New Zealand's cycleway designs are "over the top", according to Christchurch City councillor Aaron Keown.
Speaking to Breakfast this morning, Keown said there should be money injected into something that benefits all road users.
"Investing in cycleways is a great investment if they're in the right place and designed for all road users, not just for the cyclists.
"The overspending is not a great investment, in fact the amount we're spending has gone way out of whack, we were meant to spend $67 million in Christchurch to deliver all of our cycleways and do it in five years.
"It's taken twice as long, we're halfway there and spent six times as much."
He said overseas cities have much better systems and Kiwi cyclists would be happy to ride on the road instead of building cycle lanes.
"Our cycleways are over the top, we're spending way too much money and that's not the best way to get people on bikes and if you're spending money to save the planet, you're wasting it currently doing it that way, there's much better ways we could be saving the planet."
Keown also said a large issue in Aotearoa is the constant message to people that cycling is dangerous.
"Cycling is not dangerous, cycling is fun and cycling is cool but what is dangerous is overengineering cycleways, making roads more dangerous for all users and congesting traffic."
He said when two lane road are cut down into one to accommodate cycle lanes it increases travel time and in turn, carbon footprints.
"That's unacceptable, when there's only a number of people that are too scared to ride on the road, once you have more people cycling motorists will be more used to seeing cyclists so it makes a safer environment.
"We need to spend the money on getting people cycling not necessarily just building hard infrastructure."
But also speaking to Breakfast this morning, Patrick Morgan from the Cycling Action Network said biking projects are "absolutely" good value for money.
"Biking projects are the best bang for buck in transport, they deliver far more benefits than costs, so that's why smart cities are investing in cycling and micro-mobility lanes."
He said there's been a 40% increase in cyclists over the past six to seven years, and a lot of them are female.
"This is not about building cycle lanes for fearless confident men who like riding bikes, the major cycleways in Christchurch have seen a big increase in diversity, 40% of people using them are women."
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