Comments for Wellington.scoop.co.nz

Comment on So many changes, so many promises by Driver

Driver — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:57:35 +0000

Faster buses? That was the promise when they re-opened Manners Mall. It never happened. The buses have had to slow down.

Comment on On the same page, with the same words – John Morrison echoes Kevin Lavery by John Clarke

John Clarke — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:31:44 +0000

John Morrison obviously doesn’t have an original thought in his head if he needs to “borrow” speeches from other people.

Comment on Agency admits Basin flyover will have “significant impact,” plans landscaping by Paula Warren

Paula Warren — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:52:52 +0000

NZTA are promising new cycle and walking facilities.
These are the same people who are refusing to use the existing second tunnel (a service tunnel) to fix the problem for cyclists and walkers now.
These are the same people who took away safe pedestrian access from Korokoro to Petone foreshore, after promising locals it would stay.
The same people who refused to allow safe access between the Indoor Sports Centre and the coastal walking/cycling route along the harbour edge because apparently you can’t have traffic lights on state highways.
The same people who didn’t want to agree to do anything major to fix the unsafe cycling/walking route between Petone and Ngauranga, despite deaths and public demand.
The same people who wouldn’t agree to any mitigation for cycling and walking impacts for the TGM project, and whose experts said that a shared cycleway/walkway beside a major highway that is only 50cm wide at its narrowest was adequate provision.
Why am I so suspicious about all these promises?

Comment on Celia Wade-Brown wants “action” on new rapid bus system and new buses by Paula Warren

Paula Warren — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:45:50 +0000

Celia is right to want good public transport and good urban design. But sadly the real flaw in the spine study is that the proposed solution won’t deliver that. Not because they chose BRT. But because…
.They decided to continue to have too many vehicles going through the centre, instead of doing network reform to cut vehicle numbers.
.They then decided to solve that problem by having two spines and forcing Wellington north buses into a busy street away from Lambton Quay.
.They decided to treat the spine as just a Wellington south commuter route, when every user knows that it’s relevant to all the bus routes that go through the CBD – Eastbourne, Upper Hutt, Karori, Johnsonville, etc. So integration disappears.
.They decided to put the part of the spine that goes to Kilbirnie through a busy road full of cars, without bus priority, and through an area where there aren’t large numbers of bus users. When we have a perfectly good bus tunnel that takes buses through suburbs full of people wanting to take buses.
.They decided that light rail and buses couldn’t use the same route, because NZTA continues to treat the same risk differently depending on what sort of vehicle passengers are sitting on. That added $330m to the cost of light rail on its own.

Comment on So many changes, so many promises by Paula Warren

Paula Warren — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:33:55 +0000

I was on the reference group for the spine study, but what I was given last night shocked and amazed me. To summarise – the early work by the consultants was good, but the later design work is fatally flawed. Wrong network design, wrong route to Kilbirnie, unequal treatment of vehicle types for no good reason, and flawed benefit analysis. If we do what they say, most bus users will have a worse system, and the problem they were supposed to be fixing (unreliable bus services) will instead by made unfixable. So the conclusions should be thrown out. Instead, we should get on with the network improvements that GW didn’t quite do in the bus review, and the bus priority work needed in the Golden Mile, and have another think about vehicles when that has been done.

I’ve looked closely at a number of the Wellington RONS projects, and they are simply dumb. They have so few economic benefits that for every dollar you spend you lose money – 20c lost for Transmission Gully, 80c lost for Kapiti expressway. And that’s NZTA’s figures with a very generous analytical framework. And they will collectively destroy our ability to implement the regional land transport strategy and fill the city’s streets with cars that just add to the congestion people think they will fix. Roads don’t fix traffic – they create traffic. And ruin the urban (and rural) environment.

And in the meantime valuable transport projects languish because all the money is going into RONS. For example the agencies have apparently decided that all improvements of walking and cycling around the harbour are too hard and expensive. And local authority road maintenance budgets are being cut by NZTA.

Comment on So many changes, so many promises by Elaine Hampton

Elaine Hampton — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 05:47:58 +0000

Promises, promises or terrifying threats
One has to decide if one is inside or outside the asylum.
Money we do not have is being thrown around with such abandon, as if we had no other priorities, like child poverty, education under stress, homelessness, carbon at 400 ppm.
These flyovers, ridiculously short 8 lane roads, and second tunnels will be as much use when finished as the Overseas Terminal was at completion. And will leave the future generations with massive debt. And will leave no money for secondary roads and public transport.

Comment on Twice as fast from Kilbirnie to the station; spine study wants rapid buses, not trams by Brent Efford

Brent Efford — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 05:43:05 +0000

The PTSS terms of reference implicitly denied the need to extend the rail network through the CBD – the “given” of every other study considering “light rail” to date – and is using a ridiculous two-route cost-bloated model to assess light rail. It is obvious that the study team has no first-hand knowledge of light rail, and has fallen for the road lobby’s spin that there is no difference in passenger attraction and productivity between bus and rail. There is no reference to urban design or development considerations, such as the City Council’s Growth Spine strategy which is a perfect fit with a light rail route from Johnsonville to Kilbirnie.
There is also zero consideration of the interchange with heavy rail at Wellington Railway Station – though it adds 10 minutes to the average PT trip down the broken spine connecting 75% of the region’s c 500,000 people with their CBD (and hospital, and airport). Overcoming time penalties like that is justification for $billions of road spending but not worth it for PT users, it seems.
If a tram-train model of light rail was used, extending suburban rail services, as envisaged in the 1990s, it could have been extended incrementally in stages of around $100M, delivering big benefits for every stage. The first stage, extending services to Courtenay Place, could well have cost less ($70M was estimated in 1995, and Christchurch has since established cheaper cost parameters for street tram track construction. Christchurch cost $10M per double track km. Double that for contingencies and you still only get $20M), and would have delivered downtown access and development benefits like those envisaged for the Auckland underground rail loop – at about 10% of the cost.

Comment on New candidate for Onslow-Western ward offers ‘fresh thoughts’ by Hayley Robinson

Hayley Robinson — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 05:31:41 +0000

I like the indirect influence concept Sridhar; I would dearly love to have the Mall upgraded, though with care taken not to interrupt the businesses that currently occupy it. At the risk of lowering the conversational tone, it could use some real basics, like bathroom facilities.

Comment on New three-level pavilion at Basin will block flyover from cricket ground by JC

JC — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 05:03:53 +0000

Nora – there is info here on noise: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/basin-bridge/docs/designing-the-basin-bridge.pdf

Actually looks like most of the Basin will be quieter, with a couple of pockets where the noise may be marginally higher (7 db). Fumes should be less of an issue than they are now, given that there will be a smaller distance to travel (i.e. rather than having cars backed up right the way around the Basin and directly in front of both schools).

Comment on So many changes, so many promises by Lee

Lee — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:15:13 +0000

Really disappointing that the Basin Reserve Trustees aren’t fighting against the damage done by the proposed flyover. Sure new facilities and earthquake repairs to the Museum grandstand are necessary, but why give up to this awful proposal? Cricket fans would have been happy to work for fundraising if given the chance.