We want to make it safer and easier for people in Ōtūmoetai, Matua, Brookfield, Bellevue, and Judea to cycle, catch a bus, or walk to key places, within the Ōtūmoetai Peninsula, as well as travel into the City Centre.
We need to make it safer and easier for people to get around because our city is growing. Population growth will occur across our city, but particularly on the Ōtūmoetai Peninsula, because its central location, proximity to the water, green spaces, and commercial/retail centres make it a great place to live. The Accessible Streets programme will help people on the Ōtūmoetai Peninsula to be ready for continued growth by providing sustainable and people-focused options to get around.
What is the Accessible Streets programme?
Accessible Streets is a 20-year programme designed to provide more active travel options by delivering a connected network of cycleways throughout Tauranga for people of all ages and abilities. It will also provide safer intersections, safer crossings, and speed tables in key areas to make it safer to walk and easier to catch a bus.
Read more about Accessible Streets
Why Ōtūmoetai Peninsula?
Ōtūmoetai Peninsula is identified as a priority area to deliver safe, convenient, healthy, and environmentally friendly travel choices due to its expected growth and the high number of trips that can easily be taken by foot, bus, bike, or scooter. Schools, community hubs, shops and reserves, as well as the city centre, are all within a reasonable distance for car-free travel.
What people living on the Ōtūmoetai Peninsula have already told us
Over the past five years we have asked you how you move around the city and your community. Tauranga is one of the most car-reliant cities in New Zealand, but people living in Tauranga and on the Ōtūmoetai Peninsula have told us they would choose to cycle to places such as the shops, parks, or work if they felt safer on the roads.
In 2020, people living in Brookfield, Judea, Bellevue, Ōtūmoetai and Matua told us as part of the Whakahou Taketake Vital Update survey that they valued being close to parks/ cycleways/ walkways/ reserves and wanted better road infrastructure, less congestion, and improved cycleways.
Recent feedback on the Take me to the future: Ōtūmoetai 2050 project, which will create a plan for the future of this area, showed that people on the Ōtūmoetai Peninsula would like:
- Neighbourhoods that are well connected to other neighbourhoods and connect to other centres outside of the Ōtūmoetai Peninsula
- Safer walking and cycling routes.
What does this mean for the Ōtūmoetai Peninsula?
Accessible Streets aims to deliver improvements on primary routes that provide people who live, learn, work, and play on the Ōtūmoetai Peninsula better travel choices and enable them to connect to schools and the city centre. This will include:
- 12km of new cycleways designed for all ages and abilities
- safer and more convenient road crossings at key intersections
- better access to public transport through improved pedestrian crossings
- improvements to bus stops and bus shelters
- creating neighbourhood streets in some key locations by providing traffic calming installations to minimise excessive speed and improve safety
- improved bus journey or travel times at key locations.
These improvements will enable more people to safely and confidently walk, bike or bus and reduce the number of vehicles on our roads.
Where are the primary cycling and bus routes and what are their purpose?
We have identified the primary routes that will connect the Ōtūmoetai Peninsula to Te Papa/city centre via Cameron Road at two central locations: Chapel Street and Waihi Road.
Access the Accessible Streets - Ōtūmoetai Peninsula map (213kb pdf)
What are we doing now?
We have an opportunity to seek funding from the Government to develop the Accessible Streets programme. We are working alongside our partners to develop a 'business case' to evaluate the benefits, costs, and risks of various cycleway options before we reach a final solution. Among the things we need to consider when reviewing the options are individual community needs, how it will affect local commercial/retail centres, environmental and cultural areas of importance, and how the primary routes will connect to schools and the Te Papa peninsula and city centre.
If the business case is approved, we can proceed with the next stages of the project, including detailed design and construction.
Next steps
Your feedback and ideas are important to help us develop the business case.
Over the next six months we will be reaching out to the community, including schools, community groups, businesses, and retailers in the area to get input and feedback on the options along the primary routes.
We will use this feedback to help inform the business case and the preferred option.
Keep me informed on this project
Webinar
We recently held a webinar to give people an opportunity to learn more about the project.