A city on the move
Breaking Hamiltonians’ dependency on car travel will have far-reaching effects but comes at a sizeable cost, writes Aaron Leaman.
Picture a city where traffic flows freely during peak hours. Imagine, too, a place where thousands of students cycle safely to and from school, and parents picking up their children outside the school gate is the exception, not the norm. Then, visualise a network of connected cycleways which allow children and adults to bike or scooter to all parts of the city without the worry of having to navigate road traffic.
It sounds like a transport planner’s dream, and it’s one which is being sold to Hamilton politicians as not just a possibility, but a necessity.
Bold plans are under way to drastically transform how people move around the city and, in the process, wean Hamiltonians off their reliance on cars.
Over the past seven decades, New Zealanders have become increasingly dependent on cars to move around – a trend embraced in Hamilton, where more than 85 per cent of city trips are made in cars.
But creating a seismic shift in the city’s transport network won’t come cheap, with some estimates putting the cost to ratepayers and taxpayers at more than $900 million over the next three decades.
The reality of biking in Hamilton is something polytech student Benjamin Wilson knows all too well.
Depending on the route he takes, Wilson’s commute from home to Wintec’s city campus takes about 15 minutes on his bike. It’s a trip that typically takes the 24-yearold through four sets of traffic lights, three roundabouts and several T-intersections. He also cycles to his job at a central city cafe.
Wilson rediscovered the advantages of biking during last year’s Covid-19 lockdown and has
been a committed rider ever since. Savings in travel costs, exercise, and a reduced carbon footprint are some big drawcards for choosing a pushbike over car travel.
It is, however, a choice that isn’t without risk.
During a ride home from work in February, Wilson was travelling through a roundabout near Hamilton’s Founders Theatre when a car entered from his left and struck the back of his bike.
The crash wrecked his bike – a new ride he had owned for about a week – and left him grazed and shaken. Insurance assessors found the motorist at fault, not that the driver was in any rush to apologise.
‘‘He said I was going too fast, and I was like, ‘I’m on a bike, dude’. He wasn’t apologetic at all.
‘‘There are some motorists who don’t see cyclists as road users, they just think we are in the way.’’
Wilson’s experience isn’t unique.
Ask cyclists what it’s like to ride around Hamilton, and many will share stories detailing near-misses, prangs, or serious crashes.
And these incidents aren’t just a concern for the cycling community. It’s also a headache for city planners tasked with unclogging Hamilton’s increasingly congested streets and encouraging more people out of their cars.
Community feedback reveals concerns about safety is the primary reason more people don’t cycle in Hamilton, and it’s not an unfounded fear. Cyclists are involved in 4 per cent of city crashes but are 15 times more likely to suffer serious injuries or death than a motorist, when compared on a per-kilometretravelled basis.
Cycleways are seen as crucial to improving safety for cyclists, creating a network of paths that riders can use to traverse the city, separated from vehicles. Despite Hamilton’s reputation as a spreadout city, about 60 per cent of city car trips are less than 5 kilometres – the equivalent of a 20-minute bike ride.
Richard Porter, chairman and spokesman for Bike Waikato, says connecting the city’s cycleways will get more people riding.
‘‘One of the key things Bike Waikato has campaigned on is called ‘Ungap the Map’. Our goal in working with council is to identify gaps in cycle routes and fill them, so someone who wants to travel from their front door to their workplace or shop can do so on a continuous network or route,’’ Porter says.
‘‘While Hamilton City Council does promote that they have 150 kilometres worth of cycle lanes and cycle paths, they are not fully connected.’’
One of the council’s showpiece transport initiatives is Eastern Pathways – Te Ara o te Rawhiti – a $210m suite of biking, walking and public transport projects on the east side of the river. It’s hoped 51 per cent of funding for the initiative will come from Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency.
Eastern Pathways’ centrepiece projects are School Link, a 6.2km corridor connecting 19 schools via Hukanui Rd and Peachgrove Rd, and the City Centre to University Link corridor focused along Clyde St and Knighton Rd.
Projects such as School Link, that seek to create a safe environment for students to cycle to and from school, will significantly help ease traffic congestion, says city councillor Sarah Thomson, who earlier this year raised public awareness about poor driver behaviour outside city schools.
‘‘I think the inconsiderate and dangerous driving we see outside
‘‘While Hamilton City Council does promote that they have 150 kilometres worth of cycle lanes and cycle paths, they are not fully connected.’’
Bike Waikato chairman Richard Porter
schools is partly a symptom of the stress that people feel driving around in cars and the lack of control and frustration people feel when they are stuck in traffic,’’ Thomson says.
