transcript of proceedings board of inquiry basin bridge proposal · 2019-04-06 · transcript of...

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

BOARD OF INQUIRY

Basin Bridge Proposal

HEARING at

BASIN RESERVE, MT COOK, WELLINGTON

on 9 May 2014

BOARD OF INQUIRY:

Retired Environment and District Court Judge Gordon Whiting (Chairperson)

James Baines (Board Member)

David Collins (Board Member)

David McMahon (Board Member)

Basin Reserve, Wellington 09.05.14

[9.43 am]

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, good morning everybody, yes, I would like to welcome

along the submitters who are going to make representations to us today.

As I have said before we enjoy these sessions and learning of the 5

thoughts from the people who are likely to be affected perhaps by the

proposal in one way or the other and also who, even those who don’t

live in the area, who have views because of their empathy with and

time spent in this lovely city which we are starting to enjoy as well. So,

we do appreciate it. 10

The definition of amenity in the Resource Management Act is very

much grounded on the communities that experience the amenities, so

that is why we like hearing from the people in the community.

15

So, first this morning we have Mr Shelton, is that correct? Welcome,

Mr Shelton.

MR SHELTON: Thank you.

20

CHAIRPERSON: So, if you could just start off by – just for the record –

because everything that is said is recorded and typed up and just give

your full name and that you are a submitter and then we will hear what

you have to say.

25

[9.45 am]

MR SHELTON: Thank you. My name is Lindsay Shelton. I live up in

Brooklyn and I drove down here at 9 o'clock this morning through

Adelaide Road in five minutes from Brooklyn to parking outside the 30

Basin Reserve.

For most of my life have been a journalist, but I took a break for 20

years when I was marketing director for the Film Commission, in that

job I travelled all over the world to some of the biggest cities, where I 35

was able to observe the consequences of good planning and bad

planning.

My current work is editing a website called “Wellington.Scoop”, and

the full address is wellington.scoop.co.nz and as you might guess this is 40

a website which carries news and opinions about Wellington City.

The website was established five and a half years ago as part of the

much huger scoop online empire and since Wellington.Scoop got

going, I did rough count last night, and we published more than 250 45

articles about the flyover plans and about the substantial community


concerns about these plans. You can easily access every one of these

articles in our flyover archive, click on “flyover” and there’s the whole

media history. We published all the official press releases and we

published a lot of opinions as well.

5

In one of the first reports which I wrote and published – this is

November 27 2008 – I described a meeting of a hundred people who

gathered in St Joseph’s Church, to launch the campaign to oppose the

flyover. That meeting was told that public consultation showing 79

percent opposition to the flyover plan had been ignored by the 10

Transport Agency.

Councillor Celia Wade-Brown who was a councillor at that stage –

spoke of the joys of walking and cycling and how the Basin Reserve

was an “oasis” for pedestrians and cyclists heading into the city. An 15

“oasis” she said, which would be destroyed if the flyover was built.

I’ve given you the link to that article and I would comment that Celia

Wade-Brown has been consistent in her attitude of opposition to the

flyover right through all the council’s votes, she was a “no vote”, 20

although as you know the “no’s” were outvoted by one vote towards

the end of that process.

One month later, in December 2008, Scoop reported that the then

Mayor of Wellington, Kerry Prendergast, said that a flyover, which she 25

first referred to as a “raised road”, was the only answer to traffic

problems at the Basin Reserve. It’s evident from this report published

in 2008, that decisions had already been made – this was Wellington

City Council press release from the mayor in which she said the flyover

was the only answer. 30

And she said back then that the flyover would carry west bound traffic

from the Mount Victoria Tunnel, over the traffic heading to and from

Adelaide Road and the southern suburbs and she mentioned the

intention to build a third grandstand on the north side of the ground to 35

block any view of the raised roadway, and I’ve given you the link to

that council press release from Mayor Prendergast.

I’m mentioning these two reports to show that since 2008 the Transport

Agency, to my mind has been single minded in terms of having decided 40

that its preference was a flyover. Since then, the reports and articles

published on Wellington.Scoop have reflected the unease of the

Wellington community about the plan, including the very long period

when quote: “Public consultation by the Transport Agency were shown

to be biased, eschewed, because it offered only two flyovers as the 45


options for the consultation.” In spite of this, public opposition

continued to come through clearly.

Rather than attempt the impossible task of summarising everything

that’s been written and published on Wellington.Scoop, I would like to 5

table an article written in October 2011 by a Mount Cook resident

named Dave Shay, I’ve attached the article in full at the end of my

evidence as attachment A, but I’d like to quote just three paragraphs

from what Mr Shay wrote, and I have in fact republished this article

several times, it’s such a very persuasive and convincing personal 10

statement.

[9.50 am]

Quote: “The damage to our city sight lines caused by either of the 15

raised road options will be irreparable. A raised road would dominate

our environment. For those of us who live and walk through this area, a

raised road will be the worst solution to traffic problems, once built it

will always be there, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, peak traffic or

no peak traffic. The problem of peak traffic flows does not justify such 20

a road.

The wonderful view of Mount Victoria from the Adelaide Road side of

the Basin is a very special element of Wellington, and one most

enjoyed by the non-motor vehicle traffic that passes through the Basin 25

Reserve to and from work. Construction of a raised road will destroy

this vista. The nonsensical suggestion of building an additional stand at

the Basin simply to block out the road and its noise has caused this

whole issue to descend into farce.

30

The city already has a so-called bypass which locks traffic into

stop/start jams because it crosses several major arteries. A raised road

will do nothing but shave seconds from a journey at very high cost and

then only serve to drive the traffic to the end of the next traffic jam …”

he’s talking of course about the traffic lights at Taranaki Street. 35

And he concluded by writing: “Building flyovers may look like

someone is doing something, but all they will do is ruin our lovely city

environment. I’ve lived in cities outside New Zealand and I’ve seen

how badly they can be disfigured by kneejerk reactions to roading. I’ve 40

also seen how local communities can be marginalised by big road

schemes.

I chose to live in Wellington 25 years ago and I would be very reluctant

for it to go down the path of those other cities becoming visually and 45

environmentally dominated by the motor vehicle.”


I’ve never met Mr Shay, he sent in the article as a contribution, but I

thought it was pretty good. And like him I am opposed in full to the

flyover proposal.

5

In my submission last August, I stated 10 reasons for my opposition, I

should briefly summarise them now.

Number 1: I believe that if the concrete flyover is built it will have a

significant negative effect on the area of the Basin Reserve. I agree 10

with Martin Sneddon that it will look hideous. This “hideousness” will

not only affect occasional games of cricket, but it will permanently

change its open and iconic neighbourhood (as Mr O’Shay mentioned in

his article).

15

Number 2: The negative effects will impact on ecology, archaeology,

air quality, noise, built heritage and most of all “urban design”. I agree

with these opinions but they are not my original ideas, they are the

recorded opinions of the Transport Agency’s “specialist” experts,

which are detailed in page 6 of a Transport Agency report that was 20

published in August 2012. Though I didn’t discover it, in that massive

website of the Transport Agency, I didn’t discover it until January last

year, when I published the information on Wellington.Scoop.

I attached my article about this at the end of my evidence as attachment 25

B, or you can access it through the link which I’ve given you and if you

go through to my article online there is a link through to the actual

Transport Agency report.

Number 3: The structure will degrade the environment around New 30

Zealand's oldest and most historic cricket ground, an area of course

which is, not only a cricket ground, but which is more importantly an

iconic area of green open space in the middle of the city. I support all

the evidence on this subject given to you by Australian architect Jan

McCredie. 35

Number 4: The flyover and the associated pavilion will block the

southern view shaft from Kent and Cambridge Terrace. I note that a

number of other people have also spoken to you about this result.

40

[9.55 am]

I would like to just go away from my notes for a second and tell you

that in the mid-90s I became president of a lobby group called

“Waterfront Watch”, which was lobbying to try to control the number 45

of new buildings being built on the edge of the harbour and was

349


campaigning for more open space on the edge of the harbour and fewer

buildings.

At the very start of Waterfront Watch I was living on Mount Victoria

and looking down on what is now Chaffers Park, Waitangi Park, which 5

had then not been developed, and I think it was in the mid-90s the

council announced that there was to be a New World built in that area.

And I wrote to the Mayor, who was then Fran Wilde, and in my letter I

said “if the New World is built where the plan shows it will be it will

completely block the view shaft to the harbour from Kent and 10

Cambridge Terraces” that is stand on Kent and Cambridge Terraces

and looking north.

Her response some months later was obviously written by a traffic

engineer, because the response was all about traffic and roads and in no 15

way gave any comment at all on the fact that the building would block

the view shaft. The New World was built. Stand in Kent and

Cambridge’s and look north, at the end of the view shaft you see a

fairly grotty supermarket and a row of air conditioning units on the top.

20

In my first years at Waterfront Watch I gave a lot of speeches, and in

many of the speeches I would say it’s a disgrace that the city has

allowed such a blockage to happen. For the first few years of making

these speeches people would say to me “you’re sounding crazy, you’re

sounding like a lunatic, stop talking about this, nobody cares.” But I 25

felt stubborn, I kept on talking.

And after four or five years I observed that everybody had come round

to that point of view, and it is now completely accepted by the city that

the view shaft at the northern end of Kent and Cambridge’s has been in 30

fact blocked by a supermarket, so much so that in the planning for the

development over by the former Herd Street Post Office, which is now

being used as apartments, the plans show that they’re keeping the view

shaft on the edge of the water clear in the faint hope that sometime in

the future the New World owners might feel charitable enough to pick 35

up their supermarket and move it off to the left, thereby clearing the

view shaft in the view shaft space.

But it’s well accepted by everybody in the city that the New World has

created a shameful blockage, and my argument - - - 40

CHAIRPERSON: Queen Victoria would be very pleased.

MR SHELTON: I can’t remember her mystery, I think she’s moved once or

twice, hasn’t she. 45


CHAIRPERSON: Has she?

MR SHELTON: Did they turn her to face one way or the other way.

MR COLLINS: I’ve read that somewhere. 5

MR SHELTON: But I believe the same shameful blockage would be caused

by the flyover if it is built at the southern end of Kent and Cambridge

Terraces. And history shows so many plans to make Kent and

Cambridge Terraces into a grand boulevard, if you think of grand 10

boulevards anywhere around. There would be no hope of any grand

boulevard if the flyover was at one end and a supermarket at the other.

Fran of course is no longer Mayor, but she is now Chair of the

Regional Council, and the Regional Council of course under her strong 15

leadership has always been staunch in support of the flyover. So you

could say if you were being a bit mean spirited, that Fran would be

partly responsible for blockages at both ends. But I shouldn’t say that.

Number 5. The flyover will not solve the east-west traffic problems, it 20

will merely move them to the traffic lights at Taranaki Street where

there will be the same stop-start delays as now. And I don’t give any

credibility to the Transport Agency’s claims that they’re going to fix up

all the lights along the bypass, they’ve had years to fix up the lights and

sequencing along the bypass, and they’ve failed to do it. 25

Number 6. The flyover was planned before the undergrounding of

Buckle Street was approved. Until that decision, the Transport Agency

had insisted time and time again there was no money to put the

highway underground alongside the Basin, it could not be afforded they 30

said. Now that their claim has been disproved there is the chance to

revisit the fact that an extension at the Buckle Street undergrounding

and extension towards the Basin Reserve would give the best result for

the city. I have given you a link there to an article that we published on

this subject. 35

[10.00 am]

Number 7, I published reports which claim that undergrounding the

road would be less expensive than building a flyover. I know there are 40

different views on this but undergrounding the road would certainly be

less obtrusive and damaging. Number8, there are other consequences of

building the flyover which are clearly identified in official reports. 8A,

the flyover will increase traffic flows in adjacent streets. That’s in the

Basin Alternatives Report on page 86. 8B, the flyover will increase 45

traffic congestion in the CBD. That statement, which caused a lot of


shock when it was made known, that statement is contained in an Opus

Report for the Regional Council, which was published in December

2012, and I think there have been several reports since then which have

expanded on the impossibility of the CBD coping with huge amounts

of extra traffic if it’s brought in, on new roads. 5

Number 9, the flyover is completely out of character with this part of

the central city. Number 10, I’m sure you have all seen the examples,

international cities are demolishing flyovers instead of building them in

order to gain improvements to urban and quality of life. You can go 10

online and you can find all sorts of before and after images. So, finally,

we are all placing great faith in your ability to maintain independent

and enquiring minds in the unenviable task of determining whether or

not a massive concrete flyover should be built out here next to the

Basin Reserve. I note that submitters to this process have been 15

overwhelmed by the amount of paperwork. Most noticeably the huge

amount from the Transport Agency.

Someone a few weeks ago, I read, referred to a snowstorm of

documents with no map. Such a situation underscores the importance 20

of your rigorous scrutiny, both in terms of the legal aspects and the

factual aspects. You are the only safeguard that Wellington can now

rely on to fully test and scrutinise the project that the Transport Agency

has been planning for such a long time. And on which so much public

money has already been spent. A personal comment, it often seems as 25

if the Transport Agency has access to limitless funds. The flyover

proposal has the potential to change an important part of Wellington for

generations. I note the unabashed enthusiasm of all the experts who

have been paid by the Transport Agency to support the flyover.

30

I agree with the comment that this is very much a David and Goliath

situation. I think someone said that to you a while back as well. It’s the

Transport Agency calling on seemingly unlimited resources and the

opponents having to make do with very small amounts of money. No

comparison between the two. It could be said to be not an equal fight. I 35

am very aware from all of my work on Wellington dot scoop that what

is proposed for this historically significant and open part of the city will

have much more than minor effects. And I believe that the adverse

effects of the “hideous flyover”, to quote Martin Sneddon again, the

adverse effects will in no be balanced by its real or its imaginary 40

benefits. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well thank you very much, Mr Shelton, for your very

carefully prepared and well-presented representation.

45

MR SHELTON: Thank you.


CHAIRPERSON: Does anyone have any questions?

MR COLLINS: I’ll just ask about your comment about reports that claim

undergrounding would be less expensive than building a flyover. It’s 5

not our job, of course, to pick the best alternative, but there has been a

lot of discussion about the costs of tunnelling or trenching compared to

the flyover. So if there was anything, engineering evidence about that,

it would be good to have that rather than just a comment. I mean, if you

have something like that, we need to see it. 10

[10.05 am]

MR SHELTON: I could send you references to a couple of articles that have

been published on the subject. 15

MR COLLINS: Is it about here or elsewhere because the evidence we have

had is that they are quite difficult tunnelling conditions here because of

the old swamp conditions.

20

MR SHELTON: I think there are two points of view. I think the Transport

Agency continues to insist that the flyover is the only answer. But

when it was first argued that extending the tunnelling would be less

expensive this was, because the person that wrote the article said that

things had changed with the Buckle Street decision. Some of the costs 25

which had been included in the costing’s for the flyover were no longer

necessary, therefore the flyover cost had changed and the cost of

extending the tunnel would also have a different budget.

MR COLLINS: Yes, I think we are aware of all that because that original 30

proposal, one of the options was a very long tunnel, including what is

happening, or part of what’s happening now. But if, no if there are

reports about this area, the cost of tunnelling in this area that are

different from we have had from the Agency, we need to see them.

35

MR SHELTON: I can’t link you to any engineering reports, I can just link

you to one or two opinion pieces written by some of the involved

people after they were published by other Transport Agency

disagreements so, so there were two points of view, but if that would be

any good I will - - - 40

MR COLLINS: I think we have, no, I think we have had a lot of evidence

about, we have had that viewpoint, and of course the cost isn’t

necessarily fatal, I mean again, the Agency isn’t bound to take the

cheapest option but their case has been that it is very expensive to 45

tunnel in this particular area.


