$84k for bike rack that is barely used
There are cyclists, keen cyclists, then there is Richard Martin, but even he is aghast at Wellington City Council spending $84,000 on a bike rack that is barely used.
The bike rack in question is beside Freyberg Pool in Oriental Bay. Martin took photos of the rack twice a day, for five days last week.
Six times there were no bikes, three times there was one, and once – and this was the most he had ever seen – there were two.
Martin describes himself as a “biker of old”. Until a decade ago he was riding about 300km a week and now regularly takes 30km rides around Miramar Peninsula.
But it was the unnecessary cost that irked him at a time Wellington pipes were falling apart. Last summer, Wellington was under strict water restrictions and faced the chance of water outages with excessive leaks in the system of ageing pipes blamed.
“We need grown-ups in the council,” he said. He filed a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request with the council and found out the two-tiered, covered rack and associated works cost $84,208.
The rack was monitored for six weeks from mid-April and found the weekly average was 2.7 bikes using it. But council street transformation project manager Guillaume Bennani said the weather at the time was “wet and cold”.
Another bike count was planned over summer months, he said.
“It is to note the count data records an average of three bikes per week parked in other bike racks in front of the pool. This is to be expected as the bike box is meant to be used as additional capacity for busy days.”
New signage was being installed to tell people the bike rack was there as it may be underutilised “as members of public may have not realised it is there or unsure of its purpose”, Bennani said.
Alex Dyer, from Cycle Wellington, said every summer there were people talking about the number of bikes in the area locked to handrails.
He understood the bike rack could be moved if it wasn’t getting enough use.