Cable car over Wainuiomata hill ‘worth a look’
Friday, 1 December 2023
A proposal for a cable car linking Wainuiomata to the Hutt Valley is worth investigating further, according to the head of Greater Wellington’s transport committee.
Doppelmayr, the world’s biggest ski lift manufacturer, presented its case for adding aerial cable cars to New Zealand’s urban transport mix in Wellington on Thursday.
The company flagged four potential routes in Te Whanganui a Tara Wellington that it wanted to pursue further: the airport to CBD, Island Bay to CBD, Karori to CBD, and Wainuiomata to Hutt Valley.
Greater Wellington Regional Council transport committee chairperson Thomas Nash, who spoke at the event, said the Wainuiomata proposal held the most promise.
“That’s one I think is certainly worth a look,” he said on the sidelines of the event.
The scheme proposed linking Wainuiomata with the Waterloo railway station and Lower Hutt town centre to Melling with a cable car leaving every 72 seconds.
It could carry up to 1000 passengers an hour in each direction, and would take 18 minutes - faster than a bus at 47 minutes but similar to a car at 16 minutes although with no variability in travel times.
Nash said the proposal was “worth a second look”.
“At the moment, there's a big hill separating Wainuiomata from the rail line and Waterloo,” he said. “There's only one road in and out of Wainuiomata.
“If you could get a gondola that linked Waterloo to the centre of Wainuiomata, then that would certainly take cars off that Wainui Hill and it would give people a really smooth and integrated public transport option from Wainuiomata right into town.”
He noted Wainuiomata was reliant on a single route which could get congested.
“There’s thousands and thousands of cars on that road every morning so I think if you can find a case like that which almost completes your existing public transport network, that’s definitely interesting.
“If you were going to spend heaps of money on another road into Wainuiomata you might want to consider if there is a better option here. Could we do a gondola straight over to the railway?”
Still, Nash said his priority was to invest in the bus and rail network.
“We have to look at it in the context of all our other public transport investments,” he said. “We need to maintain and extend our existing bus and rail networks in Wellington. That’s definitely the number one priority.”
He said it would be a challenge for urban cable cars to be considered on an equal footing with more traditional forms of transport like roads, buses, trains and light rail as new forms of transport were always met with scepticism.
But he welcomed Doppelmayr’s input, and said their proposals should be considered in the mix of options.
Doppelmayr NZ chief executive Garreth Hayman said cable cars systems were cheaper to build, costing between $40 million and $60m a kilometre - about a third of the cost of light rail or bus rapid transit. Autonomous operations meant running costs were also lower.
They took about two years to build and caused minimal disruption, he said.
The company has built urban cable car networks overseas, including the United States, Germany, Columbia and Bolivia. It is building a route in Paris, France, which connects outlying suburbs to the metro system.
The projects were public and privately funded and operated, or a mix of both.
Hayman agreed the Wainuiomata proposal was likely the most promising for Wellington.
A bigger, heavier and more sturdy cable car launched in April would be the best option for Wellington, able to handle wind speeds of up to 110km an hour, he said.
Doppelmayr had some heavy hitters helping present its case, including former Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency chief executive Fergus Gammie who is one of its New Zealand directors, and former Waitākere mayor Sir Bob Harvey, whose association with the company stretches back to the opening of the Tūroa ski field in 1978.
Gammie said urban cable cars were proven internationally and would work in New Zealand.