Wellington’s bike lane buildout is at risk. We can do something.

If you care about Wellington taking climate action, you have to tell our city councillors ahead of a vote on Thursday.

On Friday last week, Wellington City Council released a range of recommendations to slow rates increases. At the moment, the median rates bill will go up by $12 a week. Councillors don’t want rates increasing that much, so they’ve proposed cuts to reduce the median rates increase to $7 a week.

Unfortunately, those small savings will be achieved by cutting climate action.

Even the proposal to cut the council’s climate action team budget by 40% isn’t enough. The team’s budget is 0.43% of the Council’s operating budget. Add on cuts to the fund that makes walking to school safer, it still isn’t enough to save $5 a week for homeowners.

To save a weekly cup of coffee’s worth of rate increases, Council officers recommend pausing the construction of new bike lanes indefinitely. 

Councillors could have chosen to cut car lane budgets instead of climate projects (for example by pedestrianising places like Cuba St or only allowing resident vehicles on low traffic streets). They chose not to.

I asked Deputy Mayor Ben McNulty why they didn’t. He explained to me that “there was a principle that any existing infrastructure being renewed and/or maintained should not be in scope.” 

This choice has a pernicious consequence.

It means that anything already built had its budget protected. That’s a noble principle, but most of the stuff that’s already built in transport is for private petrol cars. With this principle, high pollution infrastructure keeps high funding, and budget cuts almost exclusively hit new, unbuilt, low pollution infrastructure. 

By definition, the only things that could be cancelled with this mindset are projects that change the status quo.

Labour councillors, who promised climate action, must now decide whether a tiny savings for homeowners is worth risking action on climate change.

Punished for good performance

The bike lane programme has been really encouraging so far. Thousands more people are safely travelling to school, work, and to meet friends on a bike. Many more women and children are biking now.

I’m pretty sure our bike lane programme is one of Wellington’s only infrastructure projects that’s come in under budget. It’s incredibly cheap to build.

With more lanes, Wellington can be the cycling capital of Oceania – and free its people from rising petrol costs.

Yet… the project is up for budget cuts. Again.

Last financial year, the Council chose to keep shares in the airport and pay for it by slashing $64m from the bike lane buildout. Council officers are recommending building three connections in the centre of town, then pausing all further bike lanes indefinitely.

This programme is one of the best chances we have to make serious pollution cuts – while saving people money on petrol, insurance, maintenance and car loans.

Any councillor who talked big game about climate change needs to keep this effective infrastructure project going.

The promise which must be kept

Labour candidates were clear to me about their stance on climate change. Every single Labour councillor told me when they were seeking election that:

The climate crisis demands urgent action and should be at the centre of all council decisions.

Labour candidates committed to keep investing in bike lanes. In their election manifesto, they promised to:

Continue investment in developing safe, connected walking and cycling networks, alongside communities to ensure design that is sensitive to the local environment and fit for purpose.

While on the campaign trail, Andrew Little strongly associated himself with Jacinda Ardern’s decision to pass a Zero Carbon Act on climate change.

When Little won the mayoralty, he said this (bolding my own):

We are proudly the capital city, but we more than just the seat of government — but a capital of ideas, of innovation, of climate action, of culture, and of conscience.

He expressed a desire to encourage Wellington to be:

A city that cares – about people’s safety and livelihoods, about the climate, about Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and leaving no one behind.

Andrew Little has a clear mandate to keep investing in bike lanes. Because he explicitly committed to doing so. 

But we can’t count on the Labour councillors to keep the bike lanes. We must hold them to account.

Labour councillors have already voted to delay bus and bike improvements to Courtenay Place. The Mayor also floated letting cars back onto the Kent Terrace bus lane the other week? Now, Labour councillors recommended slashing the climate action team’s budget.

That’s not what people voted for.

Take action before Thursday

Democracy isn’t limited to election day. I got councillors on the record before they were elected so we can hold them to account. That time has come. 

If we want climate action in Wellington City, we must email our local councillors demanding it. Tell them how much it matters to you.

A lot of us want Wellington City Council to continue taking action when central Government is filled with climate deniers. We need that leadership. It’s what Wellingtonians expect.

Use my template and write to our city councillors. Do it by Wednesday. It’s early days for this Council. We must show them that we mean business – climate action is not up for debate. 

Councillors vote on Thursday. We can push them to drop this plan. Every message matters.