How people have been using the Newtown to city bike route

This route is part of Paneke Pōneke, Wellington’s bike network plan and provides 2.1km of bike and bus lanes and pedestrian improvements for safer, easier travel from Newtown to the city and Oriental Bay. 

The route connects major regional destinations, including Wellington Regional Hospital, a large concentration of schools, Oriental Bay, Waitangi Park, Courtenay Place, the Basin Reserve, and Newtown shopping centre. 

These street changes were made with adaptable materials so that the Council could take a transitional approach, allowing for a quick roll out of sections of the network over months rather than years. Transitional bike lanes are formed with minimal physical works and can be refined after installation. Street changes like these usually take between 3-6 years but the Newtown route has been completed under two years.

What changes were made?

• 24/7 bus lanes installed along parts of Riddiford Street and Adelaide Road
• Bus lane hours extended on Cambridge and Kent terraces from peak-time only to 7am-7pm
• Separated bike lanes installed on Riddiford Street and Adelaide Road, along with a two-way bike lane along Cambridge Terrace from the Basin Reserve to the waterfront. Two bus stops removed and one relocated to improve journey times.

The overall project budget for Newtown to city street changes was $4.65m. The overall spend to September is $4.55m, with the expected project completion cost being $4.6m ($10,000 under budget). Just over 41% of this cost has been funded by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, at $1.9m, with the remaining $2.69m funded by the Council.

The results

The report looked at how the route has been used over the first year since it was completed. Key findings include:

• bus patronage has increased 69 percent along the corridor, with an extra 2277 people on average per day (Jan to July 2022 compared to Jan to July 2024).
• average bus travel time has increased just 18 seconds in each direction, which is minimal considering over 2200 extra passengers boarding and exiting daily.
• the monthly average number of bike trips has increased 62 percent from July 21/22 to July 23/24 – from about 5990 trips to almost 10,000. 
• People previously riding have changed their route to use the new bike lanes – with 96 percent of northbound people on bikes now preferring to travel via the improved changes instead of the alternative side road, compared to 85 percent previously. 
• The proportion of share-scheme scooter and e-bike trips has increased 15 percent across the project route.

Retail data shows that retail along this corridor follows the city benchmark, with spend taking an initial dip but recovering recently. This initial decline might have been a temporary adjustment period related to changes in infrastructure and land use, but we will continue to monitor to determine longer-term trends. 

Looking ahead

While we’ve used adaptable materials, the street changes themselves are permanent.

We are currently upgrading the bus stop bypasses on Adelaide Road to a more inclusive design using more permanent materials.

The materials we’ve used for the bike lanes have a typical lifespan of 5-10 years and will be monitored as part of our usual road maintenance programme. 

To find out more, you can visit the Transport Projects webpage.