Wellington Scoop and Transport
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A trip to the Empire above Pae Kawakawa
- Wellington Scoop
- Last Sunday my family found ourselves unexpectedly home early from a class noho marae. So we ended up doing a cycling trip to the Empire Cinema in Island Bay to see Encanto Reo Māori. Because the cycleway connection in Berhampore is only half built, we took a short-cut from our home in Berhampore to get to the Parade. The kids were very keen, as they always are, to get their “bikes on the road.” These streets from Adelaide Road in Berhampore to the Parade in Island Bay, Tapu te Ranga, are another group of city streets built above waterways. The Pae Kawakawa stream starts near Macalister Park and runs along these roads with feeder streams in Mornington and Southgate as well.
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Island Bay, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand/Aotearoa (OpenStreetMap)
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Why we need MRT
- Wellington Scoop
- At a time of close scrutiny of the LGWM programme, with some Wellington city councillors calling for it to be abandoned and an opposition party ready to scrap it if they win power, it is time to reflect on just why we need Mass Rapid Transport and what the consequences for our region will be if this doesn’t go ahead.
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How LGWM should be fixing the traffic – now
- Wellington Scoop
- If LGWM truly wanted to get traffic moving faster, it could start work tomorrow. For those of you (like me) with elephantine memories, the Basin Flyover Inquiry identified a number of things that could be done – and SHOULD be done – and a number of things that must NEVER be done.
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Priority: reliable buses
- Wellington Scoop
- The Regional Council has today given me the job of Transport Chair. My top priority is a reliable bus service and, to achieve that, I’ll have a laser-like focus on building up the driver workforce. I also want to make sure our transport network is accessible and affordable to everyone. At the same time as we fix these immediate problems, we also need to prepare Wellington for the future. I’ll be working to accelerate delivery of mass transit through the city so that as Wellington grows we can all get around smoothly, safely and in clean, low emission way
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Good things take (a long) time
- Wellington Scoop
- When the idea of the Great Harbour Way was first proposed almost twenty years ago, it acknowledged that the gap between Petone and Ngauranga was the most dangerous and challenging section of the route to be shared by a cycleway and a walkway.
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Getting rid of traffic
- Wellington Scoop
- Last week’s cautious city council move towards keeping traffic out of more of Cuba Street, and converting part of Dixon Street for pedestrians, should be welcomed by almost everyone, except for the few who still think that customers only arrive in cars. Councillors voted 11-3 to limit private vehicle access on Cuba Street between Ghuznee Street and Vivian Street, and on Dixon Street between Taranaki Street and Victoria Street.
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Cuba Street, Te Aro, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6011, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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1500 days in Island Bay
- Wellington Scoop
- Last Friday was 1,500 days since the Wellington City Council voted 13-1 to upgrade The Parade in Island Bay. So why hasn’t the work started? Here’s a rundown of everything that’s happened (or not happened) in the four years since then.
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Island Bay, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, New Zealand/Aotearoa (OpenStreetMap)
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Upgrading the Basin, but slowly
- Wellington Scoop
- One thing seems certain from this week’s LGWM announcement – there won’t be a flyover alongside the Basin Reserve. Undergrounding – to separate the two streams of traffic and create lots of new green open space – is on offer in three of the four options. The fourth option (surely no one wants it) is to leave the unpopular roundabout as is.
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Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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No decisions, but 4 more options
- Wellington Scoop
- LGWM is continuing its indecisiveness for a sixth year, with four transport options to be announced next week. According to the NZ Herald, all the options include a new Mt Victoria Tunnel, and three of the options include grade separation at the Basin Reserve.
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Basin Reserve, Dufferin Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Fighting the takeover of the golf course
- Wellington Scoop
- Wellington Airport’s plan to take over the golf course became known almost two years ago. An airport master plan announced in October 2019 said the terminal would be doubled in size, with “taxiway improvements” for which it wanted to buy the the southern portion of the Miramar Golf Course to provide space for additional aircraft stands, taxiways and aprons.
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Miramar Golf Course, Airport Bus Stop Walkway, Rongotai, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6242, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Six storeys in the suburbs
- Wellington Scoop
- Light Rail is the second option being put forward by Let’s Get Wellington Moving for mass transit. While it is better than bendy buses, it has diverged alarmingly from what was supported by all tiers of government in 2019. Most concerning is the thinking around the route.
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Rethinking the airport barrier
- Wellington Scoop
- Despite being surrounded by high hills, Wellington is fortunate to have an international airport that is under 10km from its CBD, with flight approaches over Cook Strait to the south and just missing the Newland hills to the north. The drawback is the runway which forms a major physical barrier over 2km long between the city and the airport terminal and the growing population of over 20,000 residents who live east of the airport on Miramar Peninsula.
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Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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No light at the end of this tunnel
- Wellington Scoop
- If you’ve been wondering why LGWM seems to be continually distracted instead of making decisions to get us moving – yesterday’s news of recommendations in a (leaked) report would have confirmed your suspicions.
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Why the Cobham Drive crossing deserves support
- Wellington Scoop
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Cobham Drive, Kilbirnie, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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How to cross the road?
- Wellington Scoop
- What’s the best way for a pedestrian or a cyclist to cross four lanes of traffic on Cobham Drive? After some years of indecision, the people at LGWM this week came up with the answer.
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Cobham Drive, Kilbirnie, Wellington, Wellington City, Wellington, 6021, New Zealand (OpenStreetMap)
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Being grateful for cycleways
- Wellington Scoop
- The last decade has seen a fierce debate about the role of cycleways in our city’s overall transport infrastructure. Those opposed present them as a luxury for a small number of people at high cost while inconveniencing others. Those supportive point out the potential cycle mode share (over 50% in some overseas cities) and the huge improvements this level of cycling can make in health, our city’s liveability, and climate change.
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Ignoring two votes for a shared path
- Wellington Scoop
- Sometimes, out of the blue, a thought pops out of nowhere. Early in April, it occurred to me we hadn’t seen any progress on one of the Innovative Streets projects supported by the Wellington City Council – the one between Shelly Bay and Scorching Bay.
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LGWM: doomed to failure?
- Wellington Scoop
- Like many of us, I’ve spent the better part of my career in Wellington working in and around the public sector. As the years and the experience accumulate, it gets easier to see the patterns of behaviour of agencies and organisations and politicians – their ways of operating, if you will. And one of those ways of operating means that Let’s Get Wellington Moving is likely doomed to failure.
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LGWM’s anti-rail bias
- Wellington Scoop
- Let’s Get Wellington Moving has recently received a lot of criticism – apparently it’s spending $4million per month, enough to lay 100m of double track through town or purchase half a light rail vehicle (LRV). In my humble opinion, the criticism foisted on them is not scathing enough.
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- trains
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Another bustastrophe
- Wellington Scoop
- Public transport is an essential public service. I am with the bus drivers. We, the public, are fed up with another bustastrophe. Bus drivers are essential workers who deserve to be treated well. They need priority recognition, fair and decent work conditions. Who of us can hang around waiting for a ‘job’ in a part time, split shift way, never quite knowing whether we will be home for tea, or working all weekend, or into the night, or whether our pay rate will be a decent one when we go the extra mile? That is not fair and will never make for a reliable service or sufficient numbers of drivers. What is more, we pay rates, taxes and fares so that we can have a reliable non polluting bus system. But we just do not have that.
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