Nelson Street Cycleway


The Nelson Street Cycleway is a cycleway in Auckland, New Zealand. The most famous part of the path is where State Highway 1 and 16 cross - this is the section that is called Lightpath - plus the first three street blocks of Nelson Street up to Victoria Street West.
Unique features of the old offramp are the hot-pink colour of its surface, and its LED mood lighting system that constantly changes; the latter feature inspired the Māori name.

Route

The chosen route starts at Upper Queen Street, linking there with the Northwestern Cycleway that has been extended to descend into Grafton Gully via the Symonds Street Cemetery. Turning off Upper Queen Street into Canada Street, a new bridge connects to the old Nelson Street off-ramp. The motorway infrastructure links into the urban road network at traffic lights at Union Street. From here, a protected cycleway runs along the left side of Nelson Street for three blocks, crossing Cook Street and Wellesley Street West at traffic lights. The route currently finishes at Victoria Street West, where the facility crosses the signalised intersection diagonally to the north-east quadrant.

History

In 2005, the motorway off-ramp that made a connection from the CMJ to Auckland's Nelson Street was closed and replaced with an upgraded ramp. The old Nelson Street off-ramp was difficult to reach for drivers coming from the Northwestern Motorway, as they had to weave to the right within the CMJ. The new Nelson Street off-ramp was opened on 3 July 2005 and allowed for the principle of keeping left when leaving the motorway.
The concept of using the old off-ramp as a cycleway appears to first arise in the Central Motorway Junction Walking and Cycling Masterplan 2012 by the NZTA. Max Robitzsch, a transport engineer and member of Bike Auckland, is credited with helping turn this idea into reality, inspired by New York's High Line. In May 2014, he organised a walking tour on the off-ramp for members of Cycle Action Auckland and the Auckland Transport Blog, and followed up with a blog post in which he proposed to link the off-ramp to the road network south of the city centre via a ramp build from scaffolding with Karangahape Road. In a follow-up meeting with Transport Agency staff, the idea found their support.
When the National government announced a NZ$100 million package for cycling infrastructure in August 2014 during the campaign for the, the Nelson Street Cycleway was added to the list of projects in January 2015 by the Minister of Transport, Simon Bridges. The partners in this project were the NZ Transport Agency, Auckland Transport, and Auckland Council. GHD and Novare Design were the designers of the Lighpath with Monk Mackenzie Architects responsible for the urban and architectural design components.

Canada Street bridge

A bridge weighing connects Canada Street to the former off-ramp. The bridge, designed by Novare Design was built in a workshop in Hamilton in eight sections and transported to Pukekohe for corrosion protection and painting. The southbound motorway lanes were closed overnight on seven occasions between 20 August and 10 September 2015 for preparations and to lift the bridge sections into place.

Opening of stage 1

In a video released by the NZ Transport Agency before the opening of stage 1 of the project, the Nelson Street Cycleway was called "New Zealand's most ambitious piece of cycling infrastructure". The project was opened 3 December 2015by Ernst Zöllner, transport minister Bridges, Chris Darby, and Barbara Cuthbert.

Stage 2

Stage 2 opened in December 2017 and extends along Nelson Street from Victoria Street West to Fanshaw Street, and then a short section down Market Place until Pakenham Street East intersection.

Stage 3

There is a proposal to install a bi-directional cycleway on Market Place, Customs Street West and then the western side of Lower Hobson Street; completing the city centre loop. Consultations were held in late 2017.

Usage

After less than a year, path usage was at approximately 750 per day.

Awards

The project have won several awards or been finalists in award competitions:

For Lightpath section (or overall project)