Submission to the TDC Walking and Cycling Strateg
On behalf of the Bike Taupo Advocacy Group I would like to support the Taupo District Council Walking and Cycling Strategy.
We would also like to support the submission from Cycle Action Waikato, with the suggested improvements and additions to the strategy, in order to clarify the strategy to a wider audience and emphasise it’s key points.
Our key points in this submission are:
1. Active Transport Manager
For this strategy and it’s implementation plan to work the council needs to introduce the position of an “Active Transport Manager”.
We strongly believe only a role like this will see the stated vision become a reality. The existing networks of well over 100km of off-road biking and walking tracks in the district, needs to be complemented by a connected network of tracks within the urban environment. This task is outside the scope of volunteers and combines existing roles of urban planning, traffic engineering, parks and reserve management and community safety.
With increasing development in our District, new Government initiatives like the National Cycle way, and increasing demand for active transport, we need a dedicated person to have this vision as a top priority and not as an afterthought.
2. Funding Priorities and Completion Dates
There are far too many items in this 2009 strategy, which were already identified as top priority in 2001 and 2006.
We recommend the Taupo District Council to allocate funding for all the high priority items on the implementation plan and assign realistic and agreeable completion dates to them.
The top two benefits of achieving Objective 1 (To develop and maintain a safe, accessible, attractive and connected network …) as a priority would be:
- Tourism and Economy – Maintaining and increasing a satisfying experience for visitors to the Taupo region.
- Safer Community – providing active transport on a safe and accessible network iimproves the liveability of our community by increasing economic activity, improving safety, public health and personal security.
3. Transparency and Public Input
Due to the structure of the 2009 Strategy, where the Implementation Plan is a dynamic document, resulting out of the Strategies’ Action Plan, we would recommend the following:
- Publish the Implementation Plan on the Council Website, with Funding allocations and completion dates
- Review the above on a quarterly basis and encourage feedback from the public, through easy links on the public website
- Assign the task of supervising the Implementation of the Strategy to the new role of “Active Transport manager”
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