{"id":487261,"date":"2026-02-18T05:19:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T05:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/487261\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T05:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T05:19:10","slug":"cyclists-thigh-deep-in-water-days-after-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/487261\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyclists thigh-deep in water days after rain"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The Petone railway underpass on a nearly-new $70 million cycleway is thigh-deep in water more than two days after the storm and heavy rain in Wellington.<\/p>\n

Surprised cyclists on Wednesday morning entered the 30m-long tunnel under the main Hutt Valley rail line with just their tyres underwater, but ended up with it most of the way up their bike frames – and very wet legs and shoes.<\/p>\n

“Holy crap,” said one, “it’s quite deep.”<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\nAlan rode through on his electric bike.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Phil Pennington\n<\/p>\n

Another, commuter Alan, who went through on his electric bike, submerging the motor and part of the battery, told RNZ he hoped it would not be ruined.<\/p>\n

Alan said he had no idea the tunnel was flooded – there were no warning signs either on Wednesday or Tuesday at the well-used underpass, though the water could be spotted from above.<\/p>\n

“I was like OK, sweet, I’ll be fine then … I was like holy s***, holy s***, holy s***,” said Alan, laughing.<\/p>\n

He then sobered a little. “I hope that didn’t damage my motor,” he said, “I hope it’s going to be fine.”<\/p>\n

His jeans were still dry – he’d put his legs up on the bike’s top bar and the motor carried him through.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\nOne cyclist laughed as he rode through the floodwaters.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Phil Pennington\n<\/p>\n

The cycleway’s two rail underpasses were a particularly expensive part of the 3km path that blew out its budget by almost three times. It will be linked up later this year with the $300m-plus harbour cycleway-cum-seawall through to Ngauranga.<\/p>\n

The northern underpass, near Normandale bridge, was dry on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

At the Petone underpass, a cyclist heading north got off and turned around.<\/p>\n

“It’s brand new,” he said. He had been through the water on Tuesday but expected by Wednesday it would be dry.<\/p>\n

“Probably should do a better job than that but I’m sure there’s plenty of people got a lot worse than this.”<\/p>\n

Also on Wednesday, political parties were arguing over the latest plan to fix the country’s failing or missing infrastructure<\/a>, which contained a damning assessment of the shortfall – and recommended less-than-forecast spending on transport.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Phil Pennington\n<\/p>\n

The Transport Agency Waka Kotahi fronted the Petone-to-Normandale cycleway build with a little bit of local funding from about 2019-2023.<\/p>\n

But it said maintenance was the responsibility of Hutt City Council.<\/p>\n

“They are better placed to comment on frequency of flooding there.”<\/p>\n

However, the city council told RNZ to ask Wellington Water about the drainage issues.<\/p>\n

Wellington Water is in a crisis over Moa Point’s massive infrastructure failure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“This was a significant weather event, affecting infrastructure across the city and in areas where we have not seen impacts before,” the council said in a brief statement on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

“There is a big clean up happening given the storm damage.<\/p>\n

“Council and contractors are focused on prioritising public safety and critical infrastructure.”<\/p>\n

Wellington Water said the issue was a multi-agency dependency, with it managing the stormwater culvert, the council managing Korokoro Stream and NZTA responsible for the State Highway.<\/p>\n

“When the Korokoro Stream flow nears full capacity during significant rainfall, this reduces the ability of the stormwater culvert to drain run-off from the State Highway into the Korokoro Stream.’<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Phil Pennington\n<\/p>\n

At the underpass, a biker who had made it through the water from the south, heading north, told another heading the other way into the city: “I wouldn’t put your bike through it.”<\/p>\n

“Thanks,” came the reply, “we’ve gone this far. We might as well finish it off.”<\/p>\n

The second woman cyclist was, like most of the other riders, pretty chill about it.<\/p>\n

“I wasn’t expecting this, that’s for sure,” she said, “but you know, it’s a hot day, so it’s quite refreshing.”<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Phil Pennington\n<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero, a daily newsletter<\/a> curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Petone railway underpass on a nearly-new $70 million cycleway is thigh-deep in water more than two days…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,1590,63,1589,784,44,1591,1588,1586,1587,85],"class_list":["post-487261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-audio","tag-australia","tag-current-affairs","tag-cycling","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}