The Causeway in the suburb of Redcliffs, Christchurch

The Causeway in Redcliffs – In the 1880s, tramway companies put tram tracks across the waters at the entrance to McCormacks Bay. In the Depression of the 1930s, one of the major public works programmes was to fill in the area under the tracks and put a roadway on top

A small amount of information from the library website. This is the short stretch of road that goes across McCormacks Bay and I have always known it as The Causeway. Google maps have it as Main Road yet I have found articles as late as 2011 calling it The Causeway. I do have an AA map of Christchurch which calls it Main Road but I remember getting this map in about 2019 to help me with my street project. My original idea for my street project was to walk a street and then highlight it on the map but I obviously decided to do my street project a bit differently.

The tramway was extended to Sumner in 1888 and until that date it finished at the Heathcote Bridge. There were two parts of the tramway that were called causeways but I am only talking about the McCormacks Bay tram causeway. Not much information on Papers Past about the tramway but I do have to mention a drowning here that happened in April 1906 as the man was my great, great grandmother’s second husband.

Lots of articles in the 1930s as this is when they widened the causeway so that it could take cars. The first step was to extend the old spur that jutted out from the current road to join the causeway. They also had to get permission from the Lyttelton Harbour Board for the construction. Part of the existing tramway causeway was over bridges and McCormacks Bay had at least two outlets to the estuary. There was work for 300 men to help construct the road alongside the tramway on the seaward sea of the causeway. Note the men employed were relief workers and relief workers were unemployed men who were paid to do this work. From some of the articles that I have read it sounds like they were paid less than normal workers. There were several photos in Papers Past and they were interesting. There were two groups opposed to this road being formed. One group opposed the cost of the project. The second group were wanting to build Christchurch Port at McCormacks Bay and the Causeway was blocking access to the bay. Obviously Christchurch never got a port. The tramway Company had a quarry at McCormacks Bay and this is where they got the material to build the road. Before this road you had to drive around McCormacks Bay and in 1913 a car managed to miss the turn off and drove onto the tramlines. It was foggy conditions. Over the years several cars have managed to drive off the Causeway and into the estuary. Speed was usually the problem. In 1920 a moa bone that had been found here when the tramway was built was gifted to the museum.

In 1978 the Causeway was widened plus they added a footpath. A cycleway was considered unnecessary. It obviously now has a cycleway as it is part of the Coastal Pathway Project.

Yesterday when I walked here I ended up walking with another person and we had a great chat. She was amazed that I had caught a bus to Sumner just so that I could walk home to Addington.