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I feel for our council. Councillors have moved a long way in improving our city and anticipating the issues we will face in a generation's time. And they are doing so at a pace that makes many in our community feel uncomfortable. The Island Bay Cycleway is just an example of this. But it's also clear that we, as a city, are moving nowhere near fast enough to address, or even ease, significant issues. Issues like creating better, denser, living city spaces for our growing population, moving people out of cars into healthier, more compact forms of transport, and, yes, climate change.  Island Bay has faced many changes & challenges over the years & always will One of the factors in this tug of war over the speed of council action is residents' associations. I've spent the last 17 months on the Island Bay Residents Association committee. People on the committee call it IBRA, and my kids have mockingly changed that to iBra — an invention that Steve Jobs thankfully never got around to. I think that residents' associations have a duty to represent the views of their communities to the council. That is the primary purpose of a residents' association.* I also think residents' associations have a second role — to mediate between their community and the council. We, the residents' association committee, have let our community down when it comes to the Island Bay cycleway. It is clear to anyone who has been following the recent consultation around changes to the Island Bay Cycleway that 'paint it back' is not an option on the table. The council consulted on a specific set of safety changes to the cycleway. And the residents' association ultimately failed to address or engage with those particular issues. Instead, we tried, yet again, to repeal a decision that the council does not have the ability to revoke. The requirements for cycleways and car parks are tied down in the existing Parking Policy 2020, the Long Term Plan 2021 and the Bike Network Plan 2021 — none of which we, IBRA, submitted on. The council cannot do things that are in breach of its policy or its long term plan. The aggressive anti-council approach we took continued to stoke anger in our community. We gave no guidance to our community. We did not help them engage with the issues that the council needed advice on. We showed no leadership in addressing the fact that we as a community will need to continue changing and adapting to the future we face. We stuck with an 'outright opposition' strategy designed in 2016. This strategy has consistently failed the community — both those opposed to the current cycleway and those who see value in it but want it improved. We knew that the council could not 'paint it back'. By pretending it could, we simply prolonged the pain for our community and the likelihood of adverse outcomes by not adapting. For instance, one of our community's fears was losing the angle parking at the shops. We could have advocated putting the cycle lane on the other side of the angle parks. This would have aligned with the safety guidelines of Waka Kotahi and the council. It has a chance of success, unlike our current submission proposal, which does not meet Waka Kotahi or WCC requirements, so it can not happen. The other thing we did not do was talk to our community. And in particular, we did not seek out the experts in our community who knew about road design and council processes. We have some real expertise and experience in our community that could have guided and informed us. Sadly, we didn't seek help. As an alternative, we could have said to the council and our community, "we know that our community is deeply concerned and divided about the cycleway. We know that our suburb's urgent issues are cycleways, urban densification, transport mode shift, and significant redevelopment. We want advice and support to help our community, our local households and our businesses with this transition." The future for Island Bay is full of exciting potential. New people will be joining us, new businesses will appear, and new opportunities will emerge as we become an important beach-hub in our growing city. I'd like to see our new residents' association do a better job of helping our community and our council work together to realise these exciting opportunities. Stephen Day Footnote: * It's important to note that residents will always have a wide variety of views and that residents' associations have little scope to poll their community accurately. So it's probably safer to represent the full range of perspectives to the council rather than just the view of the perceived majority — especially if that majority view sits at the end of a spectrum. * If you want to vote at the Island Bay Residents Association's AGM on Monday 7 March you need to sign up as a member by 5pm Saturday 5 March. More info on that and how to vote here.
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The two things WCC shouldn't even hesitate to do to get The Parade Upgrade over the line
On Wednesday 2 March WCC's Traffic Resolutions Hearings Panel will hear public feedback on the proposed changes to The Parade. Reading the feedback on the consultation website and in the meeting papers you have to feel sorry for councillors who are going to be bombarded with a completely unnecessary tsunami of angst about the proposed parking changes. 
Everybody is upset about parking but what's the reality?
The council has communicated the parking changes really badly. By not producing a parking plan they have not given people the information they need to understand the reality of the proposed changes. Instead the council has simply presented the raw parking reductions, which is unfair and has understandably caused a lot of angst. Here's two things the council should do to show some good faith and instantly defuse some of the heat around parking that they've generated: Complete the parking plan before proceeding A parking plan should cover stuff like the current occupancy rate of on-street parking on The Parade, what the parking is being used for (e.g. how much is actually commuter parking) and how much parking is available in the surrounding streets. It should also discuss possible mitigation like residents' parking schemes and more time-limited parking. When people see the parking plan everybody, including councillors, will finally be able to see what the real impact is going to be. At the 10 November Pūroro Āmua Planning and Environment Committee meeting where a short-term safety improvements option (which prioritises fiscal prudence over retaining parking) was approved by councillors Councillor Fitzsimons had an amendment agreed that specifically asked for a parking plan to be done before detailed design. However, on 22 February WCC sent an email to people who took part in the consultation explaining that: "Due to a combination of time constraints and the uncertainty associated with Covid, we cannot meet the deadline for completion of the parking plan prior to detailed design. However, work on it is under way and we expect completion in late March 2022. We intend to provide officer advice to the 10 March Pūroro Āmua Planning and Environment Committee meeting that the November 2021 resolution be amended to reflect the revised timeline for the local parking plan." You might be wondering why the council doesn't just wait until the parking plan is finished in 4 weeks time and let councillors approve the traffic resolutions then. The answer seems to be that the south end of The Parade is also due to be re-sealed and that is a time-critical task that needs to be done while the weather is good. Council officers were obviously hoping to start the re-seal and the upgrade at the same time. In order to do so they now want to retrospectively change a council decision already made. What that does is leave a whole bunch of unanswered questions about parking and will increase the sense among some that 'the council isn't listening to us'. On balance I think it would be better for the council to either delay the re-sealing until The Parade Upgrade traffic resolutions are approved or if that can't be done then go ahead and do the re-seal and break the dependency on the upgrade. Considering the parking surveys that are the main input into the parking plan could have been done pretty much any time in the past 4 years this is a problem entirely of the council's own making. Using the need to re-seal to justify over-turning a previously made councillor decision just seems off to me and has echoes of the constant excuses and re-litigation that led to the 2017 decision to upgrade The Parade never being delivered. And let's not forget that the reason the 2017 decision finally got put to bed is because council officers put up an 'MRT might be coming to Island Bay' straw-man that convinced enough councillors that doing something they had previously agreed to do that was already 4 years overdue might one day be seen as a 'a waste of money' because of something that might happen a decade from now. Keep the angle-parking at the shops Reading through the feedback it's clear that the majority of the angst about the removal of parking concerns the shops. This one should be a no-brainer. The councillor approved option from 2017 (see below) included cycleways but retained angle parking, which would actually be ok for people on bikes - it's cycling behind angle parking that is particularly dangerous. Council have already agreed to this layout once so it shouldn't even need discussion. I'm no fan of angle-parking but I'm not going to be a hypocrite either. Until November last year the layout agreed in 2017 was what we were still expecting to be delivered and it will be fine. At this point in time it would also represent a genuine compromise and show some willingness by the council to listen to feedback. I don't think there's been an easier decision to make in this whole saga than this one. 
