Papakura Greenways – help the Local Board plan ahead

Papakura Greenways – help the Local Board plan ahead

Bike Auckland

Do you live in the Papakura Local Board area, or ride through it? If so, you’ll want to add your voice to this current consultation on future greenways. The Local Board is seeking your thoughts on connections through parks, along waterways, in fact, anywhere you think a link would make your biking life easier.

Greenways are a ‘joined up’ network of cycling, walking and ecological routes through parks and quiet low traffic streets intended to provide safe and enjoyable ways for people to get around,  get active, and get engaged with the community and their environment.

They are supported by environmental improvements, such as planting and water quality upgrades.

Here’s some very thorough background information on all kinds of potential routes. As the document points out, there are challenges – especially with the motorway (and main railway trunk line) which run right through the middle of the area; speedy roads on the rural fringe, and unwelcoming industrial areas.

But there’s also plenty to work with: the area is mostly flat, with plenty of quiet streets and open space, and has the advantage of plenty of coastline, much of which is in Council ownership (it’d be nice to ride around the whole Pahurehure inlet and link up with the Wattle Downs cycleway, for example).

There’s also a lot of upcoming development, which gives the opportunity to plan in advance; and strong community groups to help reclaim space at a human scale.

Also, a fresh citywide Greenways design guide on the way in a few months. This will provide a more standardised (and, we hope, more courageous) toolbox; it’ll also clarify how on-road sections of greenway can be achieved, to enlarge the local network of bikeable streets and destinations. So any feedback you contribute now will be all the more worthwhile.

Here’s a draft network map for consideration. And here’s the online feedback form

Feedback closes Sunday 7 August 2016.

Header image: Wattle Downs Cycleway, not far away – something to link into? 

Aspirational images of Greenways - from the consultation document.
Aspirational images of many approaches of Greenways – from the consultation document.

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Bike Auckland is the non-profit organisation working to improve things for people on bikes. We’re a people-powered movement for a better region. We speak up for you – and the more of us there are, the stronger our voice!

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