MR SHELTON: Well we discovered that with Buckle Street, of course, where

the Transport Agency insisted cost was making it impossible, and

suddenly the impossibility had gone.

5

MR BAINES: Mr Shelton, you say “building flyovers may look like someone

is doing something”, I can see what you are getting at. Do you think

something needs to be done? Around the Basin Reserve?

MR SHELTON: I believe that something needs to be done is a much more 10

minor issue than has been claimed. I sat in the, what was it called,

mediation before this hearing began? We were all sat around?

MR BAINES: Pre-conference. Ah, pre-hearing.

15

CHAIRPERSON: The facilitation conference.

MR SHELTON: Okay, and a couple of local residents who live above the

road coming out of the Mount Victoria tunnel spoke about their weeks

of personal observation, every day looking down on the traffic, and 20

they argued that there was no issue, because the traffic might stop for

10 or 15 minutes and then the problem is over. Their personal

observations were strongly contradicted by the reports and the formulas

so their observations and their notes about the durations having to wait

were given no credibility. Again, from my personal experience this 25

morning coming down from Brooklyn, coming down that road, the

whole trip taking five minutes right around the Basin.

I did, however, notice as I was parking outside here at 5 past 9 that

there was a big line up of traffic going towards the airport. But that, of 30

course, is caused by the fact there is only a one lane tunnel. That is

nothing, that is a situation which will in no way be solved by the

flyover. So personally I do accept those people who have argued that

the whole project is being done in the wrong order and the new tunnel

should be there first. What is the point of a flyover when the tunnel still 35

causes what it causes?

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you, Mr McMahon?

MR MCMAHON: No, thank you. 40

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well thank you very much, Mr Shelton, we do

appreciate you taking of your time and coming here today and giving

us your views, a person who has lived here for many years and has the

experience of the city behind him, plus a life’s experience of being 45


involved in your professional work too is of assistance to us. Thank

you.

MR BAINES: Thank you.

5

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Now, who’s next. Yes, good morning Ms

Blake is it? Good morning Ms Blake, you’re here representing Living

Streets Aotearoa?

[10.10 am] 10

MS BLAKE: I am.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you. And if you could just do the same, and

first of all thank you for coming, we do appreciate you coming. If you 15

could just give your full name first before you give your submission for

the record.

MS BLAKE: Okay.

20

CHAIRPERSON: And who you represent.

MS BLAKE: Right.

Thanks. I’m Ellen Blake, I’m a member of Living Streets Aotearoa, 25

who I’m representing here today.

In our representation I think you’re getting another little swag of paper

here.

30

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MS BLAKE: I’d just like to cover why Living Streets exists. I want to give a

little picture of the Basin Reserve from a walking point of view, a little

bit about what plans say about walking, what we’d expect to see in a 35

high quality transport system and what the project proposes for

walking, how it’s been assessed and some suggestions in the

conditions. I was going to read it so I’m happy to be interrupted or

whatever suits you.

40

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thank you.

MS BLAKE: Just a little bit of context, I’m also a Mount Victoria resident,

was born there, being living there off and on for a long time. I’ve also

lived in Haitai and used to walk through the tunnel everyday on my 45


way to the hospital, and I’ve lived in a couple of other places around

Wellington as well.

So just to be clear, Living Streets opposes this proposal in its entirety.

We do not believe it’s a necessary project to improve the walkability in 5

this area, or that it will provide a better more pleasant pedestrian

environment. But, however, in the event that the Board supports the

proposal we have gone through what it would mean and what we

suggest.

10

So Living Streets Aotearoa is New Zealand’s national walking and

pedestrian organisation, and we provide a positive voice for people on

foot, and we work to promote walking friendly planning and

development around the country. Our vision is more people choosing

to walk more often and enjoying public spaces. 15

So there is just a few objectives of what we do – we promote walking

as a healthy, environmentally friendly and universal means of transport,

and we promote the social and economic benefits of pedestrian friendly

communities. We work to improve access and conditions for walkers, 20

and we advocate for greater representation of pedestrian concerns in

national, regional and urban land use and transport planning, which is

exactly why we come to things like this.

Why is it important? Well, pedestrians provides the vibrant and social 25

fabric of cities in the urban areas. If you don’t have people walking

around your towns they are not fun to be in. And people learn to walk

when they’re around about two, and they don’t generally think about it

again after that because it’s such a natural and human thing to do.

30

That’s the way it should be, but it also means that walking and

footpaths are taken for granted and that this attitude is carried into

modern times where there’s a whole lot more different ways of

travelling as well.

35

But if we want to provide a good walking environment and to improve

facilities and encourage more walking we need a much more deliberate

and considered process to counter the natural inclination not to even

think about walking at all.

40

So it requires a robust analysis of walking needs with a deliberate

analysis of an area to assess and define options for improvement, and it

requires walking needs to be considered early in transport proposals

and integrated into a project.

45


Some of the important concepts for walking – these kind of jargon

words called connectivity, permeability and accessibility. And the

places people walk are also the public meeting places and spaces in our

towns, and it’s the places where people interact.

5

And one of the reasons we’ve gone through this proposal in a lot detail

is that relatively small matters can make quite a big difference in how

walkable an area is. Like the slope of a path can either mean that you

can get a wheelchair along it or you can’t and it can be quite a small

difference in the slope, the cross-forward it’s called. 10

[10.15 am]

Small irregularities in a footpath can cause trip hazards and it can be a

very small change that you can’t obviously see can make you trip up 15

and apparently you can get as many incidents on footpaths from people

tripping as you do from vehicle accidents.

And how long it takes for a person to get across the road can determine

whether they stop and wait or they take a risk and run across, and that’s 20

all to do with traffic light timing.

So why the Board concepts walking are important, the details also

count.

25

And who walks? Well, all four and half million New Zealanders walk.

The 2013 census showed that the walking rates are going up in

Wellington, 19 percent of adults walking now, that’s walking to work

every day. And the driving rates of younger people are going down,

staying flat. 30

And the recent data from Wellington City, which was published in the

paper the other day, in a great big one-page spread in the paper, shows

that about half of all resident adults in Wellington either walk or catch

public transport to work, which means that only about half are driving. 35

Anybody who is using public transport also walks, because you have to

walk to get to the bus stop or from the train station.

In Wellington 10,299 households or 14.5 percent of households do not

have any motor vehicles, and also the 2013 Census shows that 79 40

percent of Wellington City households have dependent children who

are obviously not drivers, they are walkers.

And we don’t have very good information on how school children

travel to school, but obviously a lot of them would catch the bus or 45

walk.


That little diagram, if you could pull that one up. I just wanted to show

this diagram of the walking routes around the Basin, it’s something

different to look at while I’m talking some more.

5

CHAIRPERSON: Has this been prepared by you or?

MS BLAKE: No, this from the technical report.

CHAIRPERSON: This is from the application documents, yes. 10

MS BLAKE: 4.1 or 4.2 or something like that. 4.2, yes. So it’s just a diagram

from the work that’s been done for this proposal about where people

walk.

15

So I just wanted to talk a little bit about the Basin Reserve area from a

walking perspective. So the Basin’s always served a transport function,

and it’s an important destination and route for pedestrians as well as for

public transport. And you’ve heard a lot about its transport function

I’m sure, but it’s also a unique open and relatively flat part of 20

Wellington, which being from Wellington flatness is quite a treat

because we’re mostly on a hill.

It’s got wide streets, which is also a bit unusual in Wellington, it’s got

historic buildings which are very pleasant, and it’s an older residential 25

area with Mount Victoria, Newtown both older parts, even though it’s

got that funny name. There’s student accommodation, which means

that there’s lots of young people hanging out, and it’s also got a great

potential for more residential development. We know that housing is

the most sought after along areas with really good public transport and 30

that it’s not particularly popular along areas with big roads.

This historic part of Wellington has had many interesting features. It’s

changed a lot since the NZTA has decided that they were going to do

some of these projects, and I recall that in 1979 St Patrick’s College 35

was moved, which was on the Buckle Street, Cambridge Terrace

corner. It was near the crèche building, and more recently there has

been some housing on the corners of Paterson and Rugby Streets that

has been demolished.

40

About three years ago the fantastic historic building on the corner of

Kent Terrace around into Ellice Street, which was a lovely kind of

horseshoe shaped building, I understand it used to be stables for horses

that used to walk around Wellington, and it had a fantastic arched

doorway. That was all just demolished pretty much overnight, 45

obviously in preparation for this flyover. And that building also was


quite a go-to place; it had some great takeaway shops that were open all

night.

[10.20 am]

5

I was mentioning all of these places because they make a place more

interesting to walk around, so they kind of help to add to the vibrancy

of the area and I think that taking those building away has added to the

kind of run-down look that we have currently. But I know other

landowners around here have been busy doing things – the St Joseph’s 10

Church is all new, people have been painting houses and you know,

generally keeping the place looking quite good and interesting and

there is obviously the new flats being built on Rugby Street as well

which is going to add a whole lot more vibrancy in this area.

15

So, the Basin Reserve includes the open and relatively flat land with

very wide streets, historic buildings, the older residential area, the

Canal Reserve, the Government House, the Carillon, it has got a

concentration of educational facilities, it has got three of the largest

secondary schools in Wellington, which has not been at all obvious in 20

this proposal, there are over 3,500 students coming in and out of this

area every day, there is also a university just at the back, there are three

primary schools in this area – and I am pretty sure you know all of this,

I just wanted to go over it again.

25

And Pirie Street, Kent Terrace and Adelaide Road have still got some

shopping and cafes, so that is quite an interesting place to come to, and

there used to also be one of the oldest pools in Wellington, just off

Tasman Street around the corner here which a lot of people used to

come to, it has been demolished for the supermarket which we are not 30

if it is going to happen or not, and so that is another kind of run-down

element to this area.

And the Basin Reserve itself has played host to a range of activity apart

from the men’s cricket. I used to play in the playground that was inside 35

the Basin Reserve, which got taken out, I think, to make way for some,

you know, practice hitting place, or something out here, it used to be a

great little play area. I have been to unicycle endurance event here

which went all night, it was quite a lot of fun – yes it was great, this

guy was, he is from the hospital actually, just went round and round 40

and round on his unicycle, but you could come down and have a go, he

had some spare ones, so, it was quite, you know, it was a very good

event.

CHAIRPERSON: We could accompany him. 45


MS BLAKE: Yes. They have had Carols in the Park in the Basin Reserve

among other organised events and that is just a pretty nice place to

come and hang out in summer, there are little banks and some – it is

kind of flat so it is good for little kids, so the point really is that it is not

just – the Basin Reserve is an important transport place, but it is not 5

just a transport place, it has got a lot of other functions happening

around it as well, and it is an interesting place to walk around.

Apart from that it also sits right in the middle of one of the most

walked areas in Wellington. The CBD has over 70 per cent of its adults 10

walk to work. Mount Victoria has 48 per cent of adults walking to work

every day. Mount Cook has 45 per cent of adults walking to work. And

I said there is no reliable information on school children, so this area

around here is one of the most densely populated as well, so it has got a

lot of people living and walking in there. 15

CHAIRPERSON: Where did you get those figures from?

MS BLAKE: They came off the Wellington City Council website, it is – I can

send you that – it is just - - - 20

CHAIRPERSON: Could you, please?

MS BLAKE: Yes, it is publicly available information, and the most densely

populated bit came from some of the documentation in this proposal. 25

MR BAINES: When you say there is no reliable information on school

children, what sort of information are you thinking of?

MS BLAKE: I am thinking of how many children walk, how many children 30

catch the bus, how many children are dropped off.

MR BAINES: Right.

MS BLAKE: As far as I know, nobody has done that particular bit of work. 35

MR BAINES: And where they come from?

MS BLAKE: Where they come from, yes, how they leave.

40

MR BAINES: Okay.

MS BLAKE: I mean we know that there is quite a number of school buses

coming and in and out of this area, but it doesn’t – it is not a really

good - - - 45


CHAIRPERSON: Yes, you would think that would be quite easy information

to get, wouldn’t you?

MS BLAKE: You think it would be very important information to get

considering how many schools – this is a really school-dense area, a 5

very school-dense, yes.

[10.25 am]

And it is not that hard to get, it is called – you just use a travel planning 10

approach and the first thing you do in travelling planning is to find out

some information like that.

And if we go a little bit further away from the Basin and think about

places like Newtown, Hataitai and Kilbirnie, they all have quite high 15

rates of public transport use, so the Basin is right in the middle of a

really walked and high public transport used area, not private users are

not dominant here. I mean it is hard to imagine that when you see all

the cars running around.

20

Also, the airport which is apparently one of the reasons for doing this

proposal has a really good 10 to 20 minute bus service that uses the

Pirie Street bus tunnel. It is one of the few bus routes in Wellington that

is completely self-funded, because it is so well used, it is a great bus

ride, you can do your wi-fi and all sorts on it, it is fantastic. 25

MR BAINES: This is the airport bus, isn’t it?

MS BLAKE: Yes.

30

CHAIRPERSON: And it has got leather seats.

MS BLAKE: It has got leather seats, yes, what more could you want, it is

great, and the bus drivers are really good, too, fantastic.

35

CHAIRPERSON: But the next one will.

MS BLAKE: You should suggest it.

CHAIRPERSON: The next upgrade will. 40

MS BLAKE: Public transport plans at the moment are that they want to have

some ideas like that, so yes.

45


The other thing about this proposal is we don’t really have a very good

idea of who is using the Mount Victoria tunnel, which would seem to

be a key fact. Where are those cars coming from, where are they going,

you know, who is in them? There is a little bit of count information on

pedestrians using the Mount Victoria tunnel. But it seems to be mostly 5

used by private cars, which we know that the average occupancy in

Wellington is 1.2 people, which is from that same source which I forgot

to include.

And I think it is Mr Sargent from the Greater Wellington Regional 10

Council stated and the Abley reviewers agreed that “Improved highway

travel times will mainly benefit persons coming from the eastern

suburbs of Wellington and heading to the CBD or beyond, whereas the

public transport improvements will mainly benefit those coming from

southern suburbs of Wellington and going to the CBD and back home” 15

obviously, so I don’t think there is a big difference between who is

using the north-south or the east-west route, they are just people

coming from the suburbs of Wellington pretty much and that is, you

know, the best you can kind of assume from the information that we

have got, which is a bit hopeless, really. 20

And I just think that it is important to think that this project is going to

focus on the important modes of travel – I am not sure that we have.

So, “congestion” and “bottlenecks” are terms that have been used a lot

to describe the situation that applies only to vehicles because we have 25

got no information on those things from a pedestrian point of view, but

I just wonder what is really meant by that. Because I noticed that the

maximum lane volume is considered to be 1,400 vehicles per hours in

Paterson Street yet the eastbound lane from Mount Victoria tunnel

takes 1,550 cars or 130 per cent in the observed morning peak, so, 30

clearly, there is something wrong with that model, how can you have

more cars than the maximum capacity? It just doesn’t make sense.

