Waikaraka Cycleway

The Waikaraka Cycleway is an off-road cycleway in the south of Auckland City, New Zealand, running from the Wesley suburb in southern Auckland City along New Zealand State Highway 20 to Onehunga and then continuing along the shoreline of the Manukau Harbour (Mangere Inlet) beside mostly industrialised areas until it ends at Pikes Point, near Southdown.

The initial construction of the cycleway was plagued by cost blow-outs, as the cost-estimates did not sufficiently allow for a number of extra factors during construction, such as remedial work around contaminated land, and the need to construct the path to a long-lasting quality on worse ground than initially expected, and above an underground gas pipeline route.

Originally running only currently 4 km from Onehunga, near the Mangere Bridge to Pikes Point, the cycleway was extended in 2008 along the Southwestern Motorway (State Highway 20) as far as the motorway's western end. As of early 2010 this extension of the link currently still had gaps near Onehunga and the Mt Roskill cone, which were completed closed as works on the Mangere Bridge duplication and the Mt Roskill park facilities proceeded, with this latter gap finished in July 2010.

The Mt Roskill gap was particularly late in being closed, due to sensitive issues regarding building a motorway and the associated cycleway across the side of a protected environment that is also important to local Maori. An agreement was finally reached that narrowed the cycleway locally (but avoided proposals which would have created long detours around the south of the mountain) and included significant new landscaping, as well as Maori carvings such as a winged sculptural gate across the path.

NZ Transport Agency has also improved linkages to the cycleway near Mangere Bridge, including with a new overbridge over Onehunga Harbour Road and works on the causeway / Old Mangere Bridge link to the Mangere Bridge suburb to the south.

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