People will be able to bike or walk from Devonport to St Heliers via the proposed SkyPath, crossing the water under a new tube-like structure suspended beneath the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Opponents of a cycleway over Auckland's Harbour Bridge have compared cyclists to pilgrims killed in a stampede at Mecca as they claimed the project could be dangerously overcrowded.

The controversial claim was made in a video posted by the Northcote Residents Association that also referenced the Pike River mine disaster as a similar example of "faulty safety planning".

SkyPath project director Bevan Woodward said arguments that there could be over-crowding or stampedes were false and had been refuted by multiple transport, engineering and safety experts.

SUPPLIED The design of the SkyPath that could be built as early as the end of 2017.

He said there were safeguards in place to prevent any possibility of a dangerous level of patronage and that the issue had been addressed "during the very thorough resource consenting process last year".

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However, the video argued there could be "human crushes" on the SkyPath cycleway and at suburbs at either end of the Harbour Bridge.

SIMON MAUDE/FAIRFAX NZ Skypath head Bevan Woodward said there was no danger of 'overcrowding' and 'human crushes', and that critics were peddling false information.

It was included on the group's Givealittle page raising money for legal fees to contest SkyPath's resource consent.

The appeal has so far drawn $560 from six donors. Two are from residents association members, three are anonymous and one is from someone named 'John'.

The $33 million pathway has been proposed as a user-pays public private partnership that could be built as early as the end of 2017, Woodward said.

SkyPath has been granted resource consent by Auckland Council but was awaiting the green light from the Environment Court, where critics have brought a long-running legal challenge.

The residents association has led the charge and insisted that SkyPath would impose "wide-ranging detriment" to residents who live near the proposed exit and entry points.

A voice-over on the video posted by the association said last year's Auckland Bike the Bridge event showed how much noise and disruption a crowd of 3000 cyclists could make.

And that would be repeated "virtually every daylight hour, every summer day once SkyPath is built".

"Five thousand movements an hour on summer days is madness," according to the video.

"The roads and access in Northcote Point were not designed to handle these numbers just as the roads in Mecca were not designed to handle this year's Hajj."

But despite the concerns raised over crowds, the association's page goes on to suggest "SkyPath's real patronage is highly unlikely to better the Pink Pathway's (on the old Nelson St offramp)".

The page described SkyPath as an unpopular "white elephant" and said it "could never hope to be better than a mediocre tourism attraction, by comparison with its competitors."

Northcote Residents Association spokesman Kevin Clarke was asked about the group's position but said he would not comment on the record.

The Environment Court will review further evidence on SkyPath on August 8.