And I noticed that the Mount Victoria tunnel capacity was recorded as

1,600 – I guess that is cars – PCU per hour, so I just think that it is not 35

clear at all what “congestion” means or what is going to be provided by

this proposal. I also noted that the maximum modelled queue length,

which is for cars, in the morning peak on Paterson Street is only 29

vehicles – this is from that technical report – which I calculate at 1.2

people per car is 34.8 people, does that constitute a bottleneck? I mean 40

I hardly think it does. Especially since the bus full with seated

passengers takes at least 45 people, so every bus that is delayed going

the other way is a much greater inconvenience than any number of

maximum queue lengths on Paterson Street, you know this is a

justification for this whole proposal, I just don’t think it stacks up. 45


[10.30 am]

And I just wondered what the measure of public transport congestion

currently is, I didn’t see that anywhere in the report and how that’s

going to be fixed and what this project will deliver for public transport. 5

So looking at the diagram, it shows some of the areas that people walk

in blue, I notice that the Basin Reserve has got – well it’s called “a

shared path” but I don’t think that the Basin Reserve is a legal road so

I’m not sure you can call it anything in particular – you know that the 10

track around there is anything in particular, most pedestrians will just

call it a “shortcut through” from one side to the other, and so all those

blue bits are footpaths.

That’s pretty much – I just wanted to paint that little picture of the 15

Basin - - -


MS BLAKE: - - - sir, from pedestrians. 20

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you for that.

MS BLAKE: So the issues that we - - -

25

CHAIRPERSON: It’s been very informative.

MS BLAKE: Yes, well I don’t think it – that thing I was saying earlier that if

walking’s so natural people don’t think about it as a particular thing.

30

So the issues that we see around the Basin, and that should be improved

with a project, is that – notice that “way findings” an issue, which

means that locals will know how to find their way around the Basin

Reserve quite easily but it’s quite difficult for people not familiar with

the area to find their way around, there’s no sign posting, the route 35

through the Basin through the gates is a bit hard to find, if you don’t

know that you’re allowed to go through there.

There’s a large number of crossings around the Basin Reserve and

they’re quite complex. So when you travel in any direction you’ve got 40

to go through quite a lot of crossings, and there’s different types of

crossing, there’s pedestrian crossings, there’s uncontrolled crossings,

there’s quite a number of different ones, and that adds to complexity

and walk travel time.

45

There are long wait times at pedestrian crossings and short - - -


MR BAINES: Can I just ask you about that, I mean it seems to me that, I mean

you’ve pointed out that there are very high levels of pedestrian – of

walking in Wellington?

5

Wellington has a, what you might describe, is a fairly dense grid

pattern, so it seems to me that, that pedestrians are very accustomed to

having to cross roads, having to wait for, you know, the pedestrian –

the light to go green or the traffic to go and then to dart across and so

on. 10

I’m just wondering whether pedestrians do see that, you know, things

like wait times and so on and crossings as a, as a deterrent or are you

saying, “Well it could be even better if we gave them more time and so

on”, but do they really see it as a deterrent now? 15

MS BLAKE: It’s a good question, I think it comes to the people that walk –

naturally they don’t think about what they’re doing, but we're looking

at a Transport project to try and get some improvement, so it’s what

you were saying that it should be improved. 20

For instance, around the Basin, if you cross Kent and Cambridge

Terrace, and I think Cambridge Terrace has probably got one of the

best crossing times in Wellington, I – in the weekend I thought it was

about three seconds wait before you got across Cambridge Terrace, and 25

you went cross Kent Terrace and instantly you’re into about a 30

second wait, so quite a different – quite different.

And if you come back up to the Buckle – yes, Buckle Street, going that

crossing that you have to do there because of the - - - 30

MR BAINES: The road and that - - -

MS BLAKE: - - - all of the construction and stuff.

35

MR BAINES: Yes.

MS BLAKE: That – it could easily be a two minute wait. So there’s

significant – it’s a significant wait, so there’s quite a lot of different –

there’s no kind of coherence in all of that. 40

MR BAINES: Yes, but that’s - - -

MS BLAKE: So if you’re looking for an improvement, that’s definitely one

area that you could improve. People often talk about how long you 45

have to wait to cross the roads.


CHAIRPERSON: That probably reflects the fact that Cambridge Terrace is a

local road and Kent Terrace is a State Highway.

MS BLAKE: Well I’m sure in some people’s minds that’s what they – the 5

thinking in - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, they don’t think - - -

MS BLAKE: - - - traffic engineers minds - - - 10

CHAIRPERSON: - - - that no, yes.

MS BLAKE: - - - but people who walk don’t think, “Oh, I’m on the State

Highway - - - 15

CHAIRPERSON: No, no, true this, true, yes.

MS BLAKE: - - - I’m on a local road”, it doesn’t - - -

20

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MS BLAKE: - - - as I was trying to say before that you can tell what’s what

because they’re all the same looking traffic.

25

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MS BLAKE: Yes, sorry.

MR BAINES: Okay, that’s all right. 30

MS BLAKE: I can go onto - - -

MR BAINES: No that’s all right, thank you.

35

[10.35 am]

MS BLAKE: And also – there’s also the thing about – so it’s waiting to cross

but it’s also how long you get to cross. For somebody like me who’s

pretty fit I can pop across the road and, and I can run, but a lot of 40

people can’t hop across the road and they can’t run and they need a

significant amount of time, you know a good amount of time to get

across the road.

45


And typically around Wellington the green light phase for crossing is

only four seconds, it’s hardly long enough for some people to get off a

footpath. So if you want to make an improvement in a transport project

that would be another matter to improve.

5

MR COLLINS: Right. Do you want to comment particularly on the Adelaide

to Rugby Street intersection because that’s one that’s quite important in

this project?

The Agency’s case is that, taking a lot of traffic off the Basin, would 10

make it easier to cross for pedestrians and cyclists, but I must say I’ve

been doing it quite often in the morning before I catch the bus around

to the bus stop here, it doesn’t seem to too difficult, there’s a lot of

traffic but, yes, are you conscious of that one, but I might have been

lucky every time I’ve gone it but, it seems you push the button and you 15

get across the island and then you wait and come across.

MS BLAKE: So you got two crossing phases to get across - - -

MR COLLINS: There two crossings, two crossings. 20

MS BLAKE: - - - to get across one road.

MR COLLINS: You do, the two crossing phase, but they don’t seem to be too

long. 25

MS BLAKE: That’s – you see that’s - - -

MR COLLINS: Whereas on the - - -

30

MS BLAKE: The Adelaide Road one is timed on the – it’s nothing to do with

pedestrians really, its timed on traffic, so it just depends on what the

traffic cycle is, apart from the bit where you cross – gosh - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Rugby Street. 35

MS BLAKE: Yes, Rugby Street.

MR COLLINS: I cross Buckle – up here – onto Buckle, that one is a long one

at the moment. 40

MS BLAKE: Yes.

MR COLLINS: Yes.

45


MS BLAKE: And that’s because it’s only for pedestrians so we don’t mind

making them wait for much longer. Whereas you wouldn’t make a car

wait for that long.

So there’s – the Adelaide Road one is, you know, it’s okay, it seems to 5

work, but we're talking about a Transport project that should be

improving things, so that’s kind of what we're looking at.

MR COLLINS: Well it’s argued that it would improve it, but what I’m

questioning is, whether it would improve it from what’s already not too 10

bad in that situation.

MS BLAKE: Yes. Well it’ll only improve it if the crossing time improves,

because you can’t - you know, removing traffic and narrowing lanes is

good, particularly if you have an uncontrolled crossing, but if you have 15

a controlled crossing with traffic lights it all hinges on how fast you get

across and how much time you’ve got to get because that’s, you know,

that’s your only legal way of getting across the road.

MR COLLINS: But just in terms of other part to Wellington, it seems to me 20

that when we were sitting – had this hearing down at the Amora Hotel

and I was walking each morning across from the waterfront to there,

that’s a lot of lanes to cross and that seemed to take an awful lot longer

getting across there than walking up Kent Terrace to here with only two

roads to cross, so there’s a number of crossings isn’t it really. 25

MS BLAKE: Yes, good on you for noticing it. The waterfront is the shocking

wait cross time, yes – that was supposed to be improved by this so-

called “inner city bypass” that this project’s all part of, but in fact the

amount of traffic on the waterfront is – I’d say pretty much the same as 30

it was before so it hasn’t actually improved that at all.

It certainly has - the crossing wait times and things haven’t improved at

all.

35

MR BAINES: I guess what I’m trying to sense - I can understand entirely

what you’re saying, if it was important to improve some of these

things, way finding, crossings and wait times and so on, then that

would, you know, I can see how that would make improvements.

40

Are they – I guess what I’m trying to understand is, we seem to have a

picture that the level of pedestrianisation has been increasing,

Wellington’s become increasingly so, despite the fact that things aren’t

perfect from, you know, they’re not, perhaps well-balanced towards

pedestrians, but they seem to be sufficiently enabling of pedestrians. 45


So are you suggesting that, in order for that, for more pedestrians to

walk we need to make the improvements or is that going to happen

anyway simply because Wellington is becoming that kind of city?

MS BLAKE: Well I noticed that this proposal seems to be based on that 5

there’ll be more pedestrians because there’ll be more population - - -

MR BAINES: Yes.

MS BLAKE: - - - which, you know, that’s not really improving the walking 10

infrastructure, it’s just relying on more people coming here - - -

MR BAINES: Right.

MS BLAKE: - - - it’s a different kind of measure. 15

MR BAINES: Right. The southern spine argument and the – you mean more

people building – more people living around Adelaide Road and Kent

and Cambridge Terrace.

20

MS BLAKE: Yes. So you’ll get more people anyway, just because there’s

more people there.

MR BAINES: Right.

25

MS BLAKE: But, the whole purpose of – I mean that’s – and that’s what I

was trying to say at the beginning, was that to think about pedestrians

consciously and deliberately, you need to do a proper assessment and

look at some of these things.

30

[10.40 am]

MR BAINES: Right.

MS BLAKE: Because we want to make, no I haven’t got onto it yet, but I 35

don’t mind rambling around, but all the plans seem to suggest that they

want a greater walk/mode share. They want more people catching

buses, they want less people in private cars, so if you want, if you are

serious about that measure, you have got to address these things. And I

was trying to say as well is that while the overall principles are 40

important it is these kind of details that really make a difference to

people walking in an area or not walking in an area.

And pedestrians are super responsive, like, if they go down a road one

day and there is a big problem down that road they will go a different 45

route the next day, so they self-adjust in a way. But this, the Basin


Reserve is an area you kind of have to go through to get to a lot of

different places so it is a bit different in that regard.

MR BAINES: So you are saying to us we should look at what is proposed in

terms of the bits of physical infrastructure and ask ourselves a question 5

what is that likely to do to the attractiveness of walking, by walking

and cycling and public transport, and driving. I mean, look at those in

terms of each mode?

MS BLAKE: Yeah. 10

MR BAINES: All right. Okay.

MS BLAKE: I should press on?

15

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MS BLAKE: So when I take - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Are you down to 4? 20

MS BLAKE: Yeah. When I came this morning, especially since it has been

raining, you notice that it is quite noisy around the Basin Reserve as

well, and the queue I saw of cars, actually, was waiting to go through to

Newtown. Because there is only one lane that can get on from down 25

there. So there is quite a lot of noise and there is obviously an air

pollution issue as well. So a good project would look at reducing both

of those things as well. And we have talked about, a bit about large

volumes of vehicles, and multi-lane roads reduce walking amenity.

There is an issue around the Basin and in many parts of Wellington is 30

vehicles on footpaths, which are largely cyclists, because they have

been, haven’t had proper facilities on road.

There is an issue, particularly on Adelaide Road, about the footpath

capacity at the bus stop. And there is an issue around the Basin about 35

the, kind of, run down appearance because of all the demolitions that

has occurred. And I have just briefly touched on the provisions and

plans which I am pretty sure that you are very familiar with, what the

plans say about pedestrians and walking. The government policy

statement talks about improving travel time reliability and safety, 40

which are both important for pedestrians. The Regional Policy

Statement and Regional Land Transport Strategy talk about improving

public transport, increasing walking mode share, improving safety and

the level of service for pedestrians.

45


As I understand it, the objectives have an equal weighting, so one mode

should not win out over other ones. We talk about public transport a lot

from a pedestrian point of view because pedestrians are public transport

users and the public transport users are pedestrians, it goes hand in

hand, it is a really strong relationship. And we just mentioned that the 5

Basin Reserve is going to be part of a development hub for Wellington

city. And as I understand it this project all derives from the Ngauranga

to airport plan, the first words of which relate to it being a “multi modal

corridor with a key plan shift to passenger transport, walking and

cycling modes”. 10

And their work involves travel demand management to reduce the

number of sole occupant car trips. Promoting bus priority, increasing

walk mode share, a focus on time critical travel. When you talk to

pedestrians and walkers they always tell you how long it takes to get 15

from one place to the other, they are not really interested in how far.

It’s a five minute walk, it’s a 20 minute walk. So it is a time critical

mode. And the plan was also talking about improving traffic

management around the Basin. And the Basin Bridge project objectives

also talk about enhancing movement of people, improving access to 20

Wellington CBD, employment centres, airport and hospital, supporting

mobility and modal choice, providing opportunities for walking, not

constraining opportunities for future transport developments and

improving the local road network.

25

[10.45 am]

And looking at the Abley peer review they noticed that the project

designers considered the most critical criteria is namely urban design,

social impacts and long term strategic fit and they were the priority in 30

choosing this option. It is a bit surprising that there wasn’t a transport

or user criteria priority in that as well. Yes, I will come on to that in a

bit.

So then we had a think about what we would expect to see in a good 35

integrated transport network proposal from a pedestrian point of view

and looking at the New Zealand Pedestrian Planning and Design Guide,

which is this little document here, which is a bit like the bible for

pedestrians, it is the only kind of design guide that is available in

New Zealand for New Zealand guide. 40

So what they talk about is that some of the characteristics of walking

communities are that they are connected, legible, comfortable,

convenient, pleasant, safe, secure, universal and accessible. So the key

outcomes that we would expect to see from spending this large amount 45

of taxpayer money is a commensurate large improvement in


walkability from the existing situation. And that was outlined by

Mr Andrew Smith who is the pedestrian expert.

And so that would mean that there is an increase in walk mode share in

this area or at least more pedestrians using this area. That the walking 5

environment is pleasant and perceived to be safe and there are some

key issues that would be included in that. Things like shelter, wind

effects, the quality of the urban environment, illegal use of footpaths,

perceived safety issues and it says adjunct to infrastructure such as

seating would also important. 10

So the project should end up with a more pleasant place to walk and

should be direct routes. There are some major barriers to pedestrian

movement in this area already. The transit times should be improved

which is something – there is no information on how long does it take 15

to walk from one side of the Basin to the other going different routes.

There is no information on that so far.

There should be reduced interaction with vehicle traffic. They should

remove any impediments to pedestrian transit particularly for disabled 20

users and young people who need a pedestrian environment consistent

with their age and ability to make sound judgements. As we have

mentioned there’s a lot of young people in this area with different –

you know, primary school age children have different needs to

secondary school age children. 25

And we have suggested a measure that if this project is successful then

perhaps primary school age children will be able to walk to school on

their own, which I think quite often now their parents won’t let them go

to St Marks. That would be a good measure of an improvement for 30

pedestrians.

There should be improved legibility which is the whole thing about

signposting and way finding. There should be improved connectivity,

are the routes going where you want them to go which I think you 35

noticed at Sussex Street it has very poor connectivity. And should be

accessible, which means that all pedestrians can use it including people

in wheelchairs or people who can’t see very well.

There should be high quality facilities. There should be lower noise 40

and air pollution. Conflicts should be removed. There should be high

quality waiting areas. There should be a sustainable use of resources.

We should be using appropriate indigenous flora and fauna in this area

that recognises and reflects Wellington ecosystems.

45


There should be an improved public transport service, improved

pedestrian infrastructure and their resulting plans need to be assessed

against a robust methodology, which Mr Andrew Smith mentioned one

there.

