All the upgrade focus is arbitrarily cut off at Ngauranga, but the Hutt Road and Thorndon Quay stretch is still a heavily used route by those in the Northern suburbs and satellites. Let’s make sure it’s great!

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Let’s Get Wellington Moving, our old frenemy. It’s popped out of the woodwork to ask for your thoughts on Thorndon Quay and Hutt Road. If you want to catch up on the Let’s Get Wellington Moving saga start here. Otherwise scroll right on ahead and get to submitting! Submissions close June 8th, 5pm.

We suggest you just crack straight in. For far, far too long WCC has been prevaricating about making this deathly stretch of road a bit safer, and prevaricating for zero good reasons. (see NZTA’s bollocking of WCC) 

Let’s remember: Underlying the better vision for Wellington transport is one fundamental, philosophical principle: balance. When a person’s life is dominated by one thing to the extent that the rest of it is suffering, they take steps to change things. They try to bring their life into balance.

Anyone travelling down Hutt Road and Thorndon Quay would probably agree that the scales are way out. Straight, wide lanes of car paradise breeze all the way through to the station, with ample, easy to get into parking. You may notice the odd bus trying to pull back into the stream of cars, or a person on a bike holding their breath squeezing between the back of a ute and the white boundary line of what is apparently a cyclelane, but it’s clear they’re not welcome here. Until now! 

Let’s Get Wellington Moving wants to know how you feel about that, and how you’d like it to feel for everyone travelling by any means they feel inclined through the area, and no doubt you’d love to tell them. Submissions close June 8th, 5pm.

Hutt Road

Nothing particularly breathtaking about the aesthetics here, but there doesn’t need to be! It’s a road for getting from here to there and nothing else, it knows what it is (and that’s rarer than you might think). And in terms of doing that, it does a great job, giving pedestrians, wheelers, busses, and cars all their own space, and even lets some greenery in there too. Importantly, it also stops people in cars turning right into and out of driveways which they often tend to do without properly looking for people walking and people on wheels. Check out their cool little videos for how that would work.

Generally looks good, only tidbits you might want to pop in the box might be better signage or other interventions in the driveways, as drivers turning left don’t tend to look for people on the walking and cycling paths coming from the left. Also let them know it’s always preferred to have the footpath and the cycleway have some kind of physical barrier between them.

Thorndon Quay

Thorndon Quay looks pretty similar, but we want Thorndon Quay to be more of a street, there’s cafes and shops there, we want a street for the people using them not the cars going past them.

So yes, it does make travel better for people on bikes and in busses and doesn’t affect cars because there will still be more than enough parking even with the parallel parking. So based on the feedback form, you’d think that would mean it was a raging success, after all it’s been made crystal clear this is a transport project and absolutely nothing else.

Fortunately, they’ve softened and let us put in a box how we want it to look and feel. They’ve got some nice outside dining tables in their image, and some seats that do a dual purpose of separating the walking and cycling lanes as inspiration (I can’t be the only one who just wants a back to their seating though?). We couldn’t help but notice that with all that gorgeous wheeling space, there doesn’t seem to be any bike or scooter parking available to go with it. But go wild, tell them everything you’d love to see on a street like this.

Angle Parking Change

The answer is yes, please, desperately. Just twist the gosh damn parks around slightly like we should’ve done twenty, yes two zero, years ago when it was first proposed. Waka Kotahi have already slammed WCC for letting this major safety hazard go on twice.

So that’s pretty much it! Submissions close 8th June, 5pm so don’t delay!

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Image Credits

Cover image, all artist’s renders, and text image: LGWM

People swerving around ute: Cycle Wellington

Tags: bus priority, busses, cycle lane, cycling, lets get wellington moving, lgwm, parking, public transport, road safety, safety, submissions, Thorndon, walkability, walking