On Your Bike – Queenstown Trails Trust
It’s only a short 1.5km stretch of trail connecting the ever-expanding spectacular Whakatipu cycle and walking trails but one that is vital for safe passage and a new healthy generation.
Queenstown Trails Trust has been named as one of five finalists vying for two generous $100,000 Impact100 grants this year with the winners announced at an awards gala in Queenstown this Wednesday, 25 October.
Trust CEO Mark Williams says the money’s greatly needed to build the Impact 100 link trail for residents, and in particular Wakatipu High School students, who will be able to safely cycle or walk to school once a new overbridge across State Highway 6 is built. The Waka Kotahi (NZ Transport Agency) bridge will create a safe crossing for Shotover Country, Lake Hayes Estate, Lower Shotover and Quail Rise residents, connecting them with the new trail proposed by the trust.
This will follow along disused Queenstown Lakes District Council recreation reserve on the Shotover River side of Glenda Drive Industrial Area. “If we receive this grant we have this option, once the bridge is built, to create a safe off-road trail through those reserves providing an unhindered link to a shared pathway along Hawthorne Drive via the end of Queenstown Airport runway.”
The project is estimated to cost around $400,000, with the construction alone costing $100,000 and the rest required for consent, design, and engineering costs. The grant would get the project underway and kickstart the necessary fundraising.
Williams says it’s not just a cycle and walkway link. The benefits are far reaching.
“It’s about changing the way our next generation travels around the basin, and it has widespread environmental benefits,” he says. “This will help reduce traffic congestion and carbon emissions and promote fitness and wellbeing, especially in our young people. Their health and wellbeing is a real issue. We have a whole generation who are dropped off and picked up from school every day.”
He says it’s about encouraging a big behavioural change by providing a network of trails that everyone feels are safe to use. “A big driver behind the idea is ensuring parents feel comfortable to allow their kids to bike or walk safely to school which this link trail connecting with the State Highway overbridge will do.
“This is a legacy trail and can make a massive difference. The project will have to be delayed for some time if we can’t obtain this funding as it will be quite a challenge to raise that sort of capital. It just felt like the perfect opportunity for an Impact 100 grant to create a lasting legacy for the next generation.”
In the past 14 years, the trust has fundraised for and spent more than $10 million developing more than 200kms of spectacular trails all over the basin – the Queenstown trails being one of New Zealand Cycle Trail’s 23 great rides. “We’ve had such amazing feedback. The trails are now part of the reason people choose to live here and visit – a great tourism asset, but also widely used by locals,” Williams says.
Construction is well underway on the new $6.5m,17km extension connecting Arrowtown with Arthur’s Point and Tucker Beach via a new swing bridge across the Shotover, due to open in March.
The trust is now working with the Southern Lakes Trails Trust to connect its Gibbston River Trail with Bannockburn via the Kawarau Gorge and Nevis Bluff. “People will be able to jump on a bike and cycle as far as Waihola.”
It’s also working with the Glenorchy Trails Trust to extend the trails from Sunshine Bay to 7 Mile and 12 Mile, and ultimately an off-road cycling link through to Kinloch and Mount Nicholas, joining the Around the Mountains Trail. “There are great opportunities also for walkers on the Te Araroa Trail.”
There’s also a great synergy between the trails and wonderful conservation work being done by the Whakatipu Reforestation Trust and Mana Tāhuna Trust planting and creating green native corridors along the trails.