5

MR BAINES: Can I ask you something here, I mean I am thinking about a lot

of the points you are raising here in these bullet points about improving

the walking environments and reducing the interaction with vehicles

and so on. The Transport Agency’s proposal is in fact to take a very

significant proportion of vehicles and in a sense take them right out of 10

the pedestrian environment by putting them up on a bridge, so wouldn’t

you expect that to do quite a lot of what you are wanting?

[10.50 am]

15

MS BLAKE: Um - - -

MR BAINES: I mean I know there are other effects of doing that but I am

simply talking about the interaction between.

20

MS BLAKE: Well, if you take off half the vehicles then it will make it a more

pleasant place to walk around but I am not convinced that’s what they

have done. We don’t have good information on where those people

coming through the tunnel are coming from and where they are going.

So it seems to be all modelled on that they all want to go off to Buckle 25

Street.

MR BAINES: Well, setting aside where they come from and where they are

going, I mean if we accept that they are actually coming through the

tunnel and around the Basin at the moment, the Transport Agency’s 30

proposal is to take however many thousand a day it is, I forget the exact

figure – 15,000 a day and in a sense remove them from a large part of

the interaction with pedestrians by putting them on a bridge and

pedestrians get a separate bridge. But, in terms of interaction with

pedestrians around the Basin Reserve, they get removed from that so 35

we have had quite a substantial reduction therefore in terms of the

number of vehicles that are close by pedestrians. I would have thought

that that does make quite a lot of difference to some of these things that

you are talking about that are issues.

40

MS BLAKE: It can make a difference to some parts but I don’t think – we

don’t see in the proposal some of the levels of service that we need to

see to be sure that there is going to be any improvement.

45


MR BAINES: So is your point more to do with the fact that most of the

analysis and assessment is focused on vehicles and not very much

analysis and assessment focused on levels of service for pedestrians, is

that what you are saying?

5

MS BLAKE: What we are hearing through this hearing is that even the

information on vehicles is being disputed at every turn.

MR BAINES: Right.

10

MS BLAKE: The modelling and everything so even though there has been it

seems like a lot of modelling done on all of the vehicle things, that

there doesn’t seem to be any certainty that that modelling is correct.

MR BAINES: Okay, well, that is vehicle modelling per se and I can accept 15

that there may be some questions about that.

MS BLAKE: And as we understand there hasn’t really been any modelling

done for pedestrians or other - - -

20

MR BAINES: So that’s what you are saying, you are contrasting the level of

analysis and assessment of the vehicular traffic with what you are

saying is very little analysis and assessment of pedestrian traffic and

pedestrian needs, that’s one of the points you are making, is it?

25

MS BLAKE: Yes.

MR BAINES: Okay.

MS BLAKE: So a good project would have levels of service specified which 30

we don’t see in this and I have included an attachment which is a page

out of the Pedestrian Planning and Design Guide, which just

demonstrates what a level of service might look like for pedestrians.

And this one relates to pedestrian crossings and basically how long you

have to wait to cross a road and they give you a different level, like you 35

have got level of service A, B, C, D et cetera. And it’s a pretty simple

way of determining if an improvement has been made, if you specify

you want a level of service B for all your crossings in the project or

something like that.

40

CHAIRPERSON: Well, that’s interesting. We had a level of service for

vehicles but no level of service for pedestrians.


MS BLAKE: Exactly, and this just relates to crossing time, there’s a whole

range of things that you could potentially and you should include

because otherwise how do you know that there is going to be any

improvement. It’s just no narrative, isn’t it?

5

CHAIRPERSON: Have you read much of the evidence? You have obviously

read some of it.

MS BLAKE: I haven’t read anywhere near what you have had to read I’m

afraid. I have read a few bits and I am sure - - - 10

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I can’t recall any level of service for pedestrians in the

evidence.

MS BLAKE: There isn’t anything for pedestrians, no, I’m pretty sure about 15

that.

MR BAINES: Can you just help me to interpret this, I am looking at this

graph here. How should we interpret the curved lines, are you saying

as traffic volumes increase we should expect longer delay times 20

corresponding to each level of service?

MS BLAKE: The lines in here relate to the - the kind of curvy graph lines

relate to what kind of provision there is. So for the red line a median

refuge, as I understand it, is one of those islands in the middle of a road 25

that people can stop at.

[10.55 am]

MR BAINES: Oh, I see. 30

MS BLAKE: So if you have got a median refuge then your mean delay for

pedestrians crossing the road and the traffic volume, that’s kind of that

line there. So these levels of service shows that for a level of service A

you should have a five second delay to cross a road. 35

MR BAINES: If it is a local road, is it - - -

MS BLAKE: Well, for any road it will still be the same level of service.

40

MR BAINES: Right.

MR COLLINS: The graphs just show measures.

45


MS BLAKE: And I think the one that is most appropriate is the one over the

page which is mean delay for various facilities on a two lane two way

urban road interrupted flow, which is pretty much exactly the same as

the other one.

5

MR COLLINS: It is just showing the effect of adding things like kerb

extension, median refuge to how you appreciate the level of service you

are getting with or without those sort of devices.

MS BLAKE: Yes. I quite like this one because I can understand it so, you 10

know, it’s all to do with how long you have to wait to cross the road

and very facilities like that. So that’s the kind of level of service that

we think should be part of the proposal for pedestrians across a whole

range of matters.

15

MR BAINES: So just to understand that, on the second page and looking at

level of service A, if there is no physical aid then you would expect a

mean five second delay if there is traffic volumes that are say about

300 vehicles per hour. As the vehicle volumes increase and then you

get busier roads and you get more physical infrastructure like kerb 20

extensions they can accommodate more traffic but you still have the

same level of service for pedestrians and then as you get median – you

need median refuge if you have got even higher volumes of traffic to

have the same level of service?

25

MS BLAKE: That’s right, yes.

MR BAINES: And you need a combination of kerb extensions and median

refuge if you have even higher?

30

MS BLAKE: Yes.

MR BAINES: That’s what it is saying, thank you.

MS BLAKE: Or you use traffic lights to give you this level of service. 35

MR BAINES: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.

40

MS BLAKE: Okay. So I might just leave that little bit there, it’s all to do

with what we think should be in a good project and - - -

CHAIRPERSON: So this is taken from what document?

45


MS BLAKE: This one, the New Zealand Pedestrian Planning and Design

Guide.

CHAIRPERSON: And who prepared that?

5

MS BLAKE: That was put out by Land Transport New Zealand, the

New Zealand Transport Agency predecessor in 2007, which I

understand hasn’t been changed since then.

CHAIRPERSON: What is it called? 10

MS BLAKE: The New Zealand Pedestrian Planning and Design Guide. It has

got a lot of good information in here.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. That is Transit New Zealand, did you say? 15

MS BLAKE: It was done by Land Transport New Zealand but it’s now

New Zealand Transport Agency’s document.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. 20

MS BLAKE: So on to the Basin Bridge proposal. We reviewed the walk

assessment and the different zones of the project so have just briefly

gone over some of that information. We would just like to note - - -

25

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, I think you have jumped.

MS BLAKE: Sorry, I have, I have jumped along, I am on paragraph 40.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay. 30

MS BLAKE: Getting too long.

CHAIRPERSON: No, this is your opportunity so we want you to have it.

35

MS BLAKE: Yes, okay, thank you, we appreciate that. So I just wanted

before I jump into the details of the Basin Bridge proposal just to note

that pedestrians are the transport system users who will spend the most

time travelling through the Basin Reserve. They travel at an average

speed of 5.4 kilometres an hour which means that you can travel about 40

90 metres in one minute, and that’s uninterrupted obviously.


[11.00 am]

And that’s compared to 330 metres for cyclists travelling at

20 kilometres an hour or 900 metres for cars travelling at the average of

54 kilometres an hour and the design guide shows that. 5

So, the transport effects and impact of this project will be most keenly

felt by pedestrians. And the New Zealand Pedestrian Planning and

Design Guide recommends a structured process to provide for

pedestrians within a road corridor, when pedestrians already walk or 10

wish to walk within a deficient road corridor. And the hierarchy for

considering the solutions puts providing new pedestrian route

alignment and greater separation as the last choice.

We are not aware that any other option was considered at all in this 15

area for pedestrians. So the pedestrian assessment provided a one day

count of pedestrians in 2009 and a three day survey of pedestrians in

2012 and from this pedestrian routes were assumed and it doesn’t

appear that destinations were surveyed.

20

And the increase in the pedestrians seems to be largely based on

population growth which was talked about before. The picture provided

by the project “Pedestrian Assessment” does not show the level of

pedestrian activity or the future possibility clearly. The attractiveness of

walk routes, nor is there a study of the current footpath level of service, 25

as noted by Mr Andy Smith.

The guide to undertaking the community street review is 2010, as seen

on the New Zealand Transport Agency website as a suitable way to

assess pedestrian needs. Mr Smith noted that the nature of the walkers 30

has not been fully considered in the reports. He noted that this area has

an unusual mix of users including children accessing a number of

schools, commuters and walkers seeking to access the Basin Reserve

itself.

35

So, I just mentioned before, we don’t know the pedestrian travel time

through the area, the condition of the footpaths, how long the crossing

wait times are, how long the cross time is, or the adequacy of current

lighting, et cetera. And they all contribute to a good level of service for

pedestrians. And because we don’t know that it would be impossible to 40

determine what a construction or post-construction level of service is

and if it is changed from the current.

There has been no analysis of bus passenger and pedestrian interactions

even though we know that there has been an issue at the bus stop on 45

Adelaide Road. The analysis is forever lumping pedestrians and


cyclists together as a single group which is unhelpful. Walking and

cycling have quite different behaviours and needs and use different

parts of the road and to improve mode share for either mode, a separate

analysis is required, it is the minimum required.

5

The pedestrian counts showed high numbers of pedestrians in the area,

so we know that it is a well-used place, yet it is difficult from the

assessment to see why any of the proposals were made. It seems that

the Abley peer review supports our position by stating that there is too

much uncertainty surrounding future predictions of walking demand 10

and detailed modelling is required. And I have read somewhere that

there seems to be an origin destination survey being done for

pedestrians but I haven’t seen any data on that.

The extensive amount of modelling of vehicle patterns around the 15

Basin has been considered inadequate and not providing a useful

picture of vehicle issues and causes, yet the key outcomes of the project

are not all about private vehicle use either and there is even less

information on other modes.

20

So, we have considered the proposal and made some comments on each

section, though I wouldn’t call it a detailed analysis. And the first few

points relate to the project overall while I have tried to go through the

other bit zone by zone.

25

So, the technical report 4 stated that “No footpaths will be removed in

this project area”, yet the western side footpaths are all removed as are

the eastern side Basin Reserve footpaths and also the north-western

corner of Buckle Street and these are going to be downgraded to shared

paths. 30

Now, a shared path with cyclists is clearly a reduction in level of

service for pedestrians and hence in walkability as identified by Mr

Andy Smith. The Pedestrian Design Guide describes the advantages of

shared paths as mostly accruing to cyclists and that shared paths are 35

generally proposed with cyclists in mind.

[11.05 am]

The only benefit for pedestrians is if a facility would not otherwise be 40

built, which was the rationale for putting the pedestrian-cycle bridge

add-on to the flyover. Consideration of shared paths is only

recommended where the combined flow of pedestrians and cyclists is

light, that is 200 users an hour, and the Design Guide goes on to list the

disadvantages for pedestrians, which are many. 45


The different speed of pedestrians and cyclists lead to inevitable

conflict. Some pedestrians, for example, older people feel insecure

walking among faster cyclists. More space is required than for a

footpath due to the need for a cyclist to pass pedestrians travelling in

the same direction. The behaviour of children and pets being overtaken 5

by cyclists is unpredictable, although I would say that the cyclists are

the unpredictable ones.

As the volumes of all users increase, conflicts between their needs can

insignificantly affect the quality of provision for both pedestrians and 10

cyclists. These bits are all from the Pedestrian Guide as well, so it is not

me making this one up. So, most cyclists will not divert from a

roadway that provides the faster route, so that shared paths really

completely replace the need for on-road provision.

15

And while segregation by markings or surface treatments reduces the

conflicts, users are poor at keeping to their part of the path. Segregated

shared paths require considerably more space. So, there is a lot of

confusion about pedestrian and cyclist impacts and effects from this

project and it is not helpful to combine the two different modes in the 20

assessment modelling and forecasting.

There has been no analysis of what is required for an improvement in

this area. We believe that – this is from what we know about that is

happening in Wellington – much of the potential demand for cycling 25

facilities in this area will come from adult commuter cyclists and those

are the users that travel faster than other cyclists and increase the

adverse effects noted above and it is therefore totally inappropriate to

share footpaths with young walkers.

30

The Abley peer review says “It is agreed that the new and improved

walking and cycling facilities and an environment established by the

project is likely to induce considerably more pedestrian and cycling

demand”, so it is assumed that numbers of both pedestrians and cyclists

will increase, so all those effects of use. 35

So, the Abley peer review states that it considers the project provides

an improvement for pedestrians and cyclists, but then it goes on to note

that “recent large observed increases in pedestrian activity in the

general vicinity of the project raise some questions over the suitability 40

of the design, of a proposed shared path facility in particular”.

The shared path will not future-proof the transport system in this area

and will constrain pedestrian use. Further, an increase in conflicts with

cyclists will occur. This project is an opportunity to create a better 45

transport system with proper cycle lanes, footpaths and public transport


priority. It is not a chance to solve a cyclist problem by creating a new

problem for pedestrians and especially not in this school-dense area

with its complex transport flows.

Shared path are a significant adverse effect and that effect will extend 5

beyond the project area by encouraging cyclists onto footpaths and

other areas as we have seen along Karo Drive or the inner city bypass.

Along that road the absence of appropriate and required signposting of

shared paths contributes to this. In this attempt to normalise higher

speed vehicle use on footpaths clearly does not consider the present or 10

future needs of pedestrians and walkability.

Living Streets does not support the stopping of footpaths and creation

of shared paths anywhere in this high-used pedestrian area and we ask

the Board to please reject them. 15

And we also note that in some places something called off-road facility

is being used and the project documentation seems to be referring to

footpaths, which are part of the legal road, so we are not clear if the

correct terminology is being used throughout the proposal. 20

We think that all footpaths in the project area could be improved. The

New Zealand Pedestrian Planning Design Guide should be consulted

and that section 14.2 recommends that footpaths are located on both

sides of any new road and should be 4.5 metres wide in locations 25

alongside parks, schools and other major pedestrian generators.

So, a second overall comment is on the impact of a flyover bridge on

walking amenity. So, we noted in our submission that we consider the

physical presence of the flyover bridge to detract from the walking 30

environment in this area.

[11.10 am]

It will change the landscape and walking experience from its current 35

open and low lying aspect to a more industrial over-shadowed concrete

scape. This change cannot be mitigated as it’s a permanent affect, and

if approved should be offset in some way. And we suggest for

offsetting it – and improve the footpaths all along what’s called the

State Highway Roads within Wellington City, which would be great. 40

And the level of the noise and light affects with will be altered

permanently and need mitigation. Mr Don, who I think was a wind

expert, noted that there’s a risk that wind speeds will exceed

Wellington City guidelines for five weeks a year on the shared path 45


bridge. And he suggested that a simple two to three metre screen

would reduce this effect, which we support.

The bridge will create at best a visual barrier from north to south and

significantly alter paths and the walking experience at ground level. 5

The bridge structure itself will present additional barriers at ground

level to be traversed and both of a visual and physical nature. And

these effects will be experienced around much of the Basin, but

particularly noticeable when you approach from Kent and Cambridge

Terrace and from Ellice Street. 10

And the proposed Gateway Building itself is going to add the kind of

visual and physical barriers effect.

