Draft design reveal coming up for public transport hub

Published on 05 May 2023

Lower St Hill Street 

Whanganui District Council is inviting the community to come along to the War Memorial Centre on Wednesday, 10 May for the official ‘draft design reveal’ for a new public transport hub on lower St Hill Street.

The council’s community property and places general manager, Sarah O’Hagan, says it’s an exciting milestone for the public transport hub project and everyone is welcome to come along and share their thoughts.

She says one of the key goals driving the project is supporting Whanganui’s new frequent bus, Te Ngaru The Tide, which was launched in February this year in response to the community asking for better public transport.

“Since the Tide bus was brought in we’ve seen a big jump in public transport trips – figures for March 2023 show 86% more urban public transport trips than in March 2022. This is an incredible start – in other regional cities, we’ve seen numbers usually take a while to build up. From here, we expect numbers will only increase.

"The public transport hub is a measure the council can put in place to support the development of a user-friendly public transport network in Whanganui.”

She says the public transport hub will benefit local people and we’re fortunate to have central government funding for 90% of it, through Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency.

As with Whanganui’s other Streets for People project on Guyton Street, the St Hill Street project has been guided by direct community engagement.

“One of the key criteria for this central government funding was for us to work directly with our community to develop the concepts – and we’ve taken that very seriously,” O’Hagan says.

“Over the course of four community co-design workshops, we’ve been able to hear a range of excellent ideas and gain a good sense of community priorities.”

Key themes that have emerged include a desire for the public transport hub to be safe, functional and accessible to everyone – and to feature design and art elements that reflect Whanganui’s unique identity. The community has also asked for less concrete, more colour and more greenery in the surrounding area.

O’Hagan says this is a chance to “get information straight from the horse’s mouth. We’ll be providing a visual presentation of the concepts and a full rundown of all the proposed design features. We’ll also have members of our project team on hand to answer any questions or concerns people might have.”

She emphasised the ‘reveal’ is still just for the draft design concept – so changes will still be possible, depending on community feedback.

“As with the Guyton Street design reveal workshop, this is very much about asking ‘have we got this right?’ So there will certainly still be an opportunity for tweaks before we present final designs.”

The St Hill Street public transport hub draft design reveal workshops are taking place at 1.00pm and 5.30pm on Wednesday, 10 May at Whanganui War Memorial Centre’s Pioneer Room.

For more information, email streetsforpeople@whanganui.govt.nz