Leafy Cambridge: great town, shame about the traffic

Thursday, 17 April 2025

On a sunny Friday morning, Shay Macdonald is blatting along on his skateboard, free as a bird, pulled by Buddy, a sturdy “100% Tokoroa special” rescue dog.

There’s no concrete footpath where Macdonald lives north of Raglan so he’s making the most of this one while he’s doing some work at his mum’s Cambridge place.

The recently completed dual cycle-walkway is the full production, a thing of wonder complete with dotted centreline stretching 2.3km from the Hamilton Rd town boundary to the high level bridge, safely separating users from the road and those on wheels from those on feet. Macdonald’s far from the only one using it today, though under his broad-brimmed hat he definitely cuts the biggest dash as he gives Buddy a blast of exercise.

Macdonald has two opposite opinions about the pathway. “It’s amazing,” he says right up front. He loves the whole cycleway from Ngāruawāhia to Karāpiro, which he’s covered with Buddy, “looking like I’m real fit but I’m actually just getting dragged along”.

On the other hand, he was living on Bryce St during the build. “It took so long, and there was so much disruption. From a resident’s view, it was a right pain in the arse.”

There were all the times the roadworkers didn’t turn up when they said they’d be sealing. Or you’d go to get your car out and find it was blocked. And his mum’s driveway was left till the last because of the tricky way it met the footpath.

It’s a sentiment Cambridge Community Board chair Jo Davies-Colley knows well, as the town grapples with growth and, everyone’s bugbear, traffic congestion. It’s as if the expressway bypassing the town opened up a vacuum for everyone else to rush into.

That being the case, walking and cycling sound like sensible solutions, so perhaps it’s the gold-platedness of the dual pathway that has riled townsfolk.

Davies-Colley acknowledges the angst. During construction, she got out and talked to affected residents who were concerned at the disruption and the prospect of pedestrians passing closer to their homes. It was a big change for longer-term residents, she says.

The shared pathway cost the council $3m, with $7.2m coming from central government. Now that it’s finished, Davies-Colley is one of its users, as she pushbikes to and from all her board meetings. “It's a very good way of decompressing after a meeting, a quiet, dark ride home with a bit of contemplation,” she says. “By the time you're home, you've got it all sorted. You've drafted all the emails in your head that you need to send.”

The pathway, which runs directly past Cambridge Primary, has proved popular with school kids, so much so that principal Mike Petitt says they’re looking to put in more bike racks. In the early stages, parents would often bike to school with their children; now, they’re more comfortable letting their kids go solo. Pettit, who is also a Waipā councillor, says you’re never going to please everyone but draws a parallel with the velodrome, which the council committed $1m to, despite opposition from many. “I think in hindsight, people would go, what a great investment,” he says.

The council says more than 9000 people used the Hamilton Rd pathway in February.

Cambridge is the Waikato’s third biggest urban area, behind Taupō and Hamilton, and growing fast, drawing people attracted by its town-of-trees aesthetic, outdoor lifestyle, and proximity to bigger cities. What’s not to like?

Not much, according to Davies-Colley, who has served two terms on the community board and is set to run for council in the upcoming elections. She is an enthusiast for the town, which she arrived in 11 years ago. It’s the village feel that’s important to people, she says.

“You come in on a Saturday morning, the place has just got this great feel about it. There's trees everywhere, and people are doing their shopping, and there’s kids on bikes, and it just has a lovely feel.”

By 2050, the projection is 30,300 people will be living in the town, up from the current 22,500, which presents an obvious challenge to that village vibe.

Davies-Colley says it's about having the right mix of housing in the right places, and making sure amenities - the likes of water services, cycle and walkways, and green spaces - are still provided for. Expect smaller residential lots of 400-500 sq m in future and multi-storey apartments closer to the CBD.

Expect also that developments on the outskirts will come with their own amenities. There’s a balancing act, given the desire to bring people into the town centre, but still able to find parks. She’s not sure if the town’s ready for a parking building yet, but feels like it’s coming. Paying for parking in the CBD is likely to be the next step, she thinks.

Davies-Colley is so positive about the town it takes her a while to come up with something she doesn’t like. Eventually she singles out the increase in traffic. “It is becoming harder and harder to move around the town.”

She thinks some more. “And maybe the pinch points of those bridges when you’re trying to get across town.”

