“Knowing that could be anyone of us. I just can’t risk it,” he said. When commuting during morning rush hour, he noticed about one in six drivers using their phones. To make matters worse, along some sections of the road the cycle lane used to travel north is only about a metre wide, he said, with just a white line on the road separating cyclists from vehicles travelling at speeds of up to 100kmh.
NZTA
An aerial view of State Highway 2 south of Lower Hutt, near where Brent Norriss died. Wilkins said immediate remedial work was needed on the highway to keep cyclists safe while the cycleway was built. That could be as simple as painting more of the cycle lane green, to alert drivers to its presence.
The Ngauranga-to-Petone shared pathway project has been fast-tracked. First published September 2019.
Nearly a year to the day after cyclist Brent Norriss was hit and killed by a car on State Highway 2 as he travelled home from Wellington to the Hutt Valley, the long-awaited $130 million shared pathway linking Petone with Ngauranga has been fast-tracked. The announcement on Friday that construction on the 5 metre-wide cycle and walkway, stretching 4.5 kilometres along the coast next to the Hutt Valley Railway Line and the highway, could begin midway through this year has been welcomed by active transport advocates. As well as making the commute between the central city and Lower Hutt easier and safer, it is hoped the cycle and walkway could draw more international tourists to the Wellington region after the Covid-19 pandemic.