Then I was going to go and talk through the project zone, so I think if I 15

could have the - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well will that be a convenient place to break and have

a cup of tea.

20

MS BLAKE: Excellent, I think, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Give you a little chance to regroup.

MS BLAKE: Thank you. 25


ADJOURNED [11.12 am]

30

RESUMED [11.36 am]

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Ms Blake?

MS BLAKE: Carry on? 35


MS BLAKE: All right. Sorry, I was going to go through some of the different

project zones, and they’re all from the appendix one in the proposed 40

conditions that is available on the website.


45


MS BLAKE: So in zone one, which is the Buckle Street/Cambridge Terrace

corner, which is not a very nice picture of. I think the design principles

of a path are - to be accessible, direct, convenient and in general in

accordance with the landscape plans and be in accordance with relative

NZTA guidelines. 5

This area, I don’t know what’s really going on with this area because

it’s clearly not a direct path, there’s this whole – it’s that bit when

you’re coming from Cambridge Terrace and you just walk up the road

to Buckle Street, which is about 30 or 40 metres of footpath currently, 10

and somehow or rather we’ve ended up with this arrange of a huge

zigzag and criss-cross arrangement, so it’s definitely not a direct path

anymore.

I can’t really see how it’s going to improve the pedestrian experience in 15

this area, and they should have used the pedestrian design guide as a

design standard here. There’s the whole issue it’s a shared path, and I

think separate paths must be considered in this area. And it’s even hard

to know how much space is provided in some of this.

20

The footpath that comes past the crèche building, I think is only a three

metre wide footpath, which is supposed to be a share path, and that’s

clearly not in accordance with the pedestrian guide either.

MR BAINES: Excuse me, is the northern most path there not reasonably 25

direct from Cambridge – right at the very top, right next door to the

green dotted line, wouldn’t you call that reasonably direct?

MS BLAKE: Well not really because it’s around what has been a disused

area, and it’s around the fence, and I think those are steps that come up 30

- - -

MR BAINES: Mm’hm.

MS BLAKE: - - - it looks like very narrow steps that come up, and then you 35

have to, I think, around the corner of the crèche building, so you’re

going along and then up some steps, around the crèche building and

then Buckle Street.

MR BAINES: Mm’hm. 40

MS BLAKE: Which is quite a different route from what you go now. There’s

information again on what the change in this area is going to be, you

know, how much longer is it going to take you to travel, how much

further is it? So I think that walking ability has reduced in this area. 45


So apart from the shared path aspect it’s narrow winding and

constrained by the bridge, which will be on the south side and the

crèche building on the other, so you’re going to be squished between

those two areas.

5

We can only assume that the reason this has happened is because

somehow or rather the slope has increased dramatically, which might

be because of the bridge batter or – I don’t know exactly why this has

happened.

10

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I think they’re terracing it too, aren’t they?

MS BLAKE: It could be.

MR BAINES: The gardens have got little walls around them. 15

[11.40 am]

CHAIRPERSON: Are they terracing it?

20

MR COLLINS: Well, just the garden plots but the pass - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, for the gardens.

MR COLLINS: I think we were told that they were trying to provide 25

alternatives so there would be a gentle slope for pushchairs and

wheelchairs and then sort of a direct route for people who just want to

get there but you are saying - - -

MS BLAKE: I can’t really see a direct route, yes. 30

MR COLLINS: No, that’s right, you can’t see the direct route, okay.

MR BAINES: Well, I think that’s one on the top there with the steps is - - -

35

MR COLLINS: But it’s got steps.

MR BAINES: It has steps I agree, it’s fairly direct though.

MS BLAKE: It’s just when you walk there now you come from Cambridge 40

Terrace to Buckle Street and it’s hardly any distance at all. You don’t

even notice walking there, it’s not even a particularly big slope for

Wellington legs, you know, and all of a sudden we have got this really

crazy arrangement with plants and things all over it so it’s going to be

harder to see through what’s happening around there as well. 45


The design guide says I think it’s a 1 in 12 slope is the most that a

wheelchair can access. So it has got to be designed for that anyway so

we can only assume that there is a huge increase in the slope which is

weird and doesn’t really improve walkability at all. And we think a

proper assessment should be done of what is happening around here for 5

pedestrians. It’s not good enough just to have a picture like this and

then somehow or other we are supposed to believe that this is an

improvement.

MR COLLINS: We had some discussion with the gentlemen from Cycle 10

Aware too about corners and his concerns about it.

MS BLAKE: Well, I, you know, defer to the cycling view on this but I can’t

see why cyclists can’t get a direct cycle path directly from Buckle

Street coming down to meet, I think that’s still Buckle Street there that 15

goes around the corner into Cambridge. There’s no need for all this

complicated arrangement. There is no need for a shared path. So a

very short bit of additional cycle path facility that could easily fix that.

You have probably walked up there and seen the cyclists coming down

around that corner, they love that corner, you can go really fast. You 20

know, good of them, but it’s a real pain as a pedestrian.

Currently they have got the cyclists exiting onto Cambridge Terrace

just past the pedestrian crossing so you have these really fast cyclists

coming zipping along just when you are trying to cross the road. It’s a 25

really poor design currently. You could easily fix it by making a

proper cycle path exiting Buckle Street, that’s my non-cycling view.

CHAIRPERSON: Was your organisation consulted at all at any time about - -

- 30

MS BLAKE: We have been to lots of meetings. Well, quite a few pre-hearing

meetings but I wouldn’t say that we were consulted on the design of

this at all.

35

MR BAINES: I think what the judge is meaning, did the people who designed

this, who were the people who designed it when they responded to the

competition for the National War Memorial, I mean Wraight and

Hardwick-Smith, did they contact Living Streets Aotearoa?

40

MS BLAKE: No. I am sure we have been to some of the meetings about the

National War Memorial but not looking at the design like this.


45


MS BLAKE: So, yes, I think it really needs to be looked at, this area, and

improved. It is going to require good lighting because it is going to be

a sunny little corner. The pedestrians will have to go under the bridge

to get up onto the other side of Buckle Street as well.

5

You will notice that there is, I think it is called an “informal pedestrian

crossing” that comes up from Cambridge on to Sussex Street and it is

going to be crossing what’s now called a slip road as the cars turn into

Buckle Street. This isn’t really solving the issue of having any direct

connection across Sussex Street from the Basin Reserve to the other 10

side.

And we also note that in common with a lot of other areas in this

proposal that it looks like some of the corner has been cut off between

Buckle Street and Cambridge Terrace. The chief effect of that from a 15

pedestrian point of view is it makes the cars go faster, makes the

vehicles go faster so it decreases the safety for people trying to cross

the road around the corner.

[11.45 am] 20

And once people get used to a new alignment then they know they can

go however fast it is. The faster they go the longer it takes them to stop

for people around the corner as well. So I think that’s all on that bit.

25


MS BLAKE: Zone 2 is the Cambridge/Kent Terrace area. So there’s quite a

number of improvements that could be made along this road from

Vivian Street, it’s the area with the Canal Reserve in it. And I don’t 30

quite get it but I think this hearing decides on stuff about all the way

down to Vivian Street and Pirie Street so this is why we are making

these comments here.

It’s where the Canal Reserve is and there has been a key connectivity 35

issue for walking along that, is it’s really difficult for people to walk

along the Canal Reserve which has got all the nice plants and some

seats and things because there’s these huge kind of turning lanes for

cars coming up and down Kent and Cambridge Terrace. And they are

really wide and it would be really good if they could be made narrower 40

so that it’s possible for people to cross them with, you know, feeling

relatively safe. And there’s a whole raft of them all the way down that

road. That would be an improvement for walking.

45


And there is no reason why a cycle lane can’t be provided along Kent

and Cambridge Terrace so that cyclists can access directly into the

Basin Reserve path. And it was just looking at watching somebody on

a cycle coming out of the Basin Reserve and they want to go directly

down Cambridge Terrace but at the moment there is that kind of 5

triangle planted area that they have to kind of avoid. So I think it

would be a big improvement if there was a cycle path on Kent and

Cambridge Terrace. And that would also keep the cyclists off the

footpath.

10

Looking at some of this design, you can see these three big trees that

seem to be obscuring the access to the Basin Reserve. One of them

seems to be right in the middle of where the pedestrian path is going

and I know it’s just a picture but it would be disturbing to think that

this is how the plants were going to end up looking. 15

One of the issues that I mentioned earlier is that there’s a little

connection problem for people who don’t know the area very well,

about knowing that you can actually walk through the Basin Reserve so

having a nice open, easy to see route through to the Basin is important 20

there so it would be bad to have plants planted right in the middle of it.

And in one of the plans we were looking at they were talking about

something called “shared space” in this area in front of the Dempster

Gates or whatever they are now. 25

CHAIRPERSON: That will be Buckle Street, it will be a shared space, which

means pedestrians, cyclists and cars.

MS BLAKE: Yes, so we have a bit of an issue of thinking about how that 30

might work. The whole rest of the Basin Reserve is ordinary kind of

road, cars go at 50 kilometres an hour or whatever it is actually but it’s

actually slower because of the nice shape of the Basin slows them

down a bit. So I think there’s a real issue if this is formed into what is

a true shared space where pedestrians and cyclists and everybody, you 35

know, you look at each other, you slow down, the cars slow down, you

can just walk across, children can just walk across, people who can’t

see very well could just walk across because the cars will stop.

This area is not suitable for that kind of shared space idea because it’s 40

part of a roundabout. The cars are coming whipping around the corner,

I can see there’s some real issues trying to make – to think that people

who want to go straight through there are going to have time or it’s

probably mostly time to consider this is a completely different space to

what’s all happened around the rest of the roundabout. 45


MR COLLINS: It is shown in drawings as being paved and slightly raised to

try and emphasise that but I understand your concern because at the

moment, although it’s not a very commonly used piece of the

roundabout, there’s enough cars there to make you think - - -

5

[11.50 am]

MS BLAKE: Well the people who live in Mount Victoria use that a lot.

MR BAINES: Yes, it’s the only way you can get across that way. 10

MS BLAKE: Yes.

MR BAINES: And that stays the same basically, there’s no reason to think

that there will be less people using that. 15

MS BLAKE: Yes.

MR BAINES: Fewer cars using that in the future. So you’re concerned about

– do you think there’s a design solution to that, because that’s what 20

we’re being told really that it would be - - -

MS BLAKE: I think shared spaces are a particular kind of concept, and I

don’t think it’s the right concept for this area. I think have a raised

crossing always slows cars down, but it doesn’t mean that it’s a shared 25

space. I think shared space is a step beyond that, I don’t think a

through-road is really appropriate for that kind of concept.

I do think that a raised pedestrian crossing could be a good working

solution, but I’d rather than somebody like Andy Smith thought about 30

that rather than me thinking about it right now. But I know there’s

good solutions to it.

Currently there’s a little issue there with the pedestrian crossing, where

it’s pretty obscured by a lot of vegetation, so if you get a short person 35

coming up to that crossing, the cars have quite a lot of trouble seeing it.

It’s not fair to car drivers as much as it’s not fair to pedestrians, there’s

just not enough time in that little short area to be able to think about a

whole lot of those things and make appropriate and safe decisions.

40

So we’d be concerned if it remained as a shared space concept, but not

concerned it there was a raised pedestrian crossing kind of idea.

MR BAINES: Well the only alternative really I guess would be to force those

cars to go up to the first gap in the median, which you were discussing 45

before – those gaps in the median, the Canal Reserve which impede


pedestrian movement through. Or suppose you could make the cars go

up to there and weave back.

MS BLAKE: Yes, I don’t know that vehicle people would be that happy with

it. I think you can make it a safer crossing without taking the cars off. 5

I don’t think that that shared space concept is a really - - -

CHAIRPERSON: It’s the shared space concept that you’re concerned about.

MS BLAKE: Yes, because it means a particular kind of approach, yes. 10

I guess all of this that we’re seeing assumes that there’s going to be a

Gateway Building, which seems to be designed especially to mitigate

effects for the cricket players rather than anybody else.

15

It’s going to add another visual barrier for pedestrians, and as we were

talking, there’s a potential access way barrier as well. Currently

sometimes people are confused about being allowed in through the

gates, whereas if you’re a local you know that you are. But having a

big building could make that little issue worse. So it’s really important 20

that if there is in fact a Gateway Building, that it’s got a really good and

obvious way in and out, which is why I was a bit concerned when I was

looking at the condition that there was some suggestion that maybe the

gates get closed at night, which I couldn’t quite understand why that

might happen. Because you’re changing the flow-through there. 25

So in this area as well it would be really important to have good

signposting, because currently there isn’t any signposting at all around

the Basin.

30

And that’s pretty much all I wanted to say about that zone. So it’s zone

three, which moves onto the Kent Terrace and Ellice Street corner, as

mentioned I think there’s plenty of room for a proper cycle path on the

road, so the cyclists can directly access the Basin separately, to bike

around on the road. 35

I notice that there’s only one car lane going through to Newtown, and

so they’re kind of assuming that most of the traffic is going the other

way, which I hope is actually true and not just an artefact of some of

the modelling. This morning when I came here I saw the cars were 40

waiting to go through on the Newtown Road and there was absolutely

nobody waiting at all on the tunnel lane.

I notice that bus priority is supposed to be really important, except it’s

really hard to see how buses have priority through this area. The bus 45

lanes, which is just basically green paint on the road, it doesn’t go the


whole way – I mean how are the buses actually supposed to get priority

through here, it just doesn’t make sense.

[11.55 am]

5

MR COLLINS: I think we’ve been told that there are ways of giving bus

priorities at the lights by allowing buses at that bus stop, at the southern

end of Kent Terrace, to depart through the lights.

MS BLAKE: But those lights are pedestrian controlled lights, they only go 10

when there’s somebody there pushing the button, so I don’t know, there

would have to be a change in those kind of lights for the bus to work.

That could actually work quite well for pedestrians, but I don’t see that

in this proposal that there is actually any provision that this is what’s

going to happen, so how is a bus priority going to work. 15

Why is the bus priority lane only partway through, I mean if buses,

walking and cycling are the most that you want to encourage, why this

arrangement?

20

The buses still have to do that manoeuvre from coming from the Kent

Terrace bus stop, zipping across the lanes and getting into the right lane

for going through to Newtown, which if there is a lot of cars there –

you often see there’s a little bit of a snarl up round there.

25

I don’t think we need a new flyover bridge to fix that problem either.

And there’s going to be a new building, apparently on the corner of

Kent Terrace and Ellice Street, and I think this is a really good

opportunity for the new building to retain some of the good features 30

that were in the demolished historic building, maybe even the shape,

that horseshoe shape. And also having a shape that goes around with

the road, would mean you wouldn’t have that little corner that’s in the

building, just on the corner of Cambridge Terrace there. I don’t really

understand what that’s all about. 35

Any building there should have a veranda on it – we used to have a

veranda on the building that was there before, it can be quite a windy,

rainy corner sometimes.

40

I’ve noticed that the ensuite parking has been, I think it’s already gone,

there used to be parking outside that building, because of course people

who go to those shops sometimes want to go and stop outside of them.

What we’d observe is if that kind of parking is removed outside of

shops then cars and vehicles park on the footpath, so what is going to 45


stop that from happening in this proposal? Nothing that we can see so

far.

The other question we’re wondering, we know that the Gateway

Building is going to be built for the cricket people, but who’s going to 5

build this place on the corner, there doesn’t seem to be information

about how that’s going to happen.

