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Transport Agency misleading public over height of Waikanae interchange, say campaigners
Comment from Save Kapiti
NZTA regional director Jenny Chetwynd and Alliance project manager Jim Bentley should resign if plans showing a 9.0-9.5 metre (3 storey) high interchange at Te Moana Road, Waikanae are in any way correct, says Save Kapiti spokesperson Jonathan Gradwell.
That would make it the tallest built structure in the Waikanae township and a major blight on the landscape. It will be bigger and more visible than the McKays crossing intersection, heavily lit up at night and will transmit traffic noise from a great height over most of the region.
An NZTA notice board at the site of the proposed interchange states “The Expressway will cross over Te Moana Road at a height of approximately 6-7m above the road surface”.
However NZTA’s latest working plans show an increase in height of 2.5-3.5m over and above this figure. To this must be added the 4.25m height of passing trucks with approximately 7m of lighting.
“NZTA are deliberately misleading the public and must come clean as to what is really being planned behind closed doors…both here and at the corresponding Kapiti Road intersection in Paraparaumu. The whole exercise shows the folly of building a road over unstable wetlands and streams barely 3.0 meters above sea level” Mr Gradwell says
He believes NZTA’s attempts at “softselling” the Kapiti project have been deliberate and are aimed at minimising the public’s perception of just how incredibly massive this project really is.
“It’s a monster, a northern hemisphere autobahn, completely out of scale with both what the community needs and people’s perceptions of what New Zealand is about.”
There are no buildings this high in Waikanae, and precious few in Paraparaumu! I’ve always thought we were being lied to by NZTA and their arms-length puppets in the so-called Alliance, and now we have proof. What else have they lied to us about? And how can the Council possibly support such an egregious breach of the Long Term Community Plan?
Well, resign is a bit extreme … how about calling for them to completely review the plans and the design to give Kapiti a road that suits Kapiti, not for all the other outside vested interests in a highway of high flyovers for high flyers? And then how about asking the people of Kapiti what road where and how, rather than deciding it then holding dubious consultations to find out who can be rolled.
Highway Occupants’ Group.
I had a look at the pdf available from the NZTA website. The road looks great, and we should be thankful that finally we going to be getting these good roads. The roads are first world and a great improvement to the current SH1 death trap.
The savekapiti minority group are now clutching at straws. Of course certain parts of the road needs to be high.. Trucks and buses need to get under there.. “Heavily lit up at night”? Funny you say that because I do not see any mention or illustrations of street lighting?
I say bring it on. Better roads is what we need and the reason why the majority of people in Kapiti voted for National.
Well, Casper, the point of the article is really that NZTA aren’t telling us the truth, with regard to the road. You’ll also note that those PDFs say they are concept designs and without any mitigation. Certainly, those drawings do not show an interchange that is anything like 9 metres at the road surface. They are designed to make people feel that it won’t be imposing at all. It will. And I don’t think there are any vehicles on NZ roads the height of a 3-storey building
Alliance staff stated at the expos that the interchanges would be well lit (it would be unsafe if they weren’t) and other documents show the lighting beginning just before the off/on ramps on either side of Te Moana Road.
SH1 is also not a “death trap” – according to NZTA’s latest safety reports, accidents in the Kapiti area are less than half the national average. That’s another myth you seem to have taken on faith.
We do need *appropriate* roading and another bridge. We don’t need an autobahn.
The cliche ‘first world’ has being bandied about recently. There is nothing first world about 1950s motorways and a dependence on the unsustainable, taxpayer-subsidised road transport industry for whom this road is being built.
If you want first world, then lets have some 21st Century planning to give us projects with long term benefits to the whole country.
If we must have more roads, then it is worth noting that in the ‘First World’ there has for some time been an acknowledgment that modifying existing roads is much more cost effective than creating new ones.
It’s not good practice to put motorways through the middle of residential areas. It doesn’t meet urban planning standards. That’s why NZTA Board didn’t approve this route originally (NZTA Board meeting July 2009). And to make it worse they didn’t share that information with us when they put this route back on the table. South of here they are moving the motorway away from Porirua, Mana, Plimmerton, Pukerua Bay & Paekakariki. I just don’t get why they insist on putting it through the heart of our community, when there are other options (build a local road for locals to use & upgrade SH1 for trucks).
@ Mark Harris, I ride the current death trap each and every day into wellington. The amount of near misses I see on a daily bases amazes me. Death Trap it is. And using a “National Average” as a measurement is not good enough. Most NZ National roads are all third world. We need to up the standard.
@ Dave Foster, you are missing one important fact. Kapiti has never had decent roads, so upgrading something we have never had is not an option. In other countries good roads were built in the 50s and there is no need to now build more, just continual upgrading and resurfacing. We need to first get our roads up to first world standard. After that there will be no upgrades needed for the next 50 odd years Just upgrading the current death trap is not worth the time and effort.
@ Casper – New Zealand’s vehicle crash rate has very little to do with roads, and everything to do with the fact that we are such terrible drivers. We kill ourselves on the roads at 150% the rate of Australia and 200% the rate of England, yet their roads are much more crowded and in no better condition than ours.
Standing on a street corner for ten minutes watching the traffic is highly entertaining. You’ll see the people talking on their cellphones, the idiots who refuse to put on a seatbelt, the woman applying lipstick in the rear view mirror, the unrestrained kids, the red light running … it’s a litany of moronic behavior, generally in badly-maintained old cars. That’s the real reason these idiots kill themselves and others on the roads.
The solution is to stop handing out drivers licenses willy-nilly to anyone who can spell their name correctly. In other words, the solution to your so-called “Death Trap” is better driving skills and some personal responsibility from the people in charge of the badly-driven cars, not more roads.
@John Clarke – Looks like you too have been brainwashed by the anti expressway brigade.
SH1/Paekakariki Hill Road – Death trap #1
SH1/Poplar Avenue (Raumati South) – Death trap #2
SH1/Leinster Ave (Raumati South) – Death Trap #3
SH1/Raumati Rd (Raumati) – Death Trap #4
What about all the other dangerous intersections on the way, Amohia Street, Otaihanga/SH1 Roads to name a few. Further north of Waikanae even more dangerous roads.
While I agree with your theory on NZ having terrible drivers, having terrible drivers on bad roads is a bigger disaster. Most of the crashes on the current SH1 death trap would be prevented if there was easy on/off access to the current SH1. Instead you have a situation where every motorist has to chance death no matter what sort of driver they are just to get into the traffic. SH1/Paekakariki Hill Road, Raumati and Otaihanga roads are all prime examples. And I have had a near miss at these intersections with over 15 years of driving experience.