Nelson has a one-off opportunity to build a new pathway for walking and cycling around Rocks Road.
This project is part of a package developed by Nelson City Council to improve local walking and cycling. Much of the funding is coming from the New Zealand Transport Agency with the rest being provided by council.
Unlike the approach suggested by NZTA several years ago, this proposal doesn’t use some kind of disruptive ‘clip-on’ structure along the outside of the sea wall.
Space for a shared footpath and off-road cycleway will instead come from removing the existing on-road cycle lanes and, in effect, adding their width to the existing footpath space.
The current on-road cycle lanes can feel unsafe and unpleasant for cyclists, so we think a lot more people, including families and tourists, would be riding a path along our waterfront if this was off-road.
A wider pathway will also give walkers more distance from passing vehicle traffic.
Some Nelsonians are opposed to both the proposal and, more disturbingly, even investigating whether this project can be done.
Much of this opposition is based on what’s claimed to be minimum widths for the walk-cycleway and the roadway. A combination of these widths apparently won’t fit on the Rocks Road footprint.
The ‘rule books’ used in NZ for road and cycleway design are essentially guidelines, not rigid building codes. That’s why the State Highway Manual refers to ‘desirable minimum lane widths’.
But even so, the roadway width being quoted by opponents has some problems. One is that their chosen width won’t actually fit on some existing sections of Rocks Rd, or on parts of the state highway south or north from Nelson.
The second problem is that the width being applied is actually for roads with sealed shoulders, like the Whakatu Bypass. For roadways with kerbing, like Rocks Road, the 'desirable minimum' can be significantly less.
Opponents are also claiming that five meters is the minimum for a walk-cyclepath.
With cycle paths - and footpaths - more is always nice, but all cycling and walking advocates know that the pathway between 'the best possible' and 'the realities of limited space and money' is one called compromise.
As it is, the design guides used in NZ give four meters as the ‘desirable minimum width’. That’s the guideline the feasibility study will work with.
And finally, opponents of the plan don’t like two-way cycle facilities.
Christchurch City Council recently published very comprehensive guidelines for cycle design. Working with NZTA and a range of design experts, these apply ‘international best practice’ to NZ. They, and the Austroad guidelines, explicitly provide for two-way cycle facilities.
In an ideal world - one without limits to space and money - we might make less use of two-way paths. But they work, and we use them here in Nelson.
A two-way, off-road shared path on this route would also be a vast improvement on what we have now.
This opportunity to tap into a NZTA fund to build an off-road cycling and walking facility around Rocks Road is effectively a one-off.
If the feasibility study shows the path is possible, but Nelson doesn’t proceed, it’s extremely unlikely that we’ll get this chance again.
We can either live with a narrow and underutilized path on our waterfront, or we can look at building something that allows Nelson families and tourists to cycle or stroll around the most beautiful harbour in New Zealand.
To apply the publicly stated requirements of opponents - their minimum widths and no two-way cycle path - would be to rule out the possibility of creating an off-road walkway-cycleway on Rocks Road in the future.
Nelsonians will remember that some people also opposed the Stoke Railway Reserve shared pathway when it was first suggested. This is now one of our prime community assets.
We believe that our region deserves to have this opportunity assessed - thoroughly and objectively.
We therefore support the Rocks Road Shared Walk-cycleway Feasibility Study, and we look forward to an open and informed discussion about its findings.