If the council does the two things above I think they will take a lot of heat out the current debate about parking on The Parade and we can all finally move on. Regan. 
It was disappointing to read the IBRA Chair's report for the upcoming AGM and realise it contains a number of factual errors and mis-representations regarding the current WCC consultation on The Parade Upgrade.
The worst of these is the IBRA committee's continued and unapologetic assertion that "the majority of Island Bay businesses and residents don't support the cycleway" which is something they cannot possibly know and almost certainly isn't actually true. The problem is that all of the surveys and consultations they are basing their conclusions on have been self-selecting and non-random and it is one of the most basic laws of maths that you cannot then use the results to draw conclusions about the wider population.
"No matter how large a sample is, if it’s based on non-random methods, the results will not represent the population that the researcher wants to draw conclusions about" Professor Deborah J. Rumsey, Statistics for Dummies, 2nd edition I've already written about this many times in the past. In 2016 I noted that the vast majority of Island Bay residents hadn't participated in IBRA's infamous survey (about 75% of the total population and 65% of the adult population didn't respond) and that all the survey definitively established is that around 1,500 people were opposed to a kerbside cycleway (about 20% of the total population). In 2017 I pointed out once again that the vast majority of Island Bay (76%) didn't participate in the the council's consultation on the options derived from Love the Bay and that all that was definitively established was that 59% of respondents (around 1,100 people or 14% of the total population) had expressed a general preference for a roadside cycleway. In 2018 I wrote that there was actually a clear trend across IBRA's 2016 survey, WCC's 2017 consultation and the 2018 Southern Ward by-election that about 1,500 people, representing 20% of the population, were opposed to the cycleway but no evidence that the number was any bigger than that. In fact, it seemed implausible that the true number opposed could be any bigger than that because it would imply that there were more people opposed to the cycleway who were not participating in the various surveys, consultations and elections than who were, which just isn't credible. Looking at the latest WCC consultation results suggests that opposition to the cycleway has fallen even further in the past few years. Because this was another self-selecting, non-random consultation the only conclusions that can be drawn that are accurate are that 1,209 people responded and 67% of those are from Island Bay. That's 800 people in a suburb of over 7,000 so around 11% participation - a very significant drop from previous years. The vast majority of people living in Island Bay did not participate despite the wide distribution of flyers (one of which contained a significant factual error) and numerous Facebook posts encouraging them to do so. Even if we assume that 90% of those 800 people are opposed or strongly opposed to the changes (which won't be the case but WCC will get the actual breakdown when they analyse the results) all that has been established is that there are approximately 700 people in Island Bay who are opposed to the cycleway and motivated enough to say so. That's another huge drop from previous years and represents only around 10% of the total population. IBRA's continued insistence that they are "supporting the majority view" doesn't even reach the standard that would be expected of an NCEA Level 1 maths student. It also highlights why some of the Notices of Motion to be voted on at the AGM are important. I've suggested how you should vote on the various motions here but the ones that are particularly relevant to this issue are: 1. That any submissions IBRA makes will only represent the majority view of Island Bay residents. Vote against this. As explained above IBRA's determination to over-state "the majority view of Island Bay residents" and exclude other voices has always been a problem. For example, this would potentially mean minimising or excluding disabled, rainbow or tangata whenua concerns from submissions. It's impossible to accurately determine "the majority view" without doing expensive randomised polling anyway. It's also not necessary to do this - a residents association can simply make submissions that reflect the diversity of opinion of its members and leave it at that 5. That the Island Bay Residents Association adopts and states an impartial position on the Island Bay Cycleway and the Parade Upgrade. In recognition of the diversity of views in our community and the divisive nature of these issues, we propose that IBRA leadership supports community diversity, and encourages all members to be kind and care for each other. Vote for this. I understand that this motion was put forward by some of the church leaders in Island Bay and they're right. It's time to move forward. Voting for this Notice of Motion aligns very nicely with voting against 1 and for 6. 6. That IBRA Committee always undertakes an open and well-publicised consultation with residents and the wider community of Island Bay before making any submissions on our behalf, and document the consultation process undertaken. Vote for this. This is the counter-point to Notice of Motion 1. The key words here are "on our behalf". I think that in general IBRA should try and avoid making submissions on behalf of the whole community as that is almost impossible to do in a safe and robust way. IBRA should probably stick to consulting its own members and then presenting those results in an open and balanced way to council (or whoever is consulting). That includes recognising minority views The other significant error in the Chair's report is the statement that "the Council by the chairs casting vote – voted for a $4.0million upgrade which included the removal of between 80-100 parks from The Parade". This simply isn't true. The only casting vote during the discussion of The Parade Upgrade at the Planning & Environment Committee's 10 November 2021 meeting was on an amendment to continue the cycleway through the shops. The substantive motion to approve the short-term safety improvements option (after all the amendments had been agreed) actually passed 11-3. This is all easily verified by simply reading the minutes so it's not clear whether this is just sloppiness by IBRA or a dishonest attempt to make the decision to upgrade The Parade seem like it had less support than it really did. Either way I think it highlights the need to get as many fresh faces on to the committee as possible and we're fortunate that there is an excellent line up of nominees to choose from. Regan. 
