KEY POINTS:
Auckland City's transport leader intends pressing ahead today towards a decision on cycling and walking links across the harbour bridge, despite calls on him to hold off.
Ken Baguley, chairman of the city's transport committee, yesterday denied a claim by Cycle Action Auckland that his council was "anti-cycling and walking" but said the public needed to be confident of gaining value for money.
The committee is this morning due to receive a recommendation from council staff that it not support a cycleway and walkway across the bridge, following a consultants' report which prices various options at between $23.8 million and $42.7 million.
Cycle Action chairman Bevan Woodward has appealed to Mr Baguley to delay consideration of the report, which the consultants have prepared for five project partners including three councils and the government's Transport Agency.
Mr Woodward alleged the report had yet be completed or peer reviewed, so any decision in the meantime would indicate "bias, predetermination and failure to fully and fairly consider all relevant material".
"Should Auckland City Council's Transport Committee proceed with such a decision, we will be considering a more formal and legal redress," he said in an email to Mr Baguley.
He could not be reached for clarification, but independent project manager Richard Hancy denied that the report was incomplete. Although it had yet to be peer reviewed or printed in final form, he said all the necessary technical work had been completed.
Auckland City will be the first of the five project partners to consider the consultants' report, which ranks the $43.8 million option involving a 1.2m extension to the bridge's two clip-ons as the most preferable. That would give cyclists and pedestrians 3m of room on each side while leaving traffic with lanes of 3.4m and 3.1m.
But a report by city staff says even the cheapest option would chew through almost a year of the Government's national funding allowance for cycling, and the money would be better spent on cycling and walking facilities elsewhere in Auckland.
Auckland Regional Council is not due to consider the report until next week, but looks likely to support cycling and pedestrian links on the bridge, which its transport chairwoman Christine Rose believes will be so popular they will require "crowd control".
She says the region is lagging behind a goal in its transport strategy of allocating 4 per cent of transport spending over a decade to "travel demand management" measures such as walking and cycling infrastructure.
Supporters of a bridge cycleway and walkway among Herald readers outnumbered opponents by 75 to 20 in emails received by the newspaper yesterday.
Although the cost was of concern to some, others said the project was needed to rectify a serious omission when the bridge was built 49 years ago, and pointed to health and tourism benefits as well as a need to offer commuters a fuel-free alternative.
