To the Wellington City Council Strategy & Policy Committee

1. The draft before you is about the July 2011 NZTA “Public engagement” scheme. They’ve made available the public feedback about it to inform Council’s submission. We’re heartened by that, it’s what your press statement of July 4th committed to; it’s worth noting in the submission itself.
2. One of those 2000+ giving feedback was us, the Civic Trust. We said then that NZTA billed its scheme as “an improvement for a successful capital city” and our stance then and now is made in this light. 
3. The scheme is presented as “all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it, no-cost-to-council”. Your draft prefers option A, what the Dominion Post editorial last Saturday 1 October 2011 called “the cheapest option”.
4. We all know the realpolitik – NZTA will just press on regardless of Council’s view. Or the scheme might be scrapped in wider cost-cutting, or to switch funds to Christchurch, and blamed on you as an excuse. So Council might just as well take the long-term view and not be framed just by cheapest option factors. So:
5. The environmental factors are covered by your Climate Change item you are dealing with later on in this meeting. You’ll ensure that both are in synch with each other – no silo thinking here?
6. Starting from the airport end: for Ruahine St and Wellington Rd, the 2008 Ngauranga to Airport Corridor Plan agrees on four lanes. Your draft #8.6 seems also to prefer this over NZTA’s planned 6-8 lanes, but its wording is too coy –worth strengthening. Likewise #10.2.2 about the Pedestrian and cycle lane – again your wording is too coy. These uses needed to be differentiated. Work on this part of the scheme is not intended to start until Transmission Gully is completed, in say 2021. The Council officers’ report #5.12 recommends against seeking to speed this up. By then totally new trends in road use may be clear, and these eastern works may not need this scale.  So we urge taihoa on any “interim improvements” due to start in 2014/5 (see #4 5th para of the officers’ report) because of the risk of these morphing by scope creep– you know, the way these “interim works” tend to do.
7. On Buckle St factors: the War Memorial park is considered solely as a highway cost. NZTA tell us they can’t spend on anything which does not have a transport benefit. So the Memorial Park is reduced to roadside landscaping. The Parks’ functions are well described in #4 of your draft submission, where #4.3. is at odds with the cheapest option. The Architectural Centre’s Option X deserves at least a mention – you can’t just pretend it isn’t on the table. Your officers’ report #5.3 last 2 paras says that such tunnel options are “unaffordable in the context of the current land transport programme”. A big plus is the Memorial Park which obviously isn’t a transport function – but responsibility for it has been passed to the transport agency! That itself is worth challenge by council. Instead of a memorial worthy of its deep values, we get a park divided by a multi-lane highway. Here’s what we said to NZTA in our July submission: “Both State Highway One and the National War Memorial are Crown assets; it is a reasonable citizen expectation that decisions about a matter affecting both would be made in a “joined-up” way, and not as implied here by expecting some transport benefit, whatever benefit cost numbers are used. The War Memorial Park is a policy decision in its own right.  It would also have transport benefits if it were made by a tunnel for SH 1. The Civic Trust believes that the decision to transfer responsibility for creating it to the state’s roading agency is both insulting to the war dead and unrealistic for NZTA to achieve”. Now you might say “that’s nothing to do with us”. Yes it is. You as civic leaders will be standing there on April 25th 2015 and will want to feel proud of what the city’s achieved over those 100 years since ANZAC. And the Memorial Park is not just a Gallipoli thing. It commemorates the dead of all wars past, present and future. It could be achieved for a small fraction of the cost of all wars since the Carillon was built.
8. On Vivian St factors: #5.6. in your draft notes “once the 2nd tunnel is built there will be no future opportunity to increase capacity from Hataitai to City”. There is no comment about the continuation of half the route west of Mt Victoria continuing to run along a CBD street laid out in the 1840s (Vivian St). Is this really what council wants? It hardly sounds like a real road of national significance.
9. On Flyover factors: The Dominion Post Editorial on Saturday October 1st said: “NZTA will also fund the $11m grandstand.” Your draft supports Option A with “significant mitigation”. You should specify Grandstand if that is what you mean. The new road would be a 380m long curved bridge – it’s an elevated highway really, so any mitigation would need to be around 15m higher still to block out the cricket ground. It might be cheapest, but it sounds like ugliest too.
10. This isn’t just about transport – it’s about what you want the shape of our city to be. So, based on you draft submission, the Scenario in 2040 would be:

• SH1 via Karo Drive and Vivian St. with traffic lights etc as now.
• 380m long bridge of boring design over Kent/Cambridge.
• No War Memorial Park beyond a bit of roadside landscaping.
• Wide 60 k/h highway through Hataitai reducing Town Belt size.

Alan Smith, Chairman