The Island Bay Residents Association is holding their AGM on Monday 7 March and if you live in Island Bay or Southgate you should get involved. There's a great selection of nominees for the committee and some interesting Notices of Motion to vote on. The AGM will be held at the Island Bay Bowling Club at 7pm (with a limit on numbers) but you can also vote by proxy so no excuses not to have your say!
There's lots more information about the AGM on the residents association's website. The very first thing you need to do is make sure you're a member before Saturday 5 March. If you want to become a member or are unsure if you are a member email islandbayres@gmail.com and provide your full name and residential address stating that you want to confirm your membership. There's 18 nominations for up to 13 places on the committee and only 4 incumbent members are standing [note 1]. That means there will be at least 9 fresh faces elected which will be great and makes it really important that you vote. There are profiles of all the nominees here and more information on this Facebook page. If you intend to vote by proxy make sure you carefully follow the instructions for that. The nominees My general advice about voting is to vote for as many of the people standing for the first time as you can. While we should all acknowledge the hard work and commitment of the current committee there seems to be a genuine appetite for change out in the community so let's take the opportunity to do that. You can vote for up to 13 nominees but can vote for fewer than that if you wish so my 3 step guide to voting is:
The Notices of Motion There are some interesting Notices of Motion to vote on. Here's my thoughts on each: 1. That any submissions IBRA makes will only represent the majority view of Island Bay residents. Vote against this. IBRA's determination to exclude minority voices has always been a problem. For example, this would potentially mean minimising or excluding disabled, rainbow or tangata whenua concerns from submissions. It's impossible to accurately determine "the majority view of Island Bay residents" without doing expensive randomised polling anyway. It's also not necessary to do this - a residents association can simply make submissions that reflect the diversity of opinion of its members and leave it at that 2. That IBRA surveys the residents of Island Bay (including beyond the newsletter membership of IBRA) and then publish a paper on how the residents of Island Bay would like IBRA to meet the 8 Objects of its constitution. Vote for this. Getting some direction from the people who respond to a survey on what they think is important is worth doing (with the caveat that it will only be the views of those who respond, not the whole community) 3. That IBRA Committee develops and publish a code of conduct for Committee members (in alignment with the IBRA Constitution), which is then signed by Committee members. Vote for this. How could this not be a good, positive thing? 4. That all IBRA Committee meetings are open to all Island Bay residents and the community to attend and contribute, acknowledging the need for in-Committee business. Vote for this. Like all good committees IBRA should be keeping non-public business to the absolute minimum required. This would bring greater transparency and make it much easier for the committee and the community to stay connected. 5. That the Island Bay Residents Association adopts and states an impartial position on the Island Bay Cycleway and the Parade Upgrade. In recognition of the diversity of views in our community and the divisive nature of these issues, we propose that IBRA leadership supports community diversity, and encourages all members to be kind and care for each other. Vote for this. I understand that this motion was put forward by some of the church leaders in Island Bay and they're right. It's time to move forward. Voting for this Notice of Motion aligns very nicely with voting against 1 and for 6. 6. That IBRA Committee always undertakes an open and well-publicised consultation with residents and the wider community of Island Bay before making any submissions on our behalf, and document the consultation process undertaken. Vote for this. This is the counter-point to Notice of Motion 1. The key words here are "on our behalf" and who that relates to. I think that in general IBRA should try and avoid making submissions on behalf of the whole community as that is almost impossible to do in a safe and robust way. IBRA should probably stick to consulting its own members and then presenting those results in an open and balanced way to council (or whoever is consulting). That includes recognising minority views. 7. That Clause 10(d) allowing proxy votes be deleted from the Constitution. Vote against this. This is nothing but an attempt to make it even harder for residents to have their say on who gets to represent them on the residents association. It's undemocratic. 8. That a new clause 13 (c) be added to the constitution as follows: No member of the Committee shall reside at the same residential address as another Committee Member and in the event that a Committee Member commences residing at the same address with another Committee Member the said Committee Members shall determine between themselves which Committee member shall resign from the Committee. Vote against this. I'm not sure why this is seen as a problem and if it is it would be better dealt with through having a Code of Conduct that requires committee members (and nominees for the committee) to declare any conflicts of interest. If residents think 2 members from the same household can add value to the committee then why shouldn't they have the option to vote for that? 9. That the newly elected Committee looks at reducing the number of Committee members to a more manageable number. Vote against this. This appears to be a reaction to not having enough nominees in the past. That is not currently an issue and if IBRA does its work in a open, transparent and constructive way it shouldn't be an issue in the future. More members allows for a greater diversity of representation and more people to do the mahi, which is a good thing. 10. That IBRA changes its name to “Island Bay Business and Residents Association.” Vote against this. I don't really have a strong view on the name. If anything a completely new name might be appropriate at this point but this Notice of Motion isn't about that. 11. That clause 12 should be replaced to read as follows: Election of Committee and Officers of the Group a) The Secretary shall not later than thirty (30) days prior to the Annual General Meeting of the Group call for nominations for the Committee and shall circulate such nominations with notices of the Annual General Meeting. b) At the first meeting of the Committee they shall elect a Chair, Secretary and Treasurer from their number to hold office until the next Annual General Meeting. Vote for this. On balance I think allowing the committee to vote for its own Chair, Secretary and Treasurer is simpler and makes the process of electing a committee much more straight-forward for residents. Get into it folks. Exciting times ahead! Regan. Note 1: The 4 incumbent committee members standing again are Jane Byrne, Lorraine Edwards, Bruce Gadd and Pat Vinaccia 
Here comes another consultation on the Island Bay cycleway...
