Christchurch get around · Get around Christchurch
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Get around Christchurch
Get around Christchurch
Christchurch is mostly flat, so many people get around on bicycles. Special-purpose bicycle lanes have been recently added to many streets to help promote cycling.
Navigation by car or bicycle is generally simple due to the grid layout, but watch out for one-way streets and bus-and-taxi-only intersections in the central city. Parking in the city uses a pay and display system and costs $2.60/ hour. You can pay with coins, credit card (Visa, MasterCard or Amex) or with a mobile phone text message (the latter two attract a 50c surcharge) then display the ticket with the expiry time visible on the curbside dash.
Renting a car is recommended for ease of transport, although there are public bus services covering the whole city (and the areas of interest for a visitor that may lie outside the central city, such as Sumner and New Brighton Beaches, Lyttelton, Gondola, etc). However in some areas buses may be infrequent, particularly on the weekends when there may only be one or two buses per hour.
The bus service has been greatly improved in recent years. Buses interconnect through the enclosed airport-style Bus Exchange on the corner of Colombo and Lichfield Streets. A standard bus fare is $2.90 cash or $2.20 ($4.20 maximum charge per day, $10 minimum initial purchase) with a MetroCard smart card. There is also a free diesel-electric yellow Shuttle that orbits the inner-city area every ten minutes, but often it can be quicker to walk such short distances. It passes two malls and three supermarkets.
The restored Christchurch Tramway (ticket $12.50, valid for two days) also runs in a smaller loop around the inner city, 9AM-9PM summer, 9AM-6PM winter.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Christchurch
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Christchurch - updated Apr 2024
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Christchurch Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.