The $1.7 million Island Bay cycleway and new road lay out was only completed three months ago, but part of it has now been dug up.
It is not due to the strong opposition to the cycle way from members of the Island Bay community, it is because the council is resealing the road. It plans to put it all back again afterwards. The cycle way spans 1.7 kilometres of The Parade, from Wakefield Park to Shorland Park by the sea. It sits between the kerb and parked cars to keep cyclists safer, but many locals have complained that this has made the road more dangerous, as cars are now parked right against a busy road.
Island Bay Parade re-sealing May 2016 Photo: supplied
Southern Ward councillor, Paul Eagle says it is a debacle and a total waste of money to dig up the road just a month before a safety audit into the cycle way is to be completed, and if there were concerns about the road the resealing should have been done while the new road layout was being done earlier in the year.
However, Councillor Andy Foster has rejected some of the claims made by Paul Eagle. Councillor Foster says the whole road is not being ‘dug up’ – the central section of the roadway is being rotomilled and then resealed, as is normal practice. A section of approx. 250 metres, between Avon and Tamar streets, is being resurfaced. The total length of the cycleway is almost 2 kilometres.
He says this is because the road surface is breaking up in places and is becoming dangerously slick in other places. The resurfacing was not originally intended to be done until reviews on the layout, safety and performance of the new Island Bay cycleway had been completed – however there are concerns the surface will break up over winter. Cr Foster says the council is aiming to get in and do the work before temperatures drop too much for the effective laying of asphalt.
And he says Cr Eagle is wrong when he claims solvents were used to remove paint from the surface, this is done via waterblasting.