Wait! What? I thought the council made a final decision on this last year? They did, as summarised in this article from the New Zealand Herald: Solution agreed for Wellington's controversial Island Bay cycleway. The consultation they are doing now is on the Traffic Resolution which is the how the council legally makes the required changes to the road. Under the Traffic and Parking Bylaw 2021 "Any resolution proposed under this Bylaw shall be placed on the Council’s website at least 14 days before the Council considers it. Any person may provide comments, in writing, on the proposed resolution and those comments will be considered by the Council before it makes a resolution." So this consultation is largely a technical process requirement but as the council says it's an opportunity to provide "feedback on whether we’ve got these proposed safety improvements quite right" so that they can "adjust and fine-tune the detailed design". It's not a vote and it's not a consultation on whether or not to have protected bike lanes on The Parade. Ok, so what are the main changes? The key changes are:
Raised concrete buffers like the ones on Rongotai Rd are coming to The Parade
This is most of the upgrade that was already approved by councillors back in 2017 with 4 key differences:
You can read more about the changes and provide feedback on the council's Transport Projects website. The rationale for making the changes is explained from a councillor's perspective in this opinion piece by Jenny Condie: Island Bay cycleway revamp 'pragmatic middle ground' Are the changes really still necessary? Yes! These are all good changes which will improve the safety, comfort and attractiveness of the current layout, and they have mostly already been consulted on back in 2017 although the exact mix now isn't quite what was agreed back then. The current cycleway is ok but as the council admitted in the High Court in 2019 during the Island Bay Residents Association's failed judicial review of the 2017 decision "neither the status quo nor the original cycleway could be said to be reasonably practicable options given the safety concerns and issues of non-compliance that had been identified with them". This is also is why the cycleway will never go back on the road between parked cars and traffic and calls to "paint it back" are not just pointless but dangerous. The diagram below from Wellington City Council's Bike Network Plan shows that traffic volumes on The Parade would need to drop below 5,000 cars per day (half of current volumes) before bike lanes next to moving traffic could even be considered. 
As the council notes the proposed improvements will bring the bike lanes and related street layout in line with New Zealand and international design standards, including:
If you have complained about the safety of the cycleway in the past then thank you because that is what has prompted these changes, and if you are even vaguely genuine and informed in your concerns about 'safety' you will support all of these changes. What about the reduction in parking though? The council has communicated the parking changes really badly. First of all, under the council's new Parking Policy (approved 14:1 in August 2020) they should have prepared a Local Area Parking Plan (LAPP) before bringing the November 2021 paper to council. A LAPP "would provide guidance to improve transport services and manage parking based on local circumstances". Basically it would give people the information they need to understand the reality of the proposed parking changes and take away some of the fear of change. Instead the council has simply presented the raw parking reductions, which is unfair and has understandably caused some angst. While the reductions might seem significant it's worth remembering some important mitigations:
A LAPP would also outline other possible mitigations such as resident's parking schemes and time-limited parking. Apparently the council is now preparing one but unfortunately it will be too late to stop a whole lot of unnecessary hyper-ventilating around this consultation. It's also worth noting that there's a direct relationship between the reduction in parking and the cost of the upgrade. Cycleways can actually be very cheap to implement when they simply replace on-street parking. The cost of cycleways usually only goes up when there is a desire to retain a lot of parking and in reality the bulk of the cost of cycling projects is often for parking. In this case councillors decided 9:5 to implement a cheaper 'short-term safety improvements' option rather than the more expensive 2017 option that would have resulted in a smaller reduction in parking. If you have complained about the cost of cycleways in the past then you have pretty much got what you asked for here. That said, it's hard to understand why there needs to be a reduction in parking at the shops. The councillor approved option from 2017 (see below) included cycleways but retained angle parking, which would actually be ok for cyclists - it's cycling behind angle parking that is particularly dangerous. Council have already agreed to this layout once so this would be something definitely worth raising in your feedback if you are concerned about the parking reduction at the shopping village and would prefer to have angle-parked cars backing into the traffic lane (which is the status quo). 
The councillor approved option from 2017 included cycle lanes + angle parking at the shops
The bottom line with the parking is that the council's Parking Policy clearly states that the "safe and efficient movement of people and goods (footpaths, bus lanes, cycleways, no stopping zones/clearways, construction and maintenance works)" is a higher priority than on-street parking, and with good reason as explained in the policy. Having put that policy in place the council have to implement it. What other issues are there? The council's presentation of this consultation is pretty average. They are at pains to state that "this is not a vote" but have also included their real-time dashboard that makes it look exactly like a vote. As can already been seen the results are going to be largely useless with almost all of the self-selecting responses (i.e. not statistically valid) either "Strongly opposed" or "Strongly supportive" of the changes. Most of the negative comments simply want to "pAiNt iT bAcK" which is out of scope and isn't going to happen. This is exactly how you generate a lot of poor quality engagement, waste a lot of people's time (incl. the council's), unfairly raise people's expectations and reinforce a perception of 'not listening'. 
