Queenstown residents will be encouraged to ditch their cars for buses, bikes or a pair of walking shoes.
Otago regional councillors agreed to endorse a mode shift plan for the Queenstown Lakes district, with emphasis on the Wakatipu Basin, during its full council meeting yesterday — despite bus patronage numbers taking a hit due to the pandemic.
It follows the release of a national mode shift plan last September which included a strategy to develop similar plans in high growth urban areas such as Queenstown Lakes.
The Queenstown Lakes plan, called "better ways to go", was created by the NZ Transport Agency with input from the regional council and Queenstown Lakes District Council.
It aims to deliver social, environmental and economic benefits in a three-pronged approach.
"Shaping urban form" was the first of those approaches, and would involve the council amending its regional policy statement to boost the district council’s spatial plan, which is a guiding document for matters such as, housing, land use, transport, walking and cycling, social infrastructure, open space and business.
The second approach was to make shared and active modes of transport more attractive by upgrading infrastructure, including the Frankton and Queenstown Town Centre bus hubs, improvements to the bus service, and carrying out the water ferry trial on Lake Wakatipu.
Finally, the plan asked the council to influence travel demand and transport choices.
That would include improving the passenger information system so that it could be accessed on mobile devices, as well as focusing on marketing and promotion.
The plan also noted that the effects of Covid-19 meant it was not expected that previous growth in bus patronage would return within three to five years, which was reiterated by representatives from the transport agency during the meeting.
Crs Alexa Forbes and Michael Deaker said they found the plan "very interesting".
Cr Deaker wanted to know what status the plan would need to be given when the council reviewed its regional public transport plan in the next few months.
"Do we have to put this right up there in lights? Do we simply regard it as an adjacent document? Or is it something that we have to help the implementation of?"
A transport agency spokesman said the answer to all three of those questions was yes, and that the role of the plan was to provide "signals" during the development of the regional transport land plan.
Cr Marian Hobbs thought it was a "brilliant" report.
The mode shift plan, which is not a statutory document, was moved by Cr Hilary Calvert and seconded by Cr Kate Wilson.
All councillors agreed.
