buzzandhum

Doing proper justice to reasons to oppose the bypass would be writing my thesis on the topic. Also, there are so many facets to the argument that it is hard to cover it without knowing what your 'bent' is (ie, what are the main issues that concern you - economic, social, environmental, safety...?)

The organisation pushing for the bypass are Transit New Zealand. They essentially the government-funded road-builders.

The plans to build the bypass (initially a motorway) were developed in the 1950s and 60s. It was meant to be the ultimate extension of the Porirua/Upper Hutt --> Wellington motorway. Transport thinking at the time was very limited, immature and ill-informed, ie, the private motorcar leads to prosperity. Many of the people pushing for the bypass/motorway, including Transit, still think this way, and that is why they favour the idea. The thinking behind the motorway was developed in an era before congestion was understood, ie,

Making it easier for people to drive cars by creating bigger, longer, wider and faster roads leads to improved ease of driving and simultaneously, decreased ease of pedestrianism and cycling leads to increase in car users leads to congestion leads to perceived need for bigger, longer, wider and faster roads. This theory is called induced traffic.

This is to say that the only benefit of the bypass could possibly be short-term. Transit admit this. They say that the bypass will have to be replaced with another bigger road in less than 30 years.

The bypass is estimated to cost a minimum of $25 million. This raises the question, is it needed? How could this money be better spent on something that will improve transport in the Wellington region in the long term, such as improved rail and bus connections? Wellington's public transport infrastructure hasn't seen any significant investment in the past 40 years. Wellingtonians often speak of having the best public transport in New Zealand, which doesn't mean it's actually good let alone as good as it can get - because obviously, if people aren't using it enough, then it's not.

All right, that's one argument. I'd be awfully surprised (and a bit sad) if you hadn't heard this all before. But however, you asked for it.

www.nobpass.co.nz is a good place to start. That will explain lots of it. There's also a little comic that came out a year or two ago which summarised both sides quite well. I have it somewhere.

I should also point out I'm at least peripherally involved with ABA and actively making propaganda. Which is heaps of fun, I must say. :)

Among Transit's own admissions: the road's usefulness in reducing congestion will be eclipsed within three years of completion by projected growth; it won't really do much except alter where congestion points are, and then arguably; advice they solicited from international award winning public planner said don't do it, get less roads, wider public boulevards, better public transport.

Transit are also pursuing the road in bad faith. They are ignoring their responsibilities for consultation and transparency. They haven;t done environmental assessment/pollution studies. Etc.


The road seems expensive, unnecessary, stupid, and pointless. I see no benefit and a great loss. A great deal of Wellington's wonder and beauty comes about from its balance. Wellington's spirit flows in through Cuba; Cuba is fed by foot traffic from the SOuth, from the freaks weirdoes and creatives who live in the cheap suburbs of Mt Cook and Te Aro. Take that away and quite frankly the rest of Wellington is a boutique Auckland with a nice waterfront - quite frankly what I think our INEFFICIENT SLIME FUCKTARD (heh :) mayor wants. Further, the culture in Te Aro is special. It is a community, a thriving one, in a way that the suburbs full of dissociated strangers cannot comprehend. In this day and age, that matters more than ever.

I oppose the bypass because it is a threat to the city I love.

I fight it because to not do so is a betrayal of the city I love.

Win or lose, I think this struggle will define something important about this city for a long time to come. So much is changing so fast... if this too can be lost in the blur, something is so very wrong.

hopefully coherence entered the ranting.

Hey Scott,

I've commented about this on my blog (stonesoup / sidonia) and came up with my slightly muddled reasons for not suppoorting the bypass (extract copied below):

"The motorway extension/bypass is a waste of time. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed but Wellington is in the arse end of the North Island. Wellington is a terminus, so the idea of widening its roads into motorways *once you get there* makes no sense at all. Where are they going – nowhere! What are they achieving – nothing!

Motorways are all about removing distance as a constraint from geographically isolated areas. Motorways DO NOT effectively distribute cars once they get to where they are going. Streets and Roads do.

Motorways are all about linking isolated communities together. But motorways DO NOT support communities. Streets and Roads do.