WCC's dashboard presentation gives the incorrect impression that this is a vote
So should I provide feedback or not? My advice is not to get spooked by the dashboard presentation. Various local Facebook groups are hyping people up that "it's your last chance to have your say!!" but let's take the council at their word that it's not a vote. If you want to signal your support for these changes and/or you have specific comments to make about specific elements of the plan (which is what the council is really looking for) that's fine but don't worry if you don't have time. The proposal details and feedback form can be found here. Edit 31/1/22: There's a good, constructive submission guide from Cycle Wellington here. I heard from some people that Fleur Fitzsimons was the casting vote for the upgrade happening, but from some other people that she voted against it. What actually happened? None of that is correct. It was a long and complicated meeting but essentially council officers gave councillors two options for upgrading The Parade: a long-term option or a short-term 'safety improvements' option. Neither of these was actually the 2017 'Mayor's compromise' that had already been agreed 4 years ago so councillors Fitzsimons and Day introduced an amendment to simply do what the council had promised to do and implement the 2017 decision. Despite that seeming completely reasonable it lost 5:9, with both Green councillors present voting against it. 
Councillors Rush and Woolf then tried to get an amendment to 'put the cycleway back the way it used to be' which not only went against council officer advice, Waka Kotahi guidelines and what the council had told the High Court in 2019 but also included the embarrassing spectacle of Councillor Rush wrongly arguing that there used to be bike lanes painted on the road along the north end of The Parade when there never was (which was inconvenient for him because it undermined his 'paint it back' logic). This vote was lost 5:9. 
Later in the meeting another amendment was proposed by Councillors Pannett and Free to 'beef up' the short-term improvements option by continuing the cycleway through the shops and improving the intersections with raised tables. Councillor Fitzsimons voted against both of these on principle using the rationale that she had run for council on the basis of implementing the 2017 decision and she wouldn't support anything else. This did risk not getting some significant improvements to the short-term option (which was the only option still in play at that stage) but the vote on continuing the cycleway through shops passed anyway, with Councillor Pannett using her casting vote to split a 7:7 tie. 
The vote on the improved intersections was lost 6:8 with Councillor Pannett inexplicably deciding to vote against her own amendment citing 'fiscal prudence'. If Councillor Fitzsimons had voted for this it would have been a 7:7 tie but presumably would still have lost if Councillor Pannett had used her Chair's casting vote to vote the same way as she already had (but honestly, who knows?). Disappointing to see any Labour or Green councillors voting against safety at intersections though. 
The substantive vote on proceeding with a short-term improvements option (i.e. after all the amendments had been made) then passed 11:3. So in summary, Councillor Fitzsimons did vote for the 2017 decision to be implemented (but lost) and did vote for the upgrade we are being consulted on now to go ahead. Her votes against the amendments to continue the cycleway through the shops and improve the intersections, although wrong in my view, didn't actually affect the outcome of those votes. It's certainly not true that she was the casting vote on any of this. 
It's worth noting that despite known "safety concerns and issues of non-compliance" Councillor Rush, Councillor Woolf and Mana Whenua rep Liz Kelly voted against making any safety improvements at all which is pretty callous given all the evidence put in front of them. If you want to read the official record of the voting you can do so here. Regan. 
Friday marks 1,500 days since WCC agreed to upgrade The Parade, without a single shovel in the ground since
This Friday (5 November) is 1,500 days since Wellington City Council voted 13-1 to upgrade The Parade. So why hasn't the work started yet? Here's a rundown of everything that's happened (or not happened) in the four years since then.
1,500 days later this is still a familiar sight for IBCW users
September 2017 On 27 September 2017 WCC's City Strategy Committee votes 13-1 to upgrade The Parade (only Councillor Simon Woolf votes against the proposal. Councillor Chris Calvi-Freemen is absent). The recommended design proposal simply merges the residential section of consultation Option C and the business section of Option D with refinements that incorporate public feedback (known as ‘the Mayor’s compromise solution’). The committee notes the estimated cost total to be $6.1 million (excl GST) to be refined through detailed design. The committee notes that officers will liaise with Waka Kotahi (as key partners in the Wellington City Cycleways Programme) to get feedback on the final design and layout, and to investigate any options for future co-funding of the cycleway. The committee also agrees that detailed design and the traffic resolution process will commence immediately for the adopted design with construction intended to commence in June 2018. $6m is specifically ring-fenced for the ‘Island Bay Cycleway’ in the 2018-28 Long Term Plan. Decision made, funding set aside so all good, right? May - October 2018 In May 2018 the Island Bay Residents Association (IBRA) announce they intend to pursue a judicial review. Later in 2018 WCC also starts consulting on the Newtown Connections project, which will link the Island Bay Cycleway to the CBD. In October 2018 a paper comes to WCC's City Strategy Committee titled Southern Connection Cycleway Development – Funding Opportunities. The Committee agrees that in order to obtain Waka Kotahi (WK) co-funding for The Parade and the maximum WK contribution for Newtown Connections both projects will be rolled into one strategic business case. The committee notes that it will give consideration to a range of projects put forward for approval in the Berhampore, Newtown and Mt Cook area in May/June 2019 and that “we would expect that construction would not be completed on The Parade until the end of 2020 and mid 2021 for the Newtown connections area.” In reluctantly supporting the proposal I said to the committee “I do think there are some risks with this approach. An obvious one is that the extended time-frame provides more opportunity for attempts at re-litigation. There's also the risk that WK don't come to the party. The bottom line for me is that I trust you.” 
Just for a laugh here's WCC's Oct 2018 timeframes for The Parade Upgrade
November 2018 - now Having made The Parade Upgrade dependent on the Newtown Connections project it then slowly and inevitably grinds to a halt. Here's a potted summary of that particular shambles. There's not a single timeframe stated here that was met.
May - June 2019 During May and June 2019 WCC goes to court to defend it's September 2017 decision to upgrade The Parade, which is subject to a judicial review instigated by the Island Bay Residents Association. In court a key part of WCC’s defence is “safety concerns and issues of non-compliance” with both the original layout and the current cycleway which were an important consideration in it's September 2017 decision-making. In it's judgement the High Court agrees that "Neither the status quo nor the original cycleway could be said to be reasonably practicable options given the safety concerns and issues of non-compliance that had been identified with them". WCC wins the case but incurs $80k in costs which it does not seek to recover from IBRA. Four years later none of the safety concerns and issues of non-compliance that WCC relied on in court to justify its September 2017 decision have been rectified. 
