The evidence behind Cambridge Connections - moving to consultation

Waipā District Council is calling for the community to look at the evidence behind Cambridge Connections, its 30-year transport plan for Cambridge, before the draft plan is prepared for consultation in October.

The technical evidence, including the Strategic Transport Network Review, was endorsed at today’s Strategic Planning and Policy Committee meeting.

It looks at how Cambridge’s transport network operates now, and how it could work in future, and forms part of the technical input to the development of the draft transport plan.

Committee chair, Deputy Mayor Jo Davies-Colley, said the next six weeks were an important stage of the project.

“This is what the community asked Council to do – make the evidence available, be transparent about the work and give people an opportunity to have their say before decisions are made.

“We are putting the evidence out there so people can see it and tell us what they think. This is about making sure the draft plan is informed by the evidence and by the people who live, work and travel in Cambridge.

“From the beginning, it was always our goal to bring the community along with us as the project progressed."

Growth strategy and planning director Katie Mayes said the review includes maps showing the broad areas where potential future river crossing corridors have been assessed and modelled. No corridor has been chosen.

Victoria Bridge is at capacity and the work showed there were two broad pathways for managing future demand – building a new bridge or maximising the capacity of existing bridges.

“At this stage, a new bridge option is expected to cost between $100 million and $200 million in today’s dollars,” Mayes said.

“That is a significant investment and affordability will be a key factor in what happens next.

“There is also a clear designation pathway that would need to be followed before a new bridge could be built, and that would take a number of years. So, this is about planning ahead, not making a decision on where a bridge should go today.”

Landowners and occupiers in the vicinity of the areas being assessed for a future river crossing were contacted directly the week before the material was published.

“The areas shown on the maps are broad assessment areas. They are not proposed road alignments. The work places no restriction on any property and does not appear on a Land Information Memorandum,” Mayes said.

The technical work will also be reviewed by the project’s Community Reference Group, whose members challenged parts of the assessment. Changes were made as a result, including how traffic volumes are presented and the addition of current congestion information alongside the 2055 forecasts.

A preferred future bridge corridor is expected to be considered for the first time when the draft Transport Plan is presented to the committee on Wednesday, October 7.

Formal public consultation on the draft plan is expected to begin the following week with the final plan due to be considered for adoption on Wednesday, December 2.

All the technical material, including a plain-language guide to reading the maps, is available at letstalk.waipadc.govt.nz/cambridge-connections.