So I’m all for canning the stupid idea that any benefit can be gained from the bypass. A healthy intra-city public transport system, linked to efficient inter-city public transport and injected with all the funds that the bypass would cost, would be a far better solution to congestion and traffic."

A really important issue to me that seems to be forgotten is that it is a 'Bypass'. It actually bypasses Wellington City. Congestion happens mainly because of people coming to work and leaving work. The points at which people enter the city won't actually change. Even the people coming from Miramar, Seatoun way still have to go through a tunnel and connect into the system. The centre of business in Wellington is not near the bypass' intended route, nor are the car parking facilities for those areas of business.
The bypass extends the motorway past the city centre, around the city on the way to airport and the eastern suburbs without actually connecting the eastern suburbs adequately to get them to work.
I personally can't even see how it will effect congestion now, though I suspect if you live in the Hutt or Porirua and work at Weta it might knock 5mins off your travel time :)

Wellington has a reasonable intercity bus service. If you live close enough to town, like Newtown, where several routes converge, then there is a bus every 5 mins. This isn't true of the suburbs further out where not only are the buses less frequent but you have to pay extra dollars because of extra sections. Of course from a place like Newtown you can actually walk to the city so you don't need a bus, though a bus is pretty convenient.

The train system, while it can funnel people in from the valleys isn't ideal. Sure at peak times there are more trains but not many more and the extra trains don't stop at every station. Basically a train leaves every 30mins. Unfortunately the trains don't really serve the Hutt Valley that well, as they have to crisscross across the valley. The price is also quite high, which is probably one of the main reasons for people using cars and not the train, the extra cost of petrol and parking for the convenience of driving yourself. The trains really would need to be free or a dollar charge from anywhere to make more people use them. To do this the City Councils would have to divert funds into the Public Transport system, which is unfortunately privately owned.

I definitely think the money could be better spent somewhere else, mainly because I think the bypass is a waste of time right now. I have only ever been fully stuck in traffic for ages because of a slip and getting out of the city at rush hour really isn't that bad at all. In fact it is worse if you are leaving and going to the Hutt. Once you are out of the city you can hit all the lights on the Hutt motorway, which really slow things down, but again it is only by about 5mins.

Perhaps the CC should put an extra tax on people who drive Urban 4WDs around :)

Thanks everyone for your replies.

One thing some of these responses have revealed to me is that there is more to the opposition to the extension than wanting " to protect the unique culture of the area."

For me that arguement never stood up because:

1/ It's not the area that has the unique culture, it is the people. The type of people who make the area dynamic and interesting will always exist in Wellington, regardless of where they congregate. Aro Valley is now quite gentrified, but the people who made the Aro Valley of the 70s, 80s and early 90s unique still exist, just in other areas of the city.

2/ The physical characteristics of the area (low density cheap housing) only exist because they've been in the bulldozer zone for so long. If the motorway extension were never to go ahead, that upper Willis St / upper Cuba / Able Smith St area would soon become just as gentrified as the parts of Mt Vic, Mt Cook and Aro Valley near the city have become. This physical community only exists because of the motorway.

However, the points made about the poor economic and structural planing of this extension make very interesting reading. Thanks.

Feel free to continue commenting, and even argueing, if you like.

I would like to offer a different perspective on the unique nature of the Aro Valley community.

The Aro Valley community is actually fairly unique in that it is an area of town that has easy and pleasant pedestrian access to the inner city. It is also adjacent to the university, so a large number of (be they more and more middle class) students and academics inhabit. This makes Aro Valley vibrant and unique.

Aro Valley itself is not on designated motorway land; areas of Te Aro between Aro Valley and the inner city are.

Similar suburbs adjacent to the inner city such as Mt Victoria, Thorndon and Mt Cook are all 'cut off' by large, unplesant roads - Kent/Cambridge terrace, the existing motorway and Taranaki Street respectively, that discourage pedestrianism and consequently the placement of interesting and unusual commerce such as exists in Aro Valley. When Victoria Street was 'made' in the 80s it did diminish the pedestrian 'value' in certain areas of Te Aro (who would walk along Victoria Street? It's ugly and boring, and there are no interesting shops or cafes/restaurants), which should show what greater Te Aro will be like once the bypass goes through. My prediction is that Aro Valley will turn into another Thorndon, not just gentrified by certifiably boring.