Park-and-ride plan runs out of gas

John Cousins | 15th August 2008

Plans for a network of park-and-ride public transport centres ringing Tauranga have been shelved by the council.

Councillors have decided against buying the land needed to introduce a system to help reduce congestion on main roads. Park-and-ride relies on finding big areas of land where people could leave their cars and commute the rest of the way to work in a bus or by light rail.

Cr Bill Faulkner said park-and-ride worked overseas when it was associated with shopping centres and trains but he questioned how it would work in Tauranga "for the foreseeable future".

The large amount of money for land and buildings would be better spent on transport initiatives, he told this week's meeting addressing 10-year plan review issues.

Cr Rick Curach said park-and-ride worked only where commuters saw buses as a much quicker alternative for getting to work. People needed to see buses whizzing past them while they sat in long queues but, in Tauranga, there was only a small travel-time advantage of probably less than a minute.

"Park-and-ride is not viable _ it does not stack up."

Cr Hayden Evans said there was no bus route that got people from one side of the city to the other in less than an hour.

Mayor Stuart Crosby said it would be better to invest the money on transport infrastructure and to improve public transport.

The council also decided to stick with plans to develop a network of walkways and cycleways around the city, with cycle lanes along main roads.

This was despite several councillors challenging whether the cycle lanes being built along Cameron Rd were justified in terms of safety or use.

Cr Murray Guy could not see the benefits of the cycle lanes, particularly when they disappeared at traffic lights.

He said numbers riding on the footpath outnumbered those on the cycle lanes by 20 to one.

Cr Catherine Stewart said she had serious safety concerns where the council was trying to encourage cycling along some main roads.

Council transport planner Mike Calvert said there was still a cycleway on Cameron Rd's footpaths for younger children and he disputed that the new cycle lanes were unsafe.

He said the lanes were a nice area to cycle and the efficiency of Cameron Rd had been improved by creating space for motorists to pull over and park. The issue of cycle lanes running out at intersections would be addressed.

A report to the council stressed how walking and cycling initiatives were now pivotal to central government funding of roads.

The Government's $150 million of additional roading money for the Western Bay over the next eight years had an emphasis on delivering the Eastern Motorway, public transport, walking and cycling, and techniques to reduce the commuter pattern of one occupant per car.

The council's 10-year plan has earmarked spending $11 million on walking and cycling initiatives.