That raises the vexed question of the long-awaited third bridge. As canny as Cambridge has been in many ways when it comes to managing growth, including long-term residential and industrial growth cells, the proposed bridge was bungled. Everyone assumed it would be built on or outside the fringes of the town and there was consternation when plans showed it near the centre. Residents of the leafy streets didn’t particularly want to be on a thoroughfare.

A reset was ordered, with community consultation at its heart. The Waikato Times this week reported the appointment of a new executive director to manage the Cambridge Connections plan, which includes the third bridge.

In the meantime, and for some years to come, locals have two bridges known to all as low level and high level. Leamington couple Gina Howell and Jill Morgan have worked out a system to deal with the congestion. If they’re avoiding school traffic, they take the high level. If they’re avoiding the commuter rush, they go low level.

“So we have a choice,” Howell laughs.

“And it’s walkable, you know. If we needed to, we’d bike or we’d walk.” They are also keen bus users but still, Howell says, the extra bridge will help. “Boy, we want that third bridge.”

Morgan and Howell moved to Cambridge eight years ago, drawn by proximity to family. Traffic aside, they love the town. Golf has a lot to do with that. They’re both keen golfers and Morgan, 67, has represented New Zealand at masters level. The former hockey Olympian volunteers her time as women’s club captain at the Cambridge club.

They’ve heard the jokes about Leamington being the “dark side”, but that doesn’t wash with them. People are happy.

“Leamington is really lovely,” Morgan says. “We were just saying the other day how we really feel like we belong.”

With their sporting backgrounds, they like being close to Karāpiro with its rowing and the velodrome. “It's just lovely being around people who are passionate about sport,” says Morgan.

There are frustrations, though. Leamington marks something of a break in the offroad Te Awa cycleway, and the Shakespeare-Cook St roundabout is a real challenge for shared use. They’ll have to wait a while for any improvements. Waipā district growth group manager Wayne Allen says there are no firm plans for the location of a dedicated cycling network in Leamington, but it is expected to be part of the Cambridge Connections consultation.

In further frustration, Howell and Morgan live opposite Gwyneth Common, perfect for walking their American cocker spaniel, Dre. But it could do with more upkeep. The playground is tired looking, as is the cricket pitch, and they point to unmown berms. Howell’s concern is that Leamington becomes the hidden suburb.

On the flip side, the nearby Leamington shopping centre boasts a mixed-use three-storey development of the type sometimes touted for the Cambridge CBD.

A group of terraced units has also been built on Shakespeare St beside the precinct. Belinda Burt, who lives with her young family in one of them, is next door to a greengrocers, and a short stroll from supermarket, chemist and doctor. The kindergarten her three-and-a-half year old son Felix attends is also within a comfortable walking distance. It’s not exactly Melbourne, where she and her husband lived for six years, but when you have children your priorities change. They returned to New Zealand to be closer to family after having Felix, and for Belinda it was a shift back to the suburb she grew up in. The couple now also have a 10-month-old, Owen, and life’s good.

As for the lack of outdoor space, they were used to apartment living in Melbourne. They do have a small patch of lawn, but are looking at turning it into a deck, given the difficulty in finding space to store a lawnmower. Who needs a quarter acre section anyway?

Back on the Cambridge side, a swanky new roundabout is nearing completion on Hamilton Rd west of the town and traffic driving between two retirement villages outside the green belt is slowed by stop-go signs. The new street heading north from the roundabout connects to the brand new Papatakohe Park destination playground.

This is part of a huge growth area, known as C2 and C3, and covering almost 300ha at an infrastructure cost to council of $140 million, costs that are funded through contributions paid by developers. Along with a smaller growth cell, C1, north of the racecourse, the council anticipates at least 3900 homes will be provided.

An idea of what they might look like comes back across the green belt, on a Vogel St development cited by Cambridge man Phil Mackay who, as business development manager at Hamilton-based Paua Architects, has had plenty of opportunity to consider the big picture stuff.

Progressive Property had a 1.6ha block to design for opposite the racecourse, and came up with medium density housing, including some terraced. The sections are small but the inviting open space of the green belt is just across Vogel St. A retail development including medical centre, gym and pharmacy is not far away, while the middle and secondary schools are within walking distance.