The crucial part of the 2019 High Court judgement
December 2019 The Parade Upgrade was not mentioned at all in WCC's quarterly reports to councillors between Oct 2017 – Dec 2019, which is a pretty shocking lack of oversight. In December 2019 the Q1 2019/20 report caused some concern and got media attention because it stated for the first time that “NZTA will consider co-investing in The Parade once the Newtown and Berhampore cycle facilities are constructed”. This was the first time that a dependency on Newtown Connections being completed first had ever been publicly mentioned. It shifted the start date for The Parade Upgrade out to a date in 2022 or 2023 at the earliest but probably later than that. That's at least 6 years after The Parade Upgrade was first approved.
April - August 2020
In April 2020 WCC submits the ‘Island Bay Cycleway’ as a $14m COVID-19 response shovel-ready project with the cost escalation put down to "additional drainage work and changing market conditions". The submission fails. In June I get so concerned about the ongoing delays and the statement in WCC's December 2019 quarterly report that I write directly to Waka Kotahi to clarify their position on funding. I also remind them that they were the instigators of the review into the Island Bay cycleway that spawned the Love the Bay process. Waka Kotahi was always intended to have a partnering role in The Parade Upgrade and had a shared interest with WCC in re-establishing ‘social license’ around building cycleways. Between July and August I exchanged several emails with Waka Kotahi and they eventually confirmed that they "could consider a funding application for The Parade Upgrade in Island Bay once this route [Newtown Connections] has been agreed, which is a change to our previous position that this route would need to be implemented“. Waka Kotahi tells me WCC had not been actively pursuing this with them. Emails released to The New Zealand Herald (including mine) highlight much finger-pointing between WCC and WK but very little action. Think about how mad it is that a private citizen moved Waka Kotahi's position further in the space of a month than WCC had in the previous three years. April - May 2021 The council's recommended option for Building More Cycleways in their 2021-31 Long Term Plan consultation only includes funding of $6m for the Island Bay Parade Upgrade in Years 4-10, pushing the potential start date out to 2025 at the earliest. That would be a full eight years after agreeing to do it and despite the previously noted "safety concerns and issues of non-compliance". However, after massive pushback from submitters the council approves the 'Accelerated full programme' option for cycleways which includes funding for The Parade Upgrade of $14m in years 1–3. A big win. In May 2021 councillors receive a full briefing on the options for The Parade Upgrade. You can read the slides here. So what now? Councillors are due to make a decision about the next steps for The Parade Upgrade on Wednesday 10 November. The meeting papers should be published on Wednesday 3 November, only 1,498 days after originally deciding to do it (by 10 November it will be 1,505 days). So does The Parade still need upgrading? Yes! The issues of safety and non-compliance that WCC have known about since 2017 and relied on in court to win the judicial review haven't magically resolved themselves. Weary cyclists and advocates may have got used to them or not believe things will ever get any better but it would be appalling for the council to try and take advantage of that now that they have effectively made the decision to upgrade The Parade four times - in 2017, again in 2018, by defending the decision in court in 2019 and by including it in the 2021-31 LTP. More importantly, although the current cycleway can be described as functional it will never generate the kind of uptake from the "interested but concerned" potential cyclists that it was meant to. It certainly isn't anywhere near the standard of subsequent cycleway implementations in Wellington. In my view the key issues are:
Is this even remotely good enough?
Unless whatever the council agrees to next week fully addresses these issues they will once again be letting Island Bay down and once again letting the Island Bay cycleway continue to generate negative headlines. The most likely reason for them to be tempted to prevaricate about ifs, buts and maybes once again is the sudden emergence of Island Bay as a potential destination for Mass Rapid Transit as part of Let's Get Wellington Moving. Mass Rapid Transit options are due to be released tomorrow (Monday) but it needs to be stressed that any breaking of the ground in Island Bay is likely to be many years away. Even if it was quickly agreed and planned a Mass Rapid Transit route to the south would probably be delivered in stages with the CBD to Newtown coming first. Considering The Parade Upgrade is already four years overdue waiting what could easily be another decade or so to fix the current issues would be completely unacceptable. I'm sure that won't stop a certain amount of hyper-ventilating from some of the usual climate change deniers, rates hawks and bike-bashers though. Regan. 
Here's 8 reasons to be optimistic about Wellington City Council's new Bike Network Plan
Yesterday Wellington City Council voted 14-2 to consult on their new Bike Network Plan. Only Councillors Diane Calvert and Simon Woolf voted against it (you know what to do voters in Wharangi/Onslow-Western Ward). Nicola Young voted against part of it. You can read the full council paper here. Georgina Campbell wrote this excellent analysis in the Herald and Joel McManus also wrote this great piece for Stuff. The plan looks good and results in 147km of cycleways in total. 23km of that is existing. 34km in the CBD will be delivered by Let's Get Wellington Moving. The remaining 90km will be delivered by Wellington City Council over the next 10 years. By that time most of the city will be within 500m of a bike lane. It's worth noting that 147km is still only 20% of approx 700km of roads and footpaths in Wellington. So anybody who thinks this means being 'forced' to bike anywhere can take a deep breath and sit back down. At best this is a minor dent in the status quo. You will still be able to drive and walk everywhere. 
The proposed bike network
We've seen these kind of 'cycling masterplans' before but with very little change as a result. 23km of existing bike lanes on 700km of Wellington roads (about 3%) speaks for itself. So what makes this any different? Here's 8 reasons why I think there's cause for some cautious optimism this time around. 1. There's explicit reference in the plan to WCC's new Parking Policy. It sounds boring but it's a crucial enabler that didn't previously exist. The entire Newtown Connections Project was put on hold because of the lack of a Parking Policy so it's good to see it talked about right up front here. 
