Wellington City Council has come up with a shortlist of 11 design options for streets in the Eastern suburbs that will go forward for formal consultation from November 13. Councillor Sarah Free said to mediate the loss of public parking, the council would look at increasing parking in other streets in the East.

Hundreds of carparks could be lost in Wellington's eastern suburbs as the city council firms up design options for the latest tranche of cycleways.

The council is looking at 11 designs for new cycleways in the Eastern suburbs, with up to 225 carparks on the chopping block if the council's preferred options were chosen.

Wellington City Councillor Sarah Free, who leads the cycling portfolio, said the eastern suburbs had seen a steady growth in cycling in the past year and she was confident in the design options going out for public consultation next month.

SUPPLIED Evans Bay option A had the most community support.The two-way seaward-side bike path is separated from the traffic lane and the footpath. About 130 parking spaces could be lost.

But, she warned there would be "hard decisions" to be made and parking was always going to be "contentious".

READ MORE:

* Public get to have their say on eastern city cycleways

* Residents caution Island Bay cycleway repeat as council eyes Oriental Pde

* Shouting erupts as Wellington City Council approves new Island Bay cycleway design

* Government to spend $330m on 41 new cycleways across the country

The Evans Bay route, running along Evans Bay Pde from Carlton Gore Rd on Oriental Pde to Cobham Drive in Kilbirnie, could be one of the biggest parking casualties with the potential loss of 130 spaces.

SUPPLIED Crawford Road proposed design would give better protection for people on bikes. About 43 parking spaces would be removed from west side of the road.

Keeping the existing level of parking in some streets was not possible, but ways to minimise the impact would be looked at in the detailed design process and could involve adding parking in nearby streets, Free said.

"Trying to maintain sufficient residents parking in places such as Crawford Rd is a high priority. No one is pretending this will be easy ... [cycling uptake] in other cities such as Christchurch and Auckland tells us this will be worth it."

The council had learned lessons from the Island Bay cycleway debacle, so in an effort to ensure the community had been consulted thoroughly it asked for feedback on the eastern suburb designs in September and received 918 separate pieces of feedback from 580 people.

SUPPLIED Wellington City Council's proposed new Eastern cycleway designs will be part of a network of routes for the city.

An initial tranche of 24 streets had been narrowed down to 11 that could be progressed within the Urban Cycleways Programme funding, which was available until mid-2019.

A month of formal consultation on the preferred options would start on November 13.

"There will obviously be challenges that we will want to work though with the community – we want the cycleways to look good and work well," Free said.

"The type of bike lane must be appropriate for the type of street. So what we are proposing does vary, depending on the volume and speed of traffic. We also have to ensure that all of the bike-lane designs will work together between streets to create connected biking corridors."

Other routes in Miramar and Kilbirnie, and Evans Bay Pde south of Greta Point to Cobham Drive, were unlikely to be progressed until 2019-2020 at the earliest.

Councillors would make a decision in November on the proposal for a two-way bike path through Miramar cutting and traffic lights at the Tauhinu Road intersection, which would be the next project off the rank, she said.

Work on Oriental Pde was delayed after meetings with residents, she said.

Oriental Pde was narrow near the boatsheds and there was conflict between cyclists and pedestrians on that part, she said.

The council was looking at putting a cycleway on the other side of the street that would have a minimum impact on parking.

City council network improvement planning manager Paul Barker said he hoped the network would be in front of councillors for approval before February or March, so construction could begin in the middle of next year.

The designs would be quick and easy to implement and were chosen because they would provide a good system and and encourage new riders, which was an objective of the new network, he said.

The eastern cycleways represent about $17 million total investment, with about a third coming from Wellington ratepayers and the rest from central government.

Eastern cycleway projects being further developed ahead of more consultation on November 13:

Evans Bay Parade (phase 1) – Carlton Gore Rd to north of NIWA/Greta Point – two-way seaward-side bike path separated from the footpath and the traffic lane.

Evans Bay Parade – Rongotai Road to Cobham Drive – kerbside bike lane on both sides of the road, parking on both sides.

Rongotai Road – Onepu Road to Salek Street – kerbside bike lane (between the kerb and parked cars) on both sides, parking on both sides.

Coutts Street – Te Whiti Street to the airport subway – kerbside bike lane on both sides of the road, parking on both sides.

Yule Street – Rongotai Road to Endeavour Street – traffic-side bike lane (between parked cars and moving traffic) on both sides of the road, parking retained on both sides.

Te Whiti Street – Coutts Street to Rongotai Road – traffic-side bike lane on both sides of the road, parking retained on both sides.

Tirangi Road – Coutts Street to Leonie Gill Pathway – kerbside bike lane on both sides of the road, parking removed on this short section.

Crawford Road – sharrow markings on downhill traffic lane, kerbside uphill bike lane, parking one side only.

Constable Street (Alexandra Road to Coromandel Street) – kerbside bike lane uphill, downhill sharrow markings, parking removed on one side.

Wilson Street (two-way sections) – Coromandel Street to Daniell Street – sharrow markings on both traffic lanes.

Wilson Street (one-way section) – Daniell Street to Riddiford Street – sharrow markings in traffic lane and contra-flow bike lane on one side only, parking removed one side.