Matua told the Whakahou Taketake Vital Update survey that they valued living close to parks, cycleways, walkways and reserves, and wanted better roading solutions, better public transport access, and safe cycleways.
Community consultation was also undertaken as part of the Take me to the future Ōtūmoetai 2050 to develop a 30 year plan for the area, which also showed good support for alternative ways to travel.