The F and I and things that refer to parts of the conditions, so we

thought that under “F” that they should meet the New Zealand 10

Pedestrian Planning and Design Guide for footpath, and under “I” a

footpath can only be used by pedestrians not cyclists, so the cyclists

should be on the roadway.

MR COLLINS: So vehicles should be pedestrians there, should it? 15

MS BLAKE: Pardon?

MR COLLINS: You’ve got a footpath cannot - - -

20

MS BLAKE: No, a footpath cannot be used by vehicles, which is bicycles.

MR COLLINS: Sorry, I beg your pardon.

MS BLAKE: Thanks for reading it properly. And we’re just a bit concerned 25

once again that this corner is going to be smoothed, which means that

the vehicles will go around it faster.

Onto zone 4, which is the Ellice Street, Paterson and Dufferin Street

section, and we noticed that the car lanes have been altered here of the 30

tunnel-bound traffic, and they clearly line up this road with the

proposed new Mount Victoria tunnel, which is still in, I don’t know

what stage we call it – ‘thinking about it stage’, and this alignment if

it’s approved, like it is now, will clearly determine the next phase of the

NZTA project, which means that we’ll have a second tunnel to the left 35

of the current tunnel. No alternatives. I mean we haven’t even got to

the stage of determining if that’s what we want. But if this road goes

ahead there won’t be any ability to have an alternative to where that

tunnel would be.

40

One of the things, because people have been talking about

undergrounding roads in different places, have they even thought about

undergrounding the second tunnel, has anybody ever thought about

putting the tunnel on the right hand side not the left hand side of that

road, so that – on the left hand side you have to take out a part of 45

Paterson Street and the access to Wellington East Girls’ College and


you take out some housing, you have quite serious housing impacts

there, so lining this bit of road up is lining it up for the next phase of

the NZTA, you know, road project without having ever discussed what

should happen in that area and I think it is backwards.

5

[12.00 pm]

Anyway, so, coming out of - - -

CHAIRPERSON: So, are you saying these two projects should be looked at 10

as a whole?

MS BLAKE: The whole road from whoa to go should have been looked at

altogether, this piecemeal approach is, you know, really time

consuming for a start, but it means that you can’t properly assess the 15

whole impact of these massively expensive projects. Doing something,

you know, doing the Memorial Park thing has meant different, you

know, that some of this project that is going to be like this, doing this

project means that some of the next project is going to be – it is all

predetermined all the way down without having properly thought about 20

the whole process, it is a real concern that Karo Drive was, you know –

just don’t even go there, but it is, you know, it is planning out my city

by road people, I don’t want a big road all the way through my city that

I can’t properly – you know, I haven’t got proper input to, that Karo

Drive is a huge severance issue from one side to the other, there used to 25

be heaps of people walking down Willis Street, down Cuba Street and

they have got this monster road to try and cross now.

There is the bit on Karo Drive by Willis Street that has just been once

again redeveloped to try and fix some of the problems that were 30

designed into it. It takes three minutes to cross from one side of Willis

Street to the other heading north, it has been timed the other day when

we were on a little field trip, that this is the kind of standard of road

that we are trying to avoid happening around here, people walk around

here, people walked down there, it is not encouraging people to walk. 35

All right, now, stop, back to this, sorry about that.

CHAIRPERSON: No.

MS BLAKE: So, coming out of the Mount Victoria Tunnel and if you walked 40

down – I must have jumped one and never mind – if you come out of

Mount Victoria tunnel and walk along, the roads, because it has been

realigned, there is a significant change in the way that you walk, so you

walk, you have to walk a long way north and then cross over a little, I

think it is an uncontrolled pedestrian crossing, and then you have to 45

walk across a controlled pedestrian crossing and walk under the bridge


to get back to pretty much where you would have been before this

proposal. So, it is quite a significant change for people coming from the

tunnel heading to Newtown and that is the walk I used to do when I

worked at the hospital – you walk through the Mount Victoria Tunnel

and up to the hospital, easy-peasy, now you are going to be feeling like 5

you are walking into town and then have to turn around and come back

down, there is no alternative way to get over there and I certainly – I

can imagine some people might try and run across the road out of the

tunnel, and to avoid - - -

10

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I think we were told there is about 100 metres further

to walk.

MS BLAKE: Yes, so that is not a direct route, it is not particularly

convenient. All right, and just going back to my paragraph before, just 15

thinking there is going to be a significant change walking down from

Ellice Street as well. Instead of looking at nice open interesting Basin

Reserve you are going to be looking at a big concrete flyover bridge. It

is hard to quantify exactly what that means but I think that is what we

talk about when we talk about walking amenity and walkability, it just 20

isn’t going to be such a pleasant experience walking down that road.

CHAIRPERSON: I wonder if we could put up on the screen that - - -

MR BAINES: Visual simulation? 25

CHAIRPERSON: - - - visual simulation of the entrance plaza? Yes, no, not

the walkthrough, just the - - -

MR BAINES: Looking down from Ellice Street? 30

CHAIRPERSON: - - - yes, at the front of – not looking down Ellice Street,

no, the entrance plaza.

MR BAINES: The entrance plaza? 35

[12.05 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: On Buckle Street. I just want to get your views, as a

pedestrian, as how would enjoy walking through this – what we are 40

going to show you. We have had evidence from landscape architects

and urban designers telling us what they think the experience will be,

and I want you to tell us what you think your experience would be, just

as a person who does a lot of walking around here.

45

MS BLAKE: Yes, sure.


DISCUSSION

MR COLLINS: That is the one there, 7B.53 and 7B.60?

5

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. Oh, thank you, Mr Lee, that is looking down - - -

MR COLLINS: Kent?

CHAIRPERSON: - - - Kent-Cambridge Terrace, through the centre. So, that 10

for a start, I just – I don’t know whether you have seen these before?

MS BLAKE: I have seen some of them, yes. As a Wellington person who has

been around for a while, I already the miss Canal Reserve and think

“Where is my nice green bit gone?”, it is in the middle, and there is a 15

lot of concrete-looking stuff there. And then I would look and think

“Oh, there is a great big bridge, which, you know, is noisy and is, you

know, kind of dark and dim-looking”, so it is not really a place that I

would choose to go and walk under, but – and you can’t really see, or

where would you go, where is that leading to, I mean, because I think 20

the tree are obscuring the bridge, you know, is it called an abutment?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MS BLAKE: Yes, the bit, so you can’t – looking at that I can’t really see 25

where do I go, and I can already see that there is a bridge, so, it is not a

– you would have to know that you want to go there, I think, yes. And I

think, which I noticed it is going to be a more modern bridge, but I

think there is one down on Thorndon Quay where the bridge comes

across the road and it is not really a place you want to linger, it is kind 30

of got that kind of dark, overbearing kind of feel to it.

But in this picture there is clearly no route through either.

CHAIRPERSON: Let’s have a look at the next one, 54? Because it has got 35

the Northern Gateway Building as well.

MR COLLINS: That is 7/54.

CHAIRPERSON: Is that the 65 metre one? 40

MR COLLINS: It is 65.

MR BAINES: Yes, that is the 65 metre.

45


MS BLAKE: Well, being a Wellington person again, I would still miss the

Canal Reserve.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well, the difference in this one it is got the 65 metre

Northern Gateway Building. 5

MS BLAKE: Yes, so it – sorry, I can’t not have my Wellington perspective

on, but it already looks like a completely different place, because it has

got this great big building there. It is not really The Basin Reserve

anymore. 10

MR BAINES: You make a point, Ms Blake, about that it is not easy to see

where you are going.

MS BLAKE: No. 15

MR BAINES: I mean, is that a problem for commuting pedestrian who would

do it every day and they would know where they are going?

MS BLAKE: Well, people who know know, but we find that around 20

Wellington that there is – you know, we are trying to encourage a lot

more tourists as well, so, it is not obvious to people that you can walk

through that. I had a friend of mine who I went to school with, who

walked around the Basin Reserve the other day, and I said “Well, what

did you think about it?” and she said “Oh, I couldn’t quite figure out 25

where I was going, it was noisy”, and you know, she didn’t really want

to be there.

[12.10 pm]

30

So that’s with the situation now, this isn’t going to help you figure out

where you go. There would have to be definitely a map because it

looks like a big building so, as a pedestrian, if I was in a new place and

I saw that and I’d think, “Oh, well, I need to go somewhere”, I’d be

heading off to the left or to the right of it. 35

CHAIRPERSON: Would you like to have a look at 7B.60 and just give me

your views?

MS BLAKE: So this is on the corner of Ellice Street, yes. Gone is the nice 40

open look, the flat kind of unusual Wellington look that you have got a

view and you can see around you and you have got, you know, a bridge

with all that darkness underneath. And I know a lot of people are

concerned when they see great big kind of structures along the footpath

that, you know, people think somebody is hiding behind it or you don’t 45

know what’s happening behind it.


CHAIRPERSON: And 7B.51?

MS BLAKE: I am trying to figure out where we are.

5

MR BAINES: Well, we’re from - - -

MR COLLINS: Looking north.

MS BLAKE: Looking at it from the Basin. 10

MR COLLINS: Opposite of the first one we looked at.

MR BAINES: Just come out of the Basin Reserve looking north.

15

MS BLAKE: Okay. Well, instantly as a pedestrian I notice that there’s some

seats right in the place where I want to go. So instead of crossing the

road and looking at the road you are looking at where the seats are, that

kind of thing.

20

MR COLLINS: This is the shared pathway.

MS BLAKE: Yes.

MR COLLINS: Shared space. 25

CHAIRPERSON: How would you experience that if the landscaping was of a

high quality as shown there?

MS BLAKE: Well, you are still going under a bridge, it’s not an area you 30

want to go and hang out, it will be noisy. You know, there is no two

ways around that, you can’t have a big flyover thing like that, a bridge,

with cars going on it, you know, your 15,000 cars a day and it’s not

going to be noisy. You know, it will probably smell, get the fumy

smell. I mean there’s no way you can call that an improvement on 35

what’s there now in my opinion.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. So, no, I just wanted your honest opinion, you

just move on now to your thing.

40

MS BLAKE: Okay. Right, well, looking at one of those pictures that I was a

bit concerned about as well is that the crossing bit from Ellice Street

around to Paterson and Dufferin we have to – currently you go, like I

quite often go down Ellice Street, hang a left and to the controlled

pedestrian crossing bits and go across Paterson Street and zip up to 45

Newtown that way.


But what we have got now is a whole new arrangement so you come

down Ellice Street, you cross I think it’s a pedestrian crossing onto a

little island and then I think you go across, yes, and then you go across

a controlled crossing into that Under the Bridge area. So I think we 5

have got quite a lot of concerns about this, and it seems that the Abley

transport reviewers had a number of concerns in this area too, and I just

find it just difficult to try and work out how this is going to work.

Just thinking about how cars are going to get out of there and the 10

school busses. I just can’t see how this is supposed to be an

improvement. As I understand it the cars and busses won’t be able to

go until there is a pedestrian on the crossing pushing the button, so does

that mean if there is no pedestrians they hop out and push the button

themselves? 15

[12.15 pm]

It just seems a bit silly but if you are sitting there waiting to get across,

you know, it’s already quite a difficult bit of road to exit in a car but I 20

can’t see this is going to be any better. I can’t see, from a pedestrian

point of view, that – and you end up going under this bridge on this

little, it looks like a shared vehicle, pedestrian footpath because it looks

tiny and I can’t see where the pedestrians and the cars and, you know,

the busses are going to go. 25

CHAIRPERSON: It is next to the slip lane.

MS BLAKE: Yes, that road that goes up around there. And it just seems

really difficult and much more complicated than what we have got 30

currently. And it’s just even harder to imagine trying to do this sharing

it with cyclists, it just adds another level of complication. And it’s just

difficult to see how any primary school children will be able to

navigate this.

35

You have got a pedestrian crossing which relies on pedestrians and

vehicles, you know, vehicles stopping and pedestrians crossing and

then you have got a traffic light controlled thing to get across another

bit of road and then you walk along under a bridge with the cars, all the

busses perhaps, under a bridge, hopefully not through great big trees 40

and things that you can’t see around. Possibly be in a, I think it’s

called a wetland or something, which from other places I have seen,

seems to be where they dig out some of the – they dig a little bit and

put plants into catch the rainwater but they have a serious trip hazard

for people if you’re not watching where you are going because there’s 45

usually a big drop off.


So it’s going to be a really constrained area and quite odd and then

when you come to the other end of it, it seems that you have to push the

pedestrian button to get either onto the Basin or onto that Paterson

Street corner. So how are the cars and busses going to get out, do they 5

have wait for a pedestrian to come and push the button? And then

where’s the pedestrian going to go when the cars and busses are going,

I just cannot see how this bit will work. And it seems so much worse

than what is there now. Yes, I don’t what else to say about that really.

10

There’s a suggestion that the pedestrian crossing is going to be shared

with cyclists but pedestrian crossings are for pedestrians so it would

have to be a different design for those as well.

And on the other side of Paterson Street, coming down out of the 15

tunnel, which is the route that Wellington East Girls’ College students

use to walk from the public busses up to school, there’s no

improvement there at all. And yet they are going to have this flyover

taking off from coming out of the tunnel and there will be one lane of

cars coming down by the footpath, so what’s there now is there’s kind 20

of a lot of wall on one side and the road but now there’s going to be a

flyover bridge which is a big raised structure and then on the other side

will be the kind of buildings and walls that are there now. And then

one lane of cars and then the footpath, so it’s going to feel a lot more

constrained in that area. 25

And I think that the cars coming out of the tunnel will want to go

probably faster than they do now because they will know that there

isn’t a traffic light sitting at the bottom of that road which they have to

stop at. Currently, you know, the cars going through this way take 30

turns and then the cars go the other way so they know that they have to

stop and take turns. So they are going to come, I think that they’ll

come down faster, come around to this crossing which is a bit around

the corner and so therefore hard to see through this kind of boxy bit.

And I just can’t see that that’s really an improvement at all either and 35

particularly because it’s for students who use that path in particular.

MR BAINES: Ms Blake, can you clarify for me, you mentioned before the

girls from Wellington East Girls’ College walking from their busses or

to their buses, do the - - - 40

MS BLAKE: This is to the public bus, yes.

MR BAINES: Oh, not to the school bus?

45

MS BLAKE: The school busses stop in Ellice Street.


MR BAINES: Would go right up to the college, wouldn’t they?

MS BLAKE: No, they can’t go up to the college, the access to the college is

abysmal. They have to drop the school - - - 5

MR BAINES: So where do the school busses?

MS BLAKE: The school busses stop in Ellice Street.

10

MR BAINES: At the top end of Ellice Street?

[12.20 pm]

MS BLAKE: On the corner of Austin. 15

MR BAINES: The corner of Austin and Ellice Street.

MS BLAKE: Yes.

20

MR BAINES: So, your comment then was in relation to the Wellington East

Girls’ College peoples using public buses, which they would access at

Rugby or Adelaide Road.

MS BLAKE: From Adelaide Road, yes. 25

MR BAINES: So, can you just – I didn’t quite pick up where you were saying,

where do they walk, on which side, on the south side or the north side?

MS BLAKE: South side, there is a little path that goes up to their college on 30

that side of the tunnel.

MR BAINES: So, near the portal?

MS BLAKE: Yes. 35

MR BAINES: And it comes down there, past the entrance to Wellington

College?

MS BLAKE: There is a Wellington College entrance as well. 40

MR BAINES: Side entrance there.

MS BLAKE: So sometimes those boys use that – you know, you can see them

walking up and down that bit as well. 45


MR BAINES: All right, okay.

MS BLAKE: But pretty much if you go up that footpath that is really your

only destination is either one of those colleges.

