Planning

People-friendly City Streets: Better walking, cycling and bus journeys

Transforming the way we travel by creating safer and more efficient connections within and between Wellington city and suburban centres.

About People-friendly City Streets

People-friendly City Streets is a programme of work to support the wider Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme by improving connections for people on buses, bikes or walking on key routes between the central city and suburban centres. These projects will incorporate earlier work from the 2019 Bus Priority Action Plan and will help complete the city’s cycleway network.

Bus improvements will include more bus lanes, traffic signal changes, in-lane bus stops and look at the spacing and number of bus stops.

Cycling options will complement the city’s existing cycleway network and work with the future cycling network that Wellington City Council has committed to.

Investigation and planning work on People-friendly City Streets is well underway and individual projects will be developed with the community as they enter the design stage. This $350 million package will be constructed in phases over the next 10 years, with some of the Targeted Improvements underway later in 2023.

Targeted Improvements are lower cost and easy-to-implement projects across Wellington, focusing on walking, cycling and public transport safety, to be completed in 2024.

Where are these projects happening

Phase 1 - Planning to commence from 2022, and construction from 2025

Key

Bowen Street

Johnsonville/ Ngā Ūranga

Taranaki/ Wallace/John Streets

South West CBD

Featherston Street

Taranaki Street and CBD to Newtown

CBD to Miramar

Newtown to Berhampore

Phase 2 - Planning to commence from 2025, and construction from 2027

Key

The Terrace

Vivian/Tory Streets

Karori Tunnel to Karori Town Centre

Glenmore Street to Karori Tunnel

Why change is needed

With a growing population, we need to move more people with fewer vehicles, and this means improving our public transport, making it safer and easier to walk and bike and creating better urban environments and places for people.

People-friendly City Streets will prepare Wellington for future growth, make our city a better place to be, and provide options for people to get around without using their car. It will also help us reduce carbon emissions as we work towards becoming a net-zero carbon capital by 2050.

Timeline - Phase 1

Each individual project has its own timeline, however in a broad sense they follow the same process:

First Stage (current)

We are undertaking project planning, understanding project specific problems and opportunities and preparing to talk to businesses and communities.

During investigation and planning

We will be talking to businesses and communities and progressing the development of project business cases.

Second Stage

We will be finalising project business cases and seeking approval from our funding partners to proceed with detailed design.

Design Stage

We will be completing detailed design of projects and planning and preparing for construction.

Implementation

Construction of the first projects is planned to start early 2025.

Timeline - Phase 2

First stage

We will undertake project planning, understand project specific problems and opportunities and prepare to talk to businesses and communities.

During investigation and planning

We will be talking to businesses and communities and progressing the development of project business cases.

Second stage

We will be finalising project business cases and seeking approval from our funding partners to proceed with detailed design.

Design stage

We will be completing detailed design of projects and planning and preparing for construction.

Implementation

Construction of the first projects is planned to start in 2027 with construction of phase 2 projects going through to 2031.

Find out more

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We’re here to help. If you are unable to find the information you need, please get in touch and our team will get back to you.
Email us on: citystreets@lgwm.nz

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