Ōmokoroa to Tauranga Cycleway

Cyclists between Ōmokoroa and Tauranga had little choice but to share the State Highway 2 corridor. The 19-kilometre Ōmokoroa to Tauranga Cycleway, part of the wider Waihī to Maketu trail, gives them a safe, off-highway alternative, a shared path of new and existing sections stitched together along the northern Bay of Plenty.

Nineteen kilometres across that landscape meant several bridges, the largest the Wairoa River crossing that links the Western Bay of Plenty and Tauranga City, and a stretch of about a kilometre running inside KiwiRail's rail corridor, where the path passes under the railway.

RCP was project manager for the Western Bay of Plenty District Council across the roughly thirteen-million-dollar project, advising on and managing design and construction, contract administration, procurement and programming, and holding a consistent standard across its many stages and stakeholders.

The rail corridor was the trickiest stretch: building on KiwiRail land meant managing the communication, consents and approvals to get there, and keeping cyclists safe where the path ducks under the tracks. RCP worked with the design consultants to lift the standard, developing protective screens to a far higher specification than earlier cycleways had used, setting a new benchmark for cycleway rail underpasses. Completed in March 2020, it gave the growing northern Bay of Plenty a genuine, safe cycling link between Ōmokoroa and Tauranga.