5

MR BAINES: Yes, okay, thank you.

MS BLAKE: So, it is those people that will be affected particularly by this.

MR BAINES: And your point there is that – I mean they are not going to be 10

any closer to the traffic, are they?

MS BLAKE: It will feel closer, because I think you are going to feel more

constrained in that area, because now there is going to be a bridge thing

coming right out of the tunnel, and then there are already kind of 15

buildings on the other side.

MR BAINES: Well, the bridge won’t start until below St Joseph’s Church,

would it?

20

MR COLLINS: It is the planted abutment opposite the corner.

CHAIRPERSON: Opposite the corner of the church.

MR COLLINS: We have a simulation of that somewhere, so you are saying it 25

will feel more closed in?

MS BLAKE: Perhaps it won’t be for the entire length, but there will definitely

be, when you come down on that corner, it is going to feel a lot more

squished, I think. 30

CHAIRPERSON: Anyway.

MR BAINES: Okay, thank you, so, your point is about the appearance of

being more closed-in? 35

MS BLAKE: It reduces the walking amenity in that area, it makes it a less

pleasant walk.

MR BAINES: Okay. 40

MS BLAKE: And I don’t think any thoughts have been gone into that side at

all. And then thinking about where from the flyover bridge and the

shared pedestrian cycling bridge comes down, it seems to come down

as you have just mentioned on the downhill side of St Joseph’s College, 45

which seems, if you are going to have a bridge, why would you put it


down there? Because that bit of footpath is nowhere, if I can probably

try and explain that. The current arrangement is that cyclists have had

to be put onto the footpath in the Mount Victoria tunnel, and they can

use the footpath coming down until you get to Brougham Street, which

is – you can only pedestrians and cyclists can get from one side to 5

Brougham Street there, which would seem a much more sensible place

to put the cycling-walking bridge to come down so that it links up

much nicer with that going into to the tunnel and also being able to get

off and go on Brougham Street.

10

So, why – I know there are some reasons why – but it doesn’t seem like

a very sensible place for the bridge to come down. It is going to end up

coming down on this reformed, I think well, just to the side of that

reformed bit of footpath and I think you can see that it is not a great big

area around there, there is not a lot of space. If you are a cyclist, say 15

and you wanted to come off that bridge and turn around and go

somewhere on Ellice Street or Hania Street, or something like that,

there is nowhere for you to turn there, it is a very – there is no kind of

wiggle room on where it comes down. It would be much better if it was

up by Brougham Street, which you have got – there is a wider area, so I 20

don’t think that has been thought about very well there. And we would

recommend putting it closer up to Brougham Street.

And just to – we understand that the slope of that shared pedestrian-

cycle path is less steep than 1 and 12, because that is the wheelchair 25

access and we would hope to see that as a condition, you know, that

they would have to meet that level. We also noticed that in the

conditions they want to plant pōhutukawa everywhere, but pōhutukawa

of course are not native to Wellington and it would be a real shame if -

- - 30

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, just about the wheelchair access.

MS BLAKE: Sorry.

35

CHAIRPERSON: Do you know what the slope is of the path?

MS BLAKE: I will get this wrong if I say it, because I am always saying it is

less steep or more steep, or something, I think it is supposed to be less

steep than 1 in 12, which you know, we want to make sure that that in 40

fact was what occurred.


[12.25 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: Well, would you like – you understand the slope of the

bridge path is more steep than 1 and 12, is what you are concerned that

it is steeper than the 1 and 12? 5

MS BLAKE: It needs to meet the less than 1 and 12 - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but you don’t know whether it does or not?

10

MS BLAKE: We understand that it does, but - - -

CHAIRPERSON: It does meet it? Oh, I see, okay.

MS BLAKE: Yes, but we would like it to be in the condition that it meets that 15

minimum requirement.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

MS BLAKE: Okay, now, I was going to talk about pōhutukawa, which aren’t 20

native to Wellington, and it is a shame if they get planted here, when

the rest of the city is trying to improve the Wellington biodiversity by

using native species.

Pōhutukawa is also well known for having great big roots that interfere 25

with footpaths, so it is just not a suitable plant and it would be good to

see some of the planting used to buffer pedestrians from vehicles.

And the last point on this area is that the eastern side footpath around

the Basin Reserve is described as “a low use” and it is despite having 30

few opportunities for people to actually cross into that path, it is not a

particularly nice walking environment now, but it should be retained as

a footpath for future use and not as a shared path.

CHAIRPERSON: By that you mean the one the east around the Basin 35

Reserve itself? Yes, on the outside.

MS BLAKE: Yes, that is currently a footpath.

CHAIRPERSON: Not across the road? 40

MS BLAKE: No.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

45


MS BLAKE: Okay, and then I was on zone 5. This is in the area on Dufferin-

Rugby Streets where there is a very intense school area, so, you know,

there is the St. Mark’s and Wellington College and there is also the

Governor-General’s residency, so it should really – the designed

principles – you should really need to create a child and student 5

friendly zone that encourages students to walk to school and is fun to

be in.

And I don’t think shared paths are appropriate of schools as there is too

much conflict potential, and particularly between child pedestrians and 10

adult cyclists.

And once again, here the bus priority lane is fragmented, there is only

like two bits of bus priority there, I don’t see why – I don’t understand

how that is supposed to work at all. 15

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I think from the evidence we have heard that is likely

to change because of the Bus Rapid Transit decision that was made

recently, whereby it will be less fragmented, put it that way, and may

still have some fragmentation, but it could be less fragmented. 20

MS BLAKE: Well, this is the opportunity to get that public transport route

proper and you know working well.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. 25

MS BLAKE: And also on the picture there seems to be a bit of an issue

around the school entrance way to Wellington College and Governor-

General’s, there seems to be an island and a great big tree planted in

front of it, it might just be the picture, but I hope that there is easy 30

access in and out of here for the vehicles and that the pedestrian path

around through that area is – pedestrians in fact have priority around

that area.

CHAIRPERSON: There is a good photo of that, coming out of the Governor-35

General’s residence, which I would like you to have a look at, because

we have had a lot of evidence from the landscape architects and urban

designers on it and as I say we would like to hear what the people who

use it have to say.

40

MR COLLINS: 7(B) 25.

CHAIRPERSON: You will see we haven’t got photographic memories. There

we are, is that the?

45

MR COLLINS: Yes, that it is coming out of Governor-General’s - - -


CHAIRPERSON: That is the existing view, but there was the – with the

northern and without, so it is – is that 7(B) 27? That’s taken, I think

from in front of the Governor General’s entranceway.

5

[12.30 pm]

MS BLAKE: Right.

CHAIRPERSON: And that’s a true view of what is proposed it would look 10

like.

MS BLAKE: Right. Well the little issue there currently, which I think looks

that it hasn’t really been fixed here, is that the footpath goes around that

corner and around to St Mark’s, with a lot children using it. 15

CHAIRPERSON: That’s the footpath on the right of the – the footpath outside

the gate?

MS BLAKE: I think it’s the footpath that’s by that little island there. 20

CHAIRPERSON: On the left of the photo? Oh, by the right of the photo,

outside St Mark’s Church.

MS BLAKE: I think they might actually be inside the Governor General’s a 25

little bit here, aren’t we, in this photo.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. You mean the footpath that comes along to that

entrance, or that brick pillar by the steps?

30

MS BLAKE: I think that brick pillar is part of what goes up to Wellington

College.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

35

MS BLAKE: Yes. But the footpath around the Basin goes in front of that,

yes. So there’s a little issue there now about who has priority. Is it a

footpath which has got priority and are those vehicle access ways

and/or is that a road and the road has priority.

40

CHAIRPERSON: I see.

MS BLAKE: So I think there’s a little bit of confusion when people walk

along there now about how that works.

45

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.


MS BLAKE: Because they have the visual tactile markings on there as well.

CHAIRPERSON: But if you’re walking north how would you describe the

experience through there? 5

MS BLAKE: A lot like it is now I think.

CHAIRPERSON: Well it’s not really.

10

MS BLAKE: Except that whole line of trees in the middle of the road.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. So it will be about the same as what it is now, you

think?

15

MS BLAKE: From a pedestrian point of view, having trees in the middle of

the road is probably not going to do anything.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you. Zone 5.

20

MR BAINES: Just while we’re there, on the other hand if you had –

remembering that the proposal removes 15,000 vehicles today from

going around that park, so it will far less busy in that respect, won’t it?

And if you didn’t have the bridge proposal but you had something else,

you’d have far more traffic there, wouldn’t you? 25

MS BLAKE: You could.

MR BAINES: Well not could, I mean surely there would be. I mean the

traffic has got to go somewhere, doesn’t it, so does that make a 30

difference in your point of view? I mean is that a difference worth

keeping in mind, the fact the bridge proposal will remove - - -

MS BLAKE: A lot of the taking the cars off and narrowing lanes, and how

you cross the road, so maybe it will be a bit quieter and things like that, 35

but from walking around the Basin from that point of view there isn’t

really any – I can’t really see that there’s going to be a big change in

this area. But there will be less cars but you won’t be trying to cross

the road at this point so much I would have thought, is what I’m trying

to say. 40

MR BAINES: Okay.

MS BLAKE: Hopefully if 15,000 cars do go over the flyover, this little bit

will be a bit quieter, and hopefully it would - - - 45


MR BAINES: So what you’re saying is from the point of view of pedestrian

amenity there would be improvement.

MS BLAKE: It might be, yes. As long as you can’t the flyover from there.

5

MR BAINES: From the point of view of pedestrians interacting with – they’re

not trying to cross here so that’s - - -

MS BLAKE: No, that will be about the same, so yes.

10

And if you head left on this picture, you’ll come to where the new

proposed bus stop is going to be, which I think Mr Andy Smith had a

look at and thought it was probably in a suitable area.

[12.35 pm] 15

The footpath has been widened and it’s also going to be quite close to

the new apartments and their vehicle access, and there is a big issue

about putting bus stops close to vehicle access ways because it’s that

kind of complexity thing – you’re trying to get on and off the bus, 20

there’s people trying to walk past, and if there’s going to be a shared

path there’s going to cyclists on the footpath. Also vehicles coming in

and out there, so it’s quite important to make sure that the detail around

the bus stop really meets the pedestrian design guise.

25

MR BAINES: Right. I think there is some questions about whether the bus

stop does get moved round there or whether it stays in.

MS BLAKE: Okay.

30

MR BAINES: The northern end of Adelaide Road.

MS BLAKE: Yes. Because thinking about who uses this area too, it’s students

and dare I say it, teenagers who are in their own walking space.

35

CHAIRPERSON: Own little world.

MS BLAKE: Yes. Then coming back to that Adelaide Road crossing, which

is as you pointed out, is quite a reasonable crossing, so it’s just

maintaining the kind of standards that are there now, having a level of 40

service to say what the crossing time should be, that kind of thing

would really useful just to make sure that’s what we end up with.

MR BAINES: Right.

45


MS BLAKE: Then lastly onto zone 6, which is the bridge. I just think there

should be some conditions on the flyover bridge for a

pedestrian/cycleway that meets the minimum New Zealand pedestrian

planning design guide requirements for shared paths, which includes

the minimum width of clear path with a one metre allowance, which is 5

the wiggle room for cyclists, which I think everybody is pretty familiar

with, it doesn’t quite meet it now.

We’d also like to see that there is consideration of the height of the

barrier to protect against wind and noise is raised in line with Mr Don’s 10

evidence. If this bridge goes ahead we can be pretty sure that some

people will want to go up there and have a good look around because it

will be a different view, and so it would be quite important to make

sure that there is spaces that people can actually stop and have a look

without getting in the way of all the other traffic up there. 15

MR BAINES: Sorry, can I just ask, the one metre allowance, and I’m not

quite sure what does the “one metre allowance” refer to?

MS BLAKE: Yes, I don’t know if I can quickly find it, but in the pedestrian 20

planning and design guide there’s some specifications – if you’re going

to have a shared path, if it’s an appropriate place to have a shared path

how big they should be.

MR BAINES: Well we’ve heard discussion about three metres, three and a 25

half, four, et cetera, et cetera, but I’m just wondering the one metre

allowance is just what I wasn’t quite clear on.

MS BLAKE: For the shared path you have the width of the actual path, and

then there’s supposed to be a kind of, I don’t know what you call it, I 30

call it wiggle room, a bit on the side so if you’ve got your dog on the

lead walking over the path and there’s a cyclist coming and the dog

does something weird then the cyclist has somewhere to go to avoid a

collision. It’s that kind of idea, and I can’t quite quickly find the - - -

35

CHAIRPERSON: But you’re not sure if it’s a metre or over – is it three and a

half plus a metre, is it?

MS BLAKE: Yes.

40

MR BAINES: Okay.

CHAIRPERSON: I think that’s where Mr Durdin gets the three and a half - - -

MR BAINES: Right, so it’s referenced in the New Zealand Pedestrian 45

Planning and Design Guide?


MS BLAKE: Yes.

MR BAINES: Okay, that’s all right.

5

MS BLAKE: But this is obviously a pedestrian planning guide, and as I was

trying to point out before, shared paths are mostly for cyclists, so most

of the information on shared paths are in the cycling guide, so.

MR BAINES: Right. Thank you. 10

MS BLAKE: Right, and it would be really good to have a condition in this

that it is a wheelchair accessible path with appropriate slopes, and that

people who are visually impaired can navigate it as well, which as I

understand it has to do with – say, if you’re using a stick that’s there a 15

nice clear edge that you can follow along with your stick, or people

who have very poor vision, you know sometimes a colour contrast,

they follow things like that along the path. Obviously, as long as there

is no things to trip over as well.

20

And just thinking in the five weeks a year that there might be a wind

hazard on the bridge, that the proposal was that there was going to be a

sign on the bridge saying that there might be strong winds. But that’s

not very useful – what would be useful is to have some actual real time

measure of how strong the wind is on the bridge, and I think there’s 25

some quite clever metering and, kind of, different ways of showing to

people in real time if they should go along the bridge or not, which I

think would be really useful.

[12.40 pm] 30

Okay, and then I’ve finished with all those zones and just wanted to

reiterate that on Sussex Street, currently there is no provision for

crossing that road and it would be useful to have some way to get

across Sussex Street. 35

And on the Pirie Street, Kent Street, Vivian Street, Cambridge Terrace

intersection I see there’s a proposal to widen Pirie Street so that it goes

from being a two lane road to a three lane road, which always makes it

more of an issue for pedestrians to cross. So we need to think about 40

crossing times on this area as well.

About a year or so ago, Living Streets did a community street review

workshop which is a way of assessing pedestrian needs on streets and

we walked around this particular intersection. And one of the things 45

that we noticed is that there are crossings on, I think it’s about three

07


and a half sides of this intersection and there’s a significant gap on the

Kent Terrace to Pirie Street, south side of the crossing.

So to make an improvement in that area would be to complete the

crossing. So what can happen, especially with people who don’t know 5

the area, so you try and cross the road and you get stuck on the canal

reserve, because you can’t complete the crossing to the other side.

The crossing times at this intersection are poor and Mr Spence noted

that the Kent/Vivian/Cambridge intersection currently operates at a 10

relatively high cycle length of around 120 seconds which, if you have a

look at that level of service graph I showed you, puts it way in the

serious concern section.

So it will be therefore important that the potential to improve matters 15

for pedestrians is carefully assessed when the detailed signal plans are

being prepared and it would be useful, I think, for the Board to specify

a level of service crossing time. That would be a significant

improvement for pedestrians.

20

And here’s my last point there is that it seems that the project does not

want the Mount Victoria car users to exit the suburb directly through

the basin at Ellice Street. Instead vehicles are encouraged to use the

less popular and steep Pirie Street Road.

