The Impact of the Cycleway on Businesses

Rotorua District Residents and Ratepayers’ Research Report, v. 6 December 2015

Background

The Cycleway is an Inner City Revitalisation Portfolio project that reportedly cost $442,000, although when the costs of art works are included, the actual total price could rise to about $529,000. As its name implies, its purpose is to help revitalise the central business district (CBD).

The Cycleway was opened by the Mayor as the ‘Green Corridor’ on 8 October 2015. The RDRR conducted research eight weeks later to clarify the impact of the Cycleway on businesses.

Method

Four teams of two researchers were briefed on open-ended interview methods. They interviewed the owners/ managers of premises on both sides of the Cycleway between Ranolf and Fenton streets on the morning of Wednesday 2 December 2015.

Respondents were asked ‘What impact has the Cycleway had on your business?’ Probes were used to clarify ‘impacts’. The 67 respondents were all keen to share their views. They were guaranteed confidentiality and gave informed consent.

Of the 112 premises visited, 31 (28%) were empty, 7 were closed and 7 owners/ managers chose not to participate. Identifiers on the response sheets were detached and stored separately from the recorded feedback section to render the data untraceable.

Analysis and Findings

Construct analysis was used to classify respondents’ perceptions. To identify the most commonly-held concerns, the number of businesses that commented on each type of impact was counted and percentages calculated. To measure the intensity of perceptions, the frequency of references to each type of impact was then counted and percentages of all references calculated. The findings follow overleaf in Table 1.

Table 1: Perceptions of the Impact of the Cycleway on Businesses by Owners/ Managers on 2 December 2015 (n = 67).

Interpretation

Table 1 shows that 64 of the 67 respondents (95.5 per cent) believe that the Cycleway has made no improvement to, or had a negative impact on, their business in the first two months of its operation. Most of those who reported ‘no improvement’ were destination outlets providing mandatory services (e.g. travel agencies, dentist and medical services, hairdressers, etc.) and have dedicated staff car parks. This finding suggests strongly that expenditure on the Cycleway is seen by respondents as being irrelevant to or as contradicting the purpose of the Council’s Inner City Revitalisation Portfolio.

Three respondents (4.5 per cent) remain positive about the impact of Cycleway, two of them arguing that it is too early to judge its value. The other 64, however, remain indifferent through to being openly hostile to the Cycleway and do not expect it to help revitalise businesses along the cycleway route.

There are three relatively common sources of disaffection with the Cycleway; the effects of reduced parking, not fit for purpose and the creation of health and safety hazards.

Conclusions

The findings are a snap shot taken two months into the operation of the Cycleway using one type of data (perceptions) from one source (business owners/ managers). With about a third of premises on the Cycleway empty, the vast majority of business owners/ managers regard the Cycleway as a wasteful use of ratepayers’ money because it made no improvement to their businesses or had negative effects.

The Inner City Revitalisation Portfolio and Council might reasonably conclude that there is an urgent need to restore parking facilities, mitigate the hazards they are perceived to have created, and reconsider the consultant-recommended Foreshore route. Such actions might help alleviate the three more moderate sources of disaffection; the waste of rates, reductions in business activity and deteriorating behaviour, and three more minor sources of concern; business disruption, adversely affecting the elderly and the need for more bike stands.

The general and provisional conclusion is that the Inner City Revitalisation Portfolio and Council were seriously mistaken in their view that the Cycleway would have a positive impact on businesses in the CBD and now have the information they need to correct their mistake.

ENDS

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