‘‘I think generally we have a transport system in Hamilton where people feel under pressure a lot of the time.’’
Getting Hamiltonians out of their cars will require a linked up cycleway network and investment in public transport. Hamilton’s burgeoning population growth – which will see its current-day population of 180,000 increase to about 200,000 by 2030 – means serious investment in cycle networks and public transport can no longer be put off.
‘‘Without this investment, congestion in the city is only going to get worse and simply trying to widen roads and put in more lanes isn’t going to help,’’ Thomson says.
‘‘Even organisations like Waka Kotahi, which have been very roadfocused for a long time, now acknowledge this idea of induced demand. When you build more capacity, people go ‘oh, it’s easier to drive’, and then we just have more people driving, and we come back to the same problem that we had before.’’
Aside from relieving traffic congestion, changing the way people move around Hamilton is also predicted to create major environmental wins, with 62 per cent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions (excluding biogenic methane) coming from transport.
Dr Paul Winton, founder of climate action lobby group, the 1point5 Project, says decarbonising the country’s road transport by 2030 is the least challenging path to meeting climate change targets.
But while electrification of the nation’s light vehicle fleet is vital, just as important are initiatives designed to reduce the number of kilometres people travel in their vehicles. Cities such as Hamilton should be opening their streets to cyclists, pedestrians, and public transport. Reducing the number of car parks in the central city has proven effective overseas in discouraging car trips with one occupant.
‘‘Imagine the main drag of Hamilton if you pull out all the car parks on one side, paint it, and put up a whole bunch of planter boxes alongside it. You’ve now got safe cycling infrastructure,’’ Winton says.
‘‘Just putting green paint on the road isn’t enough, you’ve got to physically separate cars, which is two tonnes of steel, from cyclists, which are 80kg of meat. It’s a bad combination.’’
On Tuesday, city councillors adopted the business case of the council’s Biking and Micromobility
Programme – a city-wide plan that aims to encourage biking and micro-mobility in Hamilton. Implementing it is expected to cost $700m–$900m over 30 years, although that figure doesn’t take inflation into account. Again, it’s hoped Waka Kotahi will pick up 51 per cent of the tab. The council’s draft long-term plan proposes $122m is spent on biking projects over the next 10 years.
Hamilton deputy mayor Geoff Taylor, who chairs the council’s CBD and river plan advisory group, supports the idea of building a $28m cycle and pedestrian bridge across the Waikato River, but says spending $900m on cycling initiatives is ‘‘way out of kilter’’.
Taylor also favours a shake-up of Hamilton’s bus network, moving from a full coverage model, to one focused on servicing the main routes. Smaller electric vehicles, such as 12-seaters, could operate in other parts of the city on an Uber-style setup.
‘‘I’m a big believer in e-vehicles — there’s got to be a better way than buses thundering aimlessly all around the suburbs all day.’’
Talk of removing central city car parks in favour of creating cycle paths could ultimately deter people from visiting the CBD.
‘‘It’s a mad ideological rush, using climate change as an excuse. The focus seems to be to frustrate people out of their cars and there just seems to be a lack of balance behind all this. I believe cars, electric cars, will have a part to play in our future.’’
Hamilton-based National MP David Bennett is also concerned by talk of squeezing cars off city roads. Hamilton’s growth and success in recent years has been due to the significant investment made in roading infrastructure. E-vehicles will make such infrastructure increasingly environmentally friendly.
‘‘A council that tries to direct state funding away from that infrastructure and into walking and cycling initiatives within the city, I think, does a disservice to the future of the region,’’ Bennett says.
‘‘We need to make sure there is continuing investment in roading infrastructure between Hamilton and Auckland and Tauranga, and a failure to do so will put Hamilton backwards. It’s not that I’m against cycling or public transport, it’s because the economic gains for our region will come from that roading infrastructure.’’
Following his February crash,
Wilson posted a message to an online bike forum asking whether he should continue biking into the CBD. The overwhelming response from forum members was yes.
‘‘Everyone said that if I stopped riding, I’d never do it again.’’
The first time he rode through the scene of his crash was nerveracking and there are certain roads he avoids because of safety concerns.
While building a connected cycle network in Hamilton is important, the attitude of motorists is also crucial to creating a bike-friendly city, Wilson says.
‘‘ . . . a car will just pull out in front of me because they assume the cyclist will stop, or you find people just parking in cycle lanes. I feel a lot of the responsibility to stay safe is put on me, whereas everyone has a role to play.’’