On Monday, the Government announced it had set aside $9 million for seven cycleways, including one between Kingston and Walter Peak Station, in Southland.
A spokeswoman for Prime Minister John Key's office said the proposal was one of 35 it had received and was put up by a "cluster" of mayors from Southland, Queenstown Lakes, Central Otago, Invercargill, Clutha and Gore.
The Dunedin council has not yet put up any cycleway proposal and has also not yet been told what sort of proposal the Government requires.
Transportation planning manager Don Hill said the Government had been made aware of the council's round-the-harbour cycleway and the "tunnels" cycleway that would link Caversham and Wingatui.
"We haven't actually put up any real thing because we are waiting for them to come up with how they want the proposals."
Asked why it was that some councils had had projects approved while the Dunedin council had still to present its proposal, Mr Hill said: "We were constantly looking at the website for how do you apply and things like this and all of a sudden they said, well we're not ready for applications yet."
A spokeswoman for Mr Key confirmed it was not seeking applications until September although it has already received 28 proposals, in addition to the seven approved.
The three proposals received from the South are for the Roxburgh to Lawrence cycleway, a Gibbston valley cycleway, near Queenstown, and the Kingston to Bluff cycleway.
She said the seven approved were labelled "quick start" projects "because we wanted something on the table very quickly to show that we are making progress.
"That's why we have identified those seven because they look like, once we do engineering work on them, they will be viable and it looks like we will be able to get them under construction very, very quickly."
Parts of Dunedin's round-the-harbour project, estimated to cost $40 million, are already complete, under construction or awaiting New Zealand Transport Agency funding.
Infrastructure services committee chairman Andrew Noone was surprised projects had been approved "even though the actual formal process hasn't started."
Asked if the council had been "slow to act", Cr Noone said he did not think so.
"It doesn't exclude us from being able to make an application in the future. I don't see that it's disadvantaged us at this point."
Southland Mayor Frana Cardno said her region had put up a proposal containing various cycleway options and the Government had chosen the Kingston one because of its proximity to Queenstown and because much of the land was already owned by Government departments.