2. There's also a clear connection made to the recently approved Spatial Plan. Holy smokes! Are we actually recognising the significant inter-dependencies between housing and transport? Are we really gonna talk about cycling and active transport in a context of enabling greater urban density? Hell yeah! 
3. This is a funded plan! Wellington City Council set aside $226m in their latest Long Term Plan for this. That's never been the case before. "Don't tell me what you value, show me your budget and I'll tell you what you value" etc. 
4. The draft plan identifies the streets that will be affected. That's hugely important and again, hasn't happened before. It will definitely kick off an outpouring of localised angst about loss of free on-street parking but it also creates much-needed certainty and at least gives those residents and businesses the ability to plan ahead. 
5. The plan proposes using Innovating Streets processes and temporary traffic management to deliver a transitional programme. I don't want to sound snarky but "improvements will be delivered quickly and then monitored, evaluated and adapted" is a major change in approach for WCC and they've already proved they can do it with the Brooklyn Hill cycleway. 
6. Two of those transitional projects are already identified (between Newtown and the city, and the Botanic Garden ki Paekākā and the city) and work will start this financial year! If they move as fast as they did with the Brooklyn uphill lane they could both be completed by early 2022. At this point I think I need a lie down. 
7. Consultation on the plan will happen at the same time as consultation on Lets Get Wellington Moving and the draft district plan as part of telling "an integrated story of the city’s growth and transformation". OK, so that sounds a bit buzz-wordy but wow - I think we're finally starting to see the big picture that housing and transport are interdependent and you can't really fix one without fixing the other - who would have thought? 
8. A high level traffic resolution will be used to signal to property owners and residents which streets are part of the network. This shows real intent by WCC and again, hasn't happened before. I dunno, it's like the council might actually do this. 
It gets better. Plans to finally upgrade The Parade after 4 years of waiting are imminent. Watch this space. Regan 
Kia ora tātou,
Listening to all the amazing presentations on cycleways last week was heartening. However, over the weekend I was saddened to realise that before Marianne and Lake had even had the chance to speak the words "Kids Freedom Network" council officers had already finished writing the LTP paper that you will be discussing on Thursday. 
That paper relies heavily on the results of "targeted independent research conducted in parallel with formal consultation" to steer you back in the direction of the council's preferred Option 3 for cycleways, rather than Option 4 which was the clear preference of submitters. The paper notes that "The two sources of feedback provides Councillors with a broad and balanced view of submitter and public feedback, and provides the opportunity to weigh up contrasting community opinion. This enables Councillors to consider the relative significance of survey and submission results in finalising the LTP". While at face value this appears correct there's a couple of really important points I'd like you to consider before relying too heavily on the survey results as being good evidence. First, as I pointed out when I spoke to you last Thursday, framing is everything. While I am sure that the survey methodology here is sound and that the 4.4% margin of error is reliable, the survey questions asked and the context in which they are asked will always reflect the bias, prejudices and agenda of the surveyor. In this case I strongly disagree with WCC consulting on cycleways in isolation, which means that you only consulted the public on 12% of your proposed $1bn transport capex budget for the next 10 years. Having made that choice WCC also failed to provide information in the consultation document that might be considered crucial to the public's understanding of the issue, such as:
I challenge you to imagine how the survey results may have been different if any of the above information had been included and/or the context had been urban mobility and transport shift more generally. The research survey findings are also very much at odds with the findings of a Let's Get Wellington Moving public opinion survey from 2018 (page 43) which found 50% support among Wellington City residents for "a network of cycle lanes through the central city", 25% opposition and 25% don't know/don't care. Is this survey any more accurate? Why the apparent shift in public sentiment in the meantime? I don't know, but it illustrates just how important framing and context are and how difficult it is to actually get this stuff right. As I said last week I don't believe that the way you consulted on cycleways reaches the standard required by the Local Government Act and if it is true that "the research questions were the same as those in the public submission form" then all the research has done is compound that problem. I am honestly left wondering whether this survey would have got ethics approval in an academic environment and what processes the council uses internally to sign-off on a survey like this being used. Second, council officers themselves aren't arguing that you accept the results of the research. If they were, you would be selecting Option A and just finishing started projects, but everyone at council already knows how utterly wrong-headed and unpalatable it would be to reduce funding for cycling. If you are presented with a survey outcome that claims to be 'scientific' i.e. producing a statistically valid result from a randomly selected population, then you have to either accept it or disregard it. Unlike a self-selecting survey a 'scientific' survey can't be considered indicative or 'a little bit right', it either is or it isn't. You either accept it as truly reflecting public opinion or you ignore it (you may be unhappy with the design, for example). The way that council staff use this research to make the case for another option entirely by positioning their preferred option as a compromise between what a poorly designed 'scientific' survey says and what self-selecting consultation says is totally subjective. Remember - the council's preferred Option 3 is not preferred by the research survey respondents or the consultation respondents, it has no public support. If there's anything to takeaway from the research survey it should actually be embarrassment and concern. Council has clearly not done anywhere near enough over the past decade to get public buy-in to an essential part of the response required to climate change, congestion and wider issues such as housing and public health. If anything the research justifies investing even harder and faster in cycleways rather than the half-arsed 'try and have a dollar each way' approach suggested. This is absolutely one of those situations where councillors have access to more and better information than the public and need to show leadership and good communication, rather than just allowing yourselves to be a passive conduit of what you might perceive to be (in this case, a very questionable view of) public opinion. If you've read this far thank you for your time and attention. I still believe that Option 4 is the only credible choice you can make from the cycleways options you consulted on. I was considering coming and talking about this during public participation on Thursday but I'm not going to do that, hence the email. Unfortunately, experience has taught me that by Thursday all the amendments will already be written and all the deals will have been done so there seems little point in expending any more time and energy on this. Thanks for all your mahi. Ngā mihi, Regan 
