Te Ara ki Uta ki Tai
Te Ara ki Uta ki Tai (), also known as the Glen Innes to Tāmaki Drive shared path, is a shared pathway connecting the suburbs of Ōrākei and Glen Innes in Auckland, New Zealand. It runs through the Pourewa Valley and the Eastern Transport Corridor, and for most of its length is adjacent to the North Island Main Trunk railway line. History Proposed motorway A strategy study in 2002 stated a need for a new motorway to be built in the corridor (as had been planned decades before) for a variety of reasons, including the need to make suburban streets safer and less polluted. In March 2004, Auckland City Mayor John Banks proposed a motorway scheme through Hobson Bay. There was substantial community and political resistance to the scheme, largely due to the cost of the proposal (equivalent to four years of the entire country's transport funding budget) and the impact it would have on a number of established neighbourhoods, as well as areas like Tāmaki Drive, the Parnell Baths and several environmentally sensitive areas. Even after revised designs, the impacts were still high, and with costs rising (with a worst case estimate of NZ$3.9 billion), the corridor was fast becoming a political boondoggle. The Auckland City Council transport and urban linkages committee decided on 10 December 2004 to scrap the planned motorway component in favour of improved public transport and increased capacity on existing local roads. Shared path In June 2014, Auckland Transport and Waka Kotahi announced plans for a shared pathway between Mechanics Bay and Glen Innes, to be completed in 5 stages, as part of their proposed Auckland Cycling Network. The pathway would be a 'Metro-style' path, providing total segregation from traffic along off-road routes. Stakeholder engagement was set to begin immediately, with construction starting in early 2015 and projected to be finished by 2019 at the latest. By November of the same year, Auckland Transport had released more details of the project. The pathway construction was now projected to cost around $30 million, would stop at Tāmaki Drive, not Mechanics Bay, and would be constructed in 4 sections, down from 5, between 2015 and 2018. The proposed route would have the path run from Glen Innes railway station, through Apirana Reserve to St Johns Rd, before entering the Pourewa Valley. Here, it would cross to the southern side of the tracks near Purewa Cemetery, and run as such until Ōrākei Rd, where it would cross one final time, before running along the northern side of the tracks across Hobson Bay and connecting to Tāmaki Drive. An alternative route for Stage 4, between Ōrākei Rd and Tāmaki Drive, was to cross the Pourewa Creek and run adjacent to Ngāpipi Rd. Section 1, between Merton Rd in Glen Innes and St Johns Rd, began construction in October 2015; at the time, the whole pathway was projected to be finished by late 2018. Section 1 was opened to the public on 9 December 2016, slightly later than its original