Growth is never all good or bad, says Mackay. For a town like Cambridge, it's about how to maximise the benefits of that growth, the likes of customers for cafes and shops and more money being spent in town, while trying to minimise negative impacts like traffic congestion.

It’s also about balancing greenfield and infill housing. New roads in new subdivisions means more cars driving into town, but with either kind of housing development there is increased pressure on infrastructure like water infrastructure. Concentrating infill close to amenities might mean upgrading those pipes but in theory it’s cheaper than a more dispersed infill approach.

But beyond that, Mackay describes New Zealand’s approach to land development as fundamentally flawed. Cambridge is fortunate to have a number of good developers, he says, but ultimately developers are thinking about amenity from the point of view of saleability of sections, and yield. Then there are planners considering district plan rules, engineers concerned with waters and earthworks, transport engineers thinking about roading and transport networks, and a surveyor.

Often excluded from the list is anyone trained in design to think about how people will live in those spaces, he says. If an architect does get brought in by an individual house buyer, the outcomes have already been decided.

“You can drive through some of those spaces and see a bunch of houses which might be perfectly good houses in their own right, but when you look at how the land is used, they've all got a bunch of wasted, unusable space sitting around the house that someone has to mow every weekend, but doesn't really have any usable purpose other than maybe a space for a washing line down one side of the house.”

Mackay wants to see councils not only enabling, but encouraging good design. That could involve the likes of development contribution (DC) remissions for multi-storey buildings in Cambridge’s CBD, similar to the Hamilton approach.

It could also involve a requirement for any development over a certain size, perhaps three or four units, to go in front of an urban design panel - potentially the existing Hamilton one made available to a large number of councils. Those who engage with the panel and gain some form of approval would have their DC level reduced.

Is it heresy to suggest that the character-filled Thornton Rd opposite Lake Te Kō Utu, the bowling green and tennis courts could come in for some high density treatment? Not to Mackay, who points out plenty of houses on the street are far from being character homes.

“It's about, when those opportunities come up and there's something that doesn't have character value, what do you put in its place?”

The same morning that Macdonald is freewheeling with Buddy, the tree-fringed town square is largely empty. A man is slowly, soulfully engaged in tai chi, his pushbike propped on its stand beside him as the town clock chimes the quarter hour. On the far side, through trees and across Victoria St, a flash of fluoro can be seen as scaffolding goes up on the historic town hall, which is being refurbished.

Also on the square are a couple of friends who have bumped into each other and have plenty to catch up on. It could be comical, and is certainly very new-Cambridge: each is a cyclist, each has a dog and each has a two-year-old with their own cycle seat. Tyler Six, however, is the only one with a Texan accent. He’s just biked into town with Bonnie, 2, and is heading home to make cinnamon swirls for Easter.

Six, who works at the Hautapu dairy factory and is also a step-dad to an 18-year-old and an 11-year-old, is an active soul and Cambridge is perfect for him.

“We're out doing stuff all the time. You’ve got the Te Awa river walk. We’ve got Te Miro just up the road for mountain biking. We’ve got all the cafes in town.” Then there’s Karāpiro for kayaking and paddle boarding.

He’s seen “phenomenal” growth in the nine years he’s been here. There’s always something going on for families. “It’s a great town.” Everything’s close too, he says. “I think that's another reason why Cambridge is getting so popular as well, is that you get away from the big city life, but you're just close enough to it.”

His friend, Poppy Gough, is here with two-year-old daughter Evie, and hers is a very different story. She hated Cambridge when her family shifted from Auckland. The then 16-year-old would go back to Auckland every weekend, and ended up going to university there. But eventually, she realised she didn’t like her home city any more. She travelled a lot, met her future husband on a return trip to Cambridge and these days they have settled in Leamington where she is a celebrant and teaches yoga.

She likes the size and scale of Cambridge, and the friendliness. “There’s a real community sense, I guess.”

That said, there’s a cloud in the eternally blue sky.

“I don't like the traffic,” Gough says. “The traffic is really frustrating. When I moved there was no traffic at all, whereas now, if you go out at 8am or 5pm you're stuck in it for ages.”

It’s like there are two songsheets for Cambridge, and everyone’s singing from both of them. The place is great, the traffic is terrible.

“But we ride our bike everywhere anyway,” Gough adds.