KEY POINTS:
A suggested cost per user of adding a cycle lane to Auckland Harbour Bridge has been vastly inflated, campaigners say.
North Shore City Council's infrastructure chairman, Ken McKay, has suggested that the project would cost $500,000 for every cyclist who used the lane.
However, Bevan Woodward, the Cycle Action Group's spokesman, said yesterday that the figure was based on 750 riders a day and excluded pedestrians and future growth in the number of cyclists.
He estimated that 1000 to 10,000 pedestrians would use the bridge each day, while cycling numbers were estimated to reach 3000 a day. Those figures, he said, would bring the cost nearer to $77,000 a cyclist.
NZ Transport Agency regional manager Tommy Parker told a North Shore council meeting that adding 1.2m-wide lanes to the base of the bridge would cost $43 million.
Council staff estimated the connections to the base of the bridge would cost $15 million.
Cycle Action said lanes could be linked with North Shore streets more simply and for less cost than that.
Mr Woodward said the Transport Agency was being emotive in claiming the weight of the lanes would have an impact on the life of the bridge's clip-on extensions.
"The key issue is when the safe load capacity is reached and how soon restrictions on heavy traffic will need to be introduced," he said.
"The Transport Agency has told me that will happen at some point, in 10 years' time, anyway."
