Grey Lynn motorway to bridge next step
See the SH20 website for more detail.
Why are the Auckland City officers "urging councillors to back a $1.15 billion motorway extension through Avondale to Waterview?" as reported in the NZ Herald yesterday and not the Rosebank Rd (that's the left one running down the penninsular) option? - It's not just because that option will cost $400m more either.
You would think this entire issue would have been worked out some decades ago and the land put aside... but then that wouldn't be Auckland would it? Another expensive ad hoc addition to complete a circuit... or is it? What the Herald report did not mention is that the hidden reason that Transit (if not the Council) wants the Waterview option is so they can run it through Grey Lynn to join up with the Harbour Bridge taking North-South pressure off SH1.
A straight, simple North-South link would more logically go through Rosebank Rd - but it is more complicated than that. They will make their link through Waterview and then they will present the residents of Grey Lynn with a fiat accompli of running it to the bridge - another "unplanned", expensive ad hoc addition. They should be honest about their intentions for once. Look at the map above and tell me that the right-hand option to Pt Chev. is not logically followed with a link (by-passing the spaghetti junction) to the bridge. By failing to front up and make the acquisitions and planning necessary for that next step they do everyone a disservice and increase the cost.
posted by Bomber @ 1:05 pm
5 comments
5 Comments:
I'm sick of that - there is NO forward planning at all in this city and it ends up costing us all big bucks.
Within each option there are construction options: cut and cover - viaduct, causway etc. and route options: west or east of Oakley Creek, Rosebank Rd or through the mangroves etc. I acknowledge that the Waterview option at present appears to be cheaper...
BUT: there is a plan (that is not often cited) that takes the Waterview option through to the bridge. I'm saying this plan is why they want to chose the Waterview option. They should be upfront about this. Because if they build that option but they can't complete the link to the bridge then the rationale for it going to the Pt Chev interchange in the first place is lost - and maybe they should have taken it through Rosebank.
This plan goes back to a 1965 regional transportation plan drawn up by De Leuw, Cather & company engineers. This has been modified since (note that I didn't say improved). The idea was to create a ring including a south eastern route that looped back to sh20 in Onehunga. it also included a few other routes incl the Dominion Motor way, and another branch through Avondale; the Henderson Motor way. So they do plan these things, they just don't follow through. I personally don't believe they would go through Grey Lynn, however at one stage there was a ridiculous idea of tunneling from western springs to the bridge but it was thrown out due to the geology (ie $$'s).
ZE: It may be a ridiculous idea but that is what is going to happen! Using the Meola reef as a causway to create a harbour crossing has also been mooted. Both of these options are in play once the Pt Chev link is made.
I would prefer a separated highway along Rosebank Rd, underground through the shopping area of Avondale to join with New North Rd ie. the Southernmost route. And a widening of the Waterview stretch of Great North Rd to create a link to SH20 from SH16 (maybe with a separated highway with a 70km/h limit. - that would be cheaper.) And whoever allowed those huge apartment buildings and subdivisions in the Oakley Creek gully should be fired.
I note that Bhatnagar has been banging on about this issue too (after I made this post). He thinks it is unreasonable that communities should be consulted on motorways destroying their communities! or that too much consultation has gone on. Whatever - it is important we get it right and for the right reasons, not because the planners want to tie our hands for a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that they have hidden up their sleeve.
Just rang Graeme Easte, the Chairman of the Western Bays community board (who has speaking rights at tonight's Council meeting that will make a decision on the route). He says the Mayor wants a decision tonight but he (and presumably some others - City Vision probably being from that part of town) wants to have a community consultation period which would delay the decision to around March. So be it.
He poo-pooed the Meola reef idea because the lava flow if shallow and any causway would just sink into the mud. But he thinks the bridge idea is definitely in the mix of planning thinking.
All options involve forced property purchases, environmental damage etc. and no community wants to be sacrificed for a couple of minutes off someone elses commuting time. It is frustrating that the process is so slow - but it is also frustrating when the people affected and the future impacts (eg. a Grey Lynn bridge link) are not thrashed out properly.
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