On Thursday 20 May I spoke to Wellington City Councillors about their proposed Long Term Plan. Here's what I said... Tena koutou katoa, Thanks for the opportunity to speak to you today. I want to specifically address cycleways. There's been lots of lovely, positive cycleways submissions already and I tautoko that but this isn't going to be one of them so apologies in advance. If you've had a chance to glance through my submission you'll already know I strongly disagree with you consulting on cycleways in isolation, rather than attempting a more holistic discussion about urban mobility and transport shift. I find it ridiculous that you can declare a climate emergency and also know that transport produces over 50% of Wellington's carbon emissions but the only part of your $1b transport capex budget for the next 10 years that you choose to consult on is the 12% proposed for cycleways. You put cycleways funding up for grabs while not even asking the public to consider how the vast majority of transport capital budget gets spent, which is actually where all the emissions are. However, what’s done is done and despite the natural disadvantage of not being the council's preferred option you got an absolutely clear message back from the public to spend more money on cycleways. 68% support for Option 4. So the vast majority of people who care enough to make a submission on your LTP support spending more money on cycleways. A lot has been made of the council's need for financial headroom but we know that you've also received a lot of push-back about that. I'd like you to consider that it's not just financial headroom that you need but political headroom, legal headroom, reputational headroom and that you are already way shorter of those things than you think. The legal threat to the council around climate change is real. The political threat is real. In fact, what this consultation shows is that its not the rates hawks that you should be worried about getting organised but quite the opposite. Wellington is a progressive city and if you decide to ignore the results of this consultation and go down a fiscally conservative route that we can see now has not served us well in the past then I think you can expect some blowback from that. The financial conservatism around cycleways makes no sense anyway. Your own website trumpets the fact that every dollar spent on cycleways delivers up to 20 dollars in benefits - information which might reasonably be considered very significant to the public's understanding of this issue but which you did not include in the consultation document. Wellingtonians will spend $13b on owning and running cars over the life of this long term plan and we're sitting here debating whether to spend an extra $100m over 10 yrs on cycleways, which equates to an extra $20 per annum on a $4,000 rates bill. That's 40c a week. The amount that households spend on cars is so vast - in the region of $12,000 per car per year - that any spending on cycleways only needs to reduce household transport costs by a fraction before it has paid for itself, and that's without even considering all the other benefits. Reducing the number of trips that need to be made by car is one of the biggest economic boosts a city can give its citizens. There are approximately 700km of roads in Wellington, about the same in footpaths and around 30km of cycleways, so you can also spare me the platitudes about needing to balance priorities or that Option 3 is still a great deal for cycling. It isn't. The current transport network is completely unbalanced, it's dominated entirely by dependence on the least efficient mode - the private car - and it's actually hostile towards cycling. In the past decade you've built less than 20km of new cycleways covering about 2.5% of the network. During that same time over 600 people on bikes have been injured on Wellington's roads (I was one of them). That's more than one a week. More people have been injured riding bikes in Wellington in the past 10 years than have bothered to make a submission opposing the budget in this ten year plan. Who are you going to listen to? Who are going to say "we care about you" to? I know there are some concerns about deliverability but you cannot deliver what you do not even plan to deliver and it's clear that the vast majority of people making a submission want you to at least try. Deliverability is actually just a question of priorities and you need to send a clear message both externally and internally that this is the plan and that these are the new priorities. And by the way, it's fine to note deliverability concerns and let the public respond to that, which they have, but if you're now saying that Option 4 was never going to be deliverable then you've breached the Local Government Act because if you knew that you should have said that. You set the parameters of this consultation, you put Option 4 on the table, you've heard what the public think, and now you need to deliver that. Regan
Wellington City Council's Long Term Plan consultation is an opportunity to make our city more liveable, healthy & inclusive
Public and active transport infrastructure is an investment in the common good. As part of building healthy communities and creating a stable climate, public and active transport needs to become the default way of moving people around urban environments.
Kids should be able to move around the city in fun & healthy ways
We all have different lives and different needs – getting children to school, people getting to work on time, elderly people getting around their community. No matter where we live or what our situation, all people – the elderly, disabled people, young people – should be able to move easily around our city in ways that build our health and take care of the planet. Regardless of where they live in a city, kids need to be able to move about freely in fun and healthy ways. To get on a bike, take a bus, walk, or scooter to school, their friends’ place, or sports practice across town. Good public transport, protected cycleways and walking paths can help us all move about our city independently and have fun on the way! A city that is great for everyone to live in and good for kids’ health, is one with lots of public and active transport and is easy to navigate without a car. 
WCC has only built 16 km of cycleways in the past 10 years
Wellington City Council is consulting on whether to build more cycleways in its new Long Term Plan. Building more cycleways for people riding bikes, scooters and skateboards is one of the key ways that we can give everybody more options for how they get around. Despite this, WCC has only built 16 km of cycleways in the last decade and Waka Kotahi (NZTA) says significant improvement is needed. WCC clearly need to be given the biggest push possible to build more. Please support Option 4 - Accelerated Full Programme for building more cycleways in the council's Long Term Plan consultation, which is the only option that will deliver something close to a city-wide cycling network in the next decade. The impact on rates of choosing Option 4 over the council's preferred Option 3 is actually tiny (an extra $20 a year, or 40 cents a week, on a $4k rates bill) and the payoff could be huge. Remember, the more people using active transport and public transport the easier it will be for the people who really need to use a car to get around also.
Want to see more of this? Support Option 4!
Politicians need to recognise the opportunity we have right now to build active transport infrastructure that will take us into the future. If you budget for something you still might not get it, but if you don't budget for it you definitely won't get it. We need to aim as high as possible. Submit on the Long Term Plan and then get in contact with your local councillor directly to support Option 4.
Regan. Update 4/5/21 Here's a really good LTP submission guide from Cycle Wellington and a fantastic quick submit form from Generation Zero This blog borrows heavily from The Workshop's How to Talk About Urban Mobility and Transport Shift: A Short Guide and I'd like to acknowledge their awesome mahi. 
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