We've found a link that works to the Cycleway Audit Reports. An independant review does make a difference.
We had raised with the Council the links to the audit reports didn’t work. A link that does work is now in a Council Agenda.
Please note: The first 3 photos are from the Beca report, the last 2 photos are from the Urban Connections report.
Audit Report Number One:
Beca has a 119 page document – wow is it long – and one of the first thoughts was this must have cost the ratepayer a fair bit to put together. Next thought – how many people are genuinely going to read all of this – and how many new Councillors will get through all of this before they vote on any decisions.
And actually, how useful is most of this ?
The very last appendix – pages 117 to 119 – has a Public Feedback Register (Photos 1 and 2 attached). There is no explanation of how long this information was gathered over – but it appears it may be the incidents which happened on the cycleway since it was built. The report looks like it came out in July – perhaps this is 6 months worth of data ? It may only be 3 months ?
It would be really handy if detail was put in to these long winded reports so they are more easily understood.
So, in what looks like 6 months, Beca has managed to capture 3 comments of concern about the cycleway.
We got 19 in one month ? The month before this report was signed off by Beca.
Would have to say we’re not sure how many people in New Plymouth knew they could give feedback to Beca, or how to even get hold of them. And obviously the council staff didn’t know they could pass feedback on to Beca to add to their register either.
An executive, short, summary would have been good in this extremely long report. Of the 119 pages there is a page with a conclusion. (Photo 3 attached). Quoted in the conclusion is this statement:
“The Safe System Assessment scoring shows that the construction of the walking and cycling facilities throughout the SH45 Devon Street West / South Road corridor has improved the safety
***in regard to pedestrian and cyclist movements. Simultaneously, the safe system scoring shows that the project has managed to help improve the safety for motor vehicles at intersections and ‘other’ crash types alongside the pedestrians and cyclists. ***
Notwithstanding this there are some items identified in this report that if addressed would improve overall safety.”
How can they make this statement ? They have recorded 3 pieces of feedback on their Public Feedback Register. Everything else seems to be based on consulting staff assessing their plan and rating it with some sort of safety score – and deciding that safety score means the road is safe.
Before anyone decides this dodgem track cycleway should stay as it is, there needs to be some real data captured, from real people, about how many injuries, and damage, this piece of road has caused for so many people, including cars, cyclists and pedestrians.
Link to the Beca Report:
Audit Report Number Two:
The Urban Connection audit report – a company not based in New Plymouth – was a much easier to read 20 pages long.
Just a reminder before looking at this report, the only audit of this cycleway that was planned by the NPDC was the Beca audit checking on their own work. We wrote to Gareth Green as we weren’t happy about that and we asked for an independent audit. We weren’t keen to pay for someone else to also do an audit, we would have preferred for ratepayers not to pay twice for this audit. But, this report is a very interesting read, and shows why a company should not audit their own work.
Urban Connections clearly explained what they were asked to audit – and they highlighted some other areas of concern the public have mentioned to the council, which they were asked to also look at.
They also point out in their report there were constraints on the build design. It appears the design was limited because of time restrictions to receive the NZTA funding. Compromises were made with the design to make sure funding was received before the deadline to withdraw funding.
That suggests an NPDC Transport Choices team preferred to make something happen while funding was available, and they were happy to cut some corners to get this built in time. Cutting of those corners shows up in this report.
Urban Connections have a much clearer layout of information and explanation of their findings than Beca do. They point out this was not a safety or operational review, just a design review. But they link those design faults with safety issues, which is great to see.
Liz Beck from the NPDC made the statement “generally the cycleway met what it set out to do”. Generally was a good use of a word. 18 out of 36 partial or non-compliant risks were identified by Urban Connections. 10 of these were Moderate to High Risk. (Photo 4 attached)
This “non safety” review mentioned things like the following:
- “Localised non- compliance with absolute minimum widths” – of both the road lanes and the cycleway. So, where drivers say there is not enough room to avoid Tim Tams – there is not enough room in localised parts of the road.
- “Separators are not clearly visible in poor visibility” – at night, in the rain and fog.
- “Some separator placements mean they are likely to be struck by traffic” - because of their alignment with the road.
- “The ASD (Approach Sight Distance) for drivers at pedestrian crossings is not met”. This is categorised as a high risk where drivers and pedestrians may not visually see each other in time.
Quoted from the Urban Connections Conclusion Page (Photo 5 attached):
“The design review confirms that the SH45 corridor upgrade generally meets its stated design intent and **delivers improved conditions for the **target user group** of “interested but concerned” cyclists”.**
So many people in the community keep asking why is this such a hazard to people in cars ? What were they thinking – how are vehicles (including emergency ones) meant to negotiate their way through this mess ?
It is a hazard because the target group for this long stretch of road is “interested and concerned cyclists” and the Senior Project Manager Transport Choices at the NPDC, the consulting companies and the audits are focusing on people who cycle, walk and use mobility devices, and have had little interest in anything or anyone else.
It was good to see Urban Connections also included a focus on the cars who use this route.
Link to the Urban Connections Report:
It is plain from both of these audit reports that the Councill staff, the Transport Choices division in particular, has had no interest in measuring how this project affected safety use in vehicles, a drop in business activity or profits, drops in property values, etc etc.
This was, and still is, a project to make sure the “interested and concerned cyclists” are happy people.
Multiple cyclists with broken bones and many months off work should also be in the stats for this cycleway, as they are probably not happy people either.
We hope when the Councillors vote on this cycleway next month, they:
- Ask for real injury and damage data to be captured from everyone using this stretch of road – so justification can be given to Government Ministers, and NZTA, to remove the hazards of these Tim Tams.
- Ask for the release of information about how many cyclists are ACTUALLY using the cycle lanes (as opposed to the footpaths - we are told traffic counters have been seen in the cycle lanes).
- Have a look at the detail of issues in the Urban Connections Report – which highlights real concerns – which do not meet safety standards.
A link to the Transport Choices page on the NPDC website:
Posted: Tue 25 Nov 2025