Battle of the bike lanes: Simeon Brown v the cyclists

Wednesday, 3 April 2024

When Patrick Morgan gets on his bike in Wellington, joining other commuters making their way to work, he doesn’t necessarily see it as a political act.

Morgan has been cycling since he was a teenager and it still brings him joy. “It is the closest thing to flying that humans can expect to get.”

This is despite Morgan - who is the national project manager of the Cycling Action Network, a network of cycling advocacy groups - spending his days advocating for cyclists, and more recently against the National-led coalition government’s approach to cycling.

Transport Minister Simeon Brown, after taking office late last year, has overseen a drastic shift in policy, placing emphasis on cars and highways, away from walking, cycling and public transport.

Morgan, and other cycling advocates, are pushing back.

Do you agree with the Government’s investment shift away from walking, cycling and public transport? Let us know in the comments.

Why it matters

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi has sought to make urban areas friendlier for walking and cycling, and boost public transport, because it said this creates “more accessible and inclusive cities that are prosperous, safe, healthy and sustainable”.

It said it had also identified genuine travel choices as a key way to improve access to social and economic opportunities.

Dr David Tripp, a medical specialist at Wellington Hospital and part of the Doctor’s for Active Safe Transport network, said cycling can help drive reductions in heart disease, cancer, diabetes – illnesses now pushing the health system beyond capacity.

The breakdown

The National Party campaigned on repairing potholes, increasing speed limits and building more highways. It was a shift from the Labour Government, who put more resources into public transport.

National’s argument is around providing “safer, faster and more reliable transport options so they (New Zealanders) can get to work, get their kids to school and freight can move around the country more easily.”

In December, Brown wrote to local authorities to tell them he had asked NZTA to stop all work on cycling and walking projects. In the draft policy statement, released in March and due to be finalised by the end of June, he further embedded the shift in direction.

The document outlines how walking or cycling should only take place “where there is either clear benefit for increasing economic growth or clear benefit for improving safety and demonstrated volumes of pedestrians and cyclists already exist”.

His edict may well contradict advice from Simon Kingham, the Ministry of Transport’s chief science advisor, who said better cycling infrastructure leads to more cyclists.

“People sometimes refer to this as ‘build it and they will come', and it has been shown to apply to all transport infrastructure,” he wrote last year.

By the numbers

According to a NZTA survey, when respondents were asked the following: how often do you use each of a mode of transport, for any reason in a given week, about 14% said they used a bike in 2022.

Brown said the 2018 census shows only 2% of people cycle to work, while 73% of people commute in a car.

“If you look around the country, tens of millions has been spent on cycle ways and you are lucky if you ever see someone use them,” he said.

Brown pointed to the cycleway on Kent Terrace, in central Wellington, which turns into Cambridge Terrace, and the Melling to Petone Shared Path, north of Wellington, as examples of expensive projects given the projected numbers of people who will use them.

He said he had only seen one cyclist on Kent Terrace, while most New Zealanders would see the “$65 million for a 3km cycle way” from Melling to Petone “as an excessive amount of money”.

That’s obviously a subjective viewpoint. Other disagree (see below).

Wellington City Council data shows a 140% increase in bike trips at the Basin Reserve counter, which feeds into Cambridge and Kent terraces.

It had grown from from 4500 trips last February to 10,900 in February 2024.

The Vivacity counter, which picks up cyclists going in both directions on Cambridge and Kent terraces counted 19,775 users in February. It counted 18,237 users in March.

Morgan also said the Melling to Petone shared path, part of the Wellington to Hutt Valley corridor, does not have good connections at each end - its connection to Wellington won’t be finished until 2026, while its connections with the Hutt Valley were “patchy”.

Brown’s complaints were akin to “complaining that no one is living in a house when it’s only half built”, he said.

NZTA also said the cost blowout was down to the rising cost of materials - especially diesel, which had doubled in price. The increased cost also slashed the benefit-cost ratio, an indicator used to summarise the overall value of a project, from 1.2 to 0.6, and reduces the ratio for the whole of Te Ara Tupua - the Wellington to Hutt Valley corridor - from 1.0 to 0.9.

Morgan said protected cycleways in cities cost closer to $1m to $2m a kilometre.

NZTA has also said the cycle path being built between Petone and Ngauranga is expected to generate $150m in health benefits over its lifetime for the people who cycle and walk its route.

Zoom out

High inflation has made it much more expensive for the government to build infrastructure. National campaigned on building 13 new four-lane highways, called roads of national significance, but boosted this to 15 when in government. It also announced it would increase the cost of car registrations by $50 over two years to pay for them.

Morgan believes Brown’s change in direction on transport is an attempt to bring infrastructure into a politically-expedient culture war.

National says it wants to cut “congestion, provide more low emission transport options and create a more productive and resilient transport network that drives economic growth to boost incomes and unlock land for thousands of houses.”

CLARIFICATION: Cycling statistics in this article are sourced from Wellington City Council. While originally containing ‘averages’, these have been removed after errors were found in calculations from the raw data.