However, Pirie Street is also the main bus route for the Pirie Street 25

tunnel, bus tunnel, and I was wondering what consideration, what

modelling has been done on the impact of trying to make more vehicles

come down that street and other traffic from places such as Wellington

East Girls’ College will also have to come down Pirie Street if getting

out of Ellice Street is going to be a problem. 30

If you go up Pirie Street a little way into Mount Victoria, the

intersection on Pirie and Brougham Street is quite a complicated

crossing because it’s the route that the buses come down. They come

down by Pirie and turn left, just depending which way they’re going. 35

They’re coming down and turn right into Brougham Street and it’s

made that pedestrian crossing there quite difficult. I think there needs

to be a bit of an assessment of that area, how that's going to work. The

children from Clyde Quay School often traverse the area and, you 40

know, things like there's going to be an increase in traffic down there.

I did a quick review of some of the conditions and Mr Andy Smith

suggested that if the project is to proceed that the conditions include

clear outcomes that must be achieved in the final designs in relevant 45

management plans relating to pedestrian service levels.


The outcomes must be sufficiently specific to be enforceable without

the consent officer needing to exercise judgement. And the conditions

in related material should use standard terms and methodology that are

widely accepted and used in the New Zealand context. And he used an 5

example of the term that shared space to a shared use path.

And the Pedestrian Planning and Design Guide, this appropriate

document to be referred to on conditions and he noted that the

Pedestrian Planning and Design Guide has been adopted by Wellington 10

City Council in 2008 and is therefore a reference to this document will

enhance implementation and enforcement by Wellington City Council.

[12.45 pm]

15

And I reviewed all the conditions but I don’t, I don’t know if you want

me to go through all of these things – it’s sort of to be rather long.

CHAIRPERSON: Well, no, no, this is your opportunity and I don’t want you

to think you’re taking up our time unnecessarily, you’re not. One of the 20

things you have to be in this job is patient and we want to - - -

MS BLAKE: So marvellous that.

CHAIRPERSON: - - - we want to - - - 25

MR McMAHON: Just on that matter though, Ms Blake, have you looked at

the latest version of conditions or - - -

MS BLAKE: I was wondering how far along they got. 30

MR McMAHON: Yes.

MS BLAKE: I’ve been looking at the ones that are available on the website.

35

MR McMAHON: On the web, yes.

MS BLAKE: At which I’m not sure where - - -

MR McMAHON: I think they’re dated the 20th

of March 2014. 40

MS BLAKE: Yeah, actually I haven’t got the date.

CHAIRPERSON: Well what might be in a – there’s an - - -

45


MS BLAKE: I’ve got the reference from somewhere, I’m not sure if it’s the -

- -

CHAIRPERSON: These are fairly self-explanatory and I think, what we

should really do is give – make sure the Board’s planner is given a 5

copy of these, so as she can assess them against the conditions.

Would you be happy with that?

MS BLAKE: Yes. 10

CHAIRPERSON: Rather than us having to - - -

MS BLAKE: Well it’s quite hard to follow it and it’s kind of boring isn’t it - -

- 15

CHAIRPERSON: No it’s not boring at all - - -

MR……….: Well, we just - - -

20

CHAIRPERSON: But I mean, we’ve got other people who have come along

today as well who want to make submissions and - - -

MS BLAKE: I know, yes.

25

CHAIRPERSON: - - - we won’t be able to fit them all in unfortunately, but

that’s all right, I’m sure they’ll understand and we’ll – but do you think

that will be the best way of doing it?

MR McMAHON: I do. 30

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. It would be the most efficient way of doing it, so we’ll

get – what we’d like you to do though, is if you could – you’ve done a

lot of working preparing this and we're very grateful for you for doing

it, tremendous amount of work, you know you should be congratulated 35

for doing that, a lot of thought and preparation has gone into it, and - - -

MS BLAKE: If I could just finish summarising a little bit of - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but first of all could you just check that you’ve got the 40

– had the latest conditions and that - - -

MS BLAKE: Yes, I’ve been using the ones off the website, which - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well the latest ones I think were published a few 45

weeks - - -


MR CAMERON.: Last week.

CHAIRPERSON: Last week, just last week.

5

MS BLAKE: Right.

CHAIRPERSON: Have you got those ones?

MR CAMERON: I can make sure, sir. 10

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MS BLAKE: I’m not entirely sure of what I’m looking at.

15

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. Mr Cameron will make sure you get a copy of the

latest conditions - - -

MS BLAKE: Yes.

20

CHAIRPERSON: - - - and if there’s anything you want to “add” to this, if you

could just do it in writing by sending it to the EPA, okay?

MS BLAKE: Okay, yes.

25

CHAIRPERSON: And we’ll make sure that these conditions – that we’ll read

them and then we’ll also refer them to the Board’s planner to make sure

that they’re assessed against the present conditions.

MS BLAKE: Okay, that would save me having to go through them. 30

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR CAMERON: Well actually process to the members as well - - -

35

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, right till the end of - - -

MR CAMERON: - - - to ensure that this submitter has every opportunity

through the Board’s - - -

40

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well thank you for that, yes.

MR CAMERON: - - - planner to, to make that input, sir.

CHAIRPERSON: So as the conditions are changed we’ll make sure you get a 45

copy of them.


MS BLAKE: Unfortunately I work as well, so - - -

CHAIRPERSON: I know.

5

MS BLAKE: - - - this is a real part-time passion - - -

CHAIRPERSON: I realise that and - - -

MS BLAKE: Yes. 10

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MS BLAKE: But I’m just – so just to finish off then, it’s – just to reiterate,

Living Streets Aotearoa opposes the project in its entirety, and we think 15

the project objectives have not been met, that the movement does not

enhance for pedestrians and there’s inadequate assessment of any gains

or the level of service provide. The access to the CBD and hospital by

pedestrians will be more complex and some routes will be longer.

20

The opportunities for walking will be permanently affected by the

flyover structure and by removal of unique local character. That future

transport developments will be predetermined by this project

proceeding and therefore constrained. That the local road network is

compromised and thus affected by changes, in particular at Ellice 25

Street.

And based on the expectations of criteria for good transport project that

we outlined at the beginning, we don’t believe that this project will be

more convenient, improve walkability and transit time or increase 30

mode share, and there’s no information provided on current or future

levels.

We don’t think it will be more comfortable, pleasant or safe for

pedestrians as the bridge will be a permanent physical and visual 35

barrier and we're not convinced the design makes the best provision for

pedestrians in the proposed situation. Potential conflicts between users

are already obvious.

We don’t think there’s going to be more direct connected routes as they 40

have not been provided, particularly on Sussex Street, the corner of

Buckle Street and Cambridge Street nor on Alister/Dufferin Street. And

there’s no provision in the conditions for improved legibility or way

finding.

45


[12.50 pm]

I think accessibility issues are evident with issues around the slopes of

paths and compliance with the New Zealand Pedestrian and Design

Guide minimum width, and there are no standards specified to be met 5

nor levels of service specified, either during or after construction. In

fact it’s proposed, we're concerned that this project will have

significant adverse effects and decreased walkability in this area –

they’re all those things – and it’s clear that pedestrians have been an

afterthought in this project and no serious analysis of pedestrian needs 10

has been undertaken.

There’s inadequate assessment to determine the current level of service

and there’s no anticipated improve level of service for pedestrians to

measure the project’s benefits against. The building of the flyover 15

bridge in fact seems designed to benefit only a few private vehicle

users along one route by at best a 90 second decrease in travel time.

And we’ve made the point that the improvements that might be made

with the project do not require the construction of an expensive flyover

bridge (at least I hope I did) and the improvements can and should be 20

made without this.

We think it’s therefore not a good fit with the Regional Policy

Statement or the Regional Land Transport strategy. It does not

sustainably manage our resources or provide for the needs of the 25

community and is not reasonably necessary to improve walkability in

this area.

And this is my very final little point is, it relates back to where I started

from, talking about, “Is it important to improve provisions for 30

pedestrians?” Well yes it is. In yesterday’s news once again highlighted

the importance of getting our transport systems urban environment

right.

The World Health Organisation and Department of Public Health 35

spokesman said that “cities could take action to improve air quality”, he

was talking about the poor air quality in cities. “We cannot buy clean

air in a bottle, but cities can adopt measures that will clean the air and

save the lives of their people” he said, and such measures could include

energy efficient housing, compact urban development, well served by 40

public transport and street design that was appealing and safe for

pedestrians and cyclists – and that’s it and thank you very much for

spending so long on the - - -

45


CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well thank you Ms Blake, thank you very much for a

very carefully prepared and well-presented representation.

On your own behalf and on behalf of Living Streets Aotearoa, I don’t

know – has anyone got any more questions – we’ve been asking you 5

questions as we went through, but - - -

MR……….: No, I think we’ve got it.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay, Ms Blake, thank you. 10

MS BLAKE: Thank you very much.

CHAIRPERSON: We do appreciate you taking of your time and coming,

thank you. 15

MR……….: Now, Dr Bollinger.

DISCUSSION

20

CHAIRPERSON: We’ll do one more before lunch, I think Dr Bollinger is

here – been waiting patiently in the wings Doctor.

DR BOLLINGER: Every word was gold.

25

CHAIRPERSON: Pardon?

DR BOLLINGER: Every word was gold.

CHAIRPERSON: It always is when you agree with it. 30

DR BOLLINGER: And it’s all a very interesting investigation, thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, now, Doctor, if you could just – as the others have

done – just give your name, so as it’s in the record and then we’ll hear 35

your submission.

DR BOLLINGER: I am indeed a Doctor, I have a PhD in politics from

Victoria University. I think the reason I’m cited as Dr Bollinger in your

records is probably because, there was a field to insert the - - - 40

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

DR BOLLINGER: - - - the prerequisite thing and I thought, “Well, why not”.

45

CHAIRPERSON: Absolutely.


DR BOLLINGER: But I’m not - - -

CHAIRPERSON: We're not going to hold it one way or the other.

5

DR BOLLINGER: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: Before you, so.

DR BOLLINGER: My name is Timothy Mark Reilly Bollinger. 10

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

DR BOLLINGER: And I was born in this city. What I’m going to give is a

very personal account I suppose. As a disclaimer I must say that I have 15

opposed this road from a long way back, my first home in Wellington

actually was one of the early buildings to be demolished for the same

piece of road down in Thorndon – funnily enough they never built any

bit of road there, it was just a big overpass over the top and they built

some new houses underneath off Sidney Street West, but some houses 20

got saved, just by people hanging on.

[12.55 pm]

So this has been a long road, and as you know there’s been a whole 25

series of submission processes. I first must really apologise for my

original submission, which was done very hastily, I dated it the 6th of

September, which I think was the closing date. I think I put it in about

half an hour before the submission closed, and I’ve put in so many

submissions over so many years, so many projects which I all thought 30

was going to come to this resolution, and this is sort of the final hurdle

and I was pretty much exhausted.

So I might just quickly summarise through what I said originally, and

then I think I’ve handed out some other hand outs. 35

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

DR BOLLINGER: They’re sort of just trying to build on really the points I was

trying to make here, which again I must say are personal, but they do 40

come from a long association with this whole area.

Okay, I object to all parts of this development. I said originally, those

parts may first appear to ameliorate the extreme environmental

detriment that this road with impose upon the city because of the 45

torrent modern motor vehicle traffic intended to pass through our city.


I think even these are in affront to those who have wanted to see this

area improve for many, many years.

Now, I think there’s absolutely no doubt that this whole area needs

improving, both for pedestrians and I’m sure for cars and a whole lot of 5

things. But the reason it hasn’t been is obvious, and that’s because it’s

been in the hands of NZTA for that length of time. I think it might be

like 30 years or something, originally this was a proposed flyover, that

was always in the originally Thorndon motorway proposals originally.

10

Now, the interesting thing is that during that time NZTA has actually

owned large portions of land all over Wellington under the Public

Works Act, and consistently let those areas run down. It’s a very sad

legacy, and it includes things which they’re apparently trying to save in

this current proposal, or I think they’ve just done that as a SOP, but you 15

know things like the Home of Compassion, crèche and things. I mean

that was sitting in NZTA care for a very long time, it was rented out,

I’m not sure who to, very poorly looked after. The actual original

facing of a piece of architecture was painted when it was obviously a

Victorian brick building of some beauty, and I will go into that and 20

some of those other things as I carry on through my talk.

So what I’m saying here is, this area has been under the environmental

control of NZTA for many years, they owned historic buildings and did

not care for them. They deliberately neglected all the buildings that 25

they had care of in the area. They should not be allowed to create new

buildings as a part of their roading project because their only interest is

to make more effective roads for motor vehicles, and this should not be

what determines our social spaces in this area for pedestrians, people

needing shops and office and so forth. 30

I think it’s a real shame that this area is being overlooked for some

things which beautify a road or ameliorate the problems created by a

roading project when it could be so much better.

35

A road should also not determine the shape of an important social and

public place like sports parks, that’s what I originally said. NZTA is

not interested in any buildings that do not serve its purposes of roading

projects and therefore it should not be responsible for any decision

making or construction work that is not a road. 40

The so called new open space marked as “B” on the proposal map, and

this was part of the original proposal map that we had to put in our

submission by, sometime in September 2013. And I note that some

things have changed significantly, perhaps not even that one, but there 45

was an earlier one for the Ngauranga to Airport project, we were given


some options. There was one called Option A. Option A is quite

different from current options that we’re looking at.

But anyway, so there was an area marked “B” which is the area that

was raised in the last speaker, that’s sort of controversial because it 5

didn’t show a direct pathway down the hill as currently to get from A to

B, which of course all pedestrians want to do, it sort of turned it into a

kind of terraced area with some pathways down here and some

pathways down there. That area has been sitting there all my life. Part

of it has been rented out by NZTA to a car yard. There’s a couple of 10

rocks in the middle of a piece of grass or something. So quite neglected

and here they say they want to improve this. And this area has just been

sitting there, they could have done this a long time ago. If that is

wanted to do they could have done this. Maybe they wouldn’t have had

the permissions, I don’t know how these things work. 15

[1.00 pm]

But it does frustrate me that the first time they decide they’re going to

put a whole lot of money into making this all very nice for pedestrians, 20

it’s just an area that has always been there, that they could have done

something interesting with a long time ago. And it doesn’t improve the

road, it doesn’t do – it takes pedestrians off down different ways which

they have never really wanted to go before. I actually think the reason it

has been designed that way, and you can probably confirm this, is it’s 25

featured in the tangata whenua report or something, that it somehow

integrates the history of the area as being a food basket or a wetland or

something like this.

So it has echoes, it has got some design echoes. I’m sure the landscape 30

person probably talked about it. But, you know, we are not here to do

house and garden, we are trying to create a liveable city. So I’m going

off tangent a bit. Okay, so this so-called new space marked B on your

proposal map, it is not a new space, it has always been owned by

NZTA and available, and they have never shown any interest in 35

developing or landscaping for people or pedestrians before. Children

and old people, most of them. And part of it was used as a car yard.

The road is ultimately designed, and this is my last point, which I will

sort of go into, and it is really kind of, it is probably not something that

anyone can change in the plans, I don’t know how roading plans work 40

particularly, but it is ultimately not designed to bring traffic into the

city, but to take them out of it.

There is always this talk about, oh you know, it will cut traffic time to

the airport blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but in fact, this flyover, as we all 45

know here, is actually going in the other direction. And its purpose and


the effect of it as we drive along even current Karo Drive it is very hard

to actually get off the road, you end up getting on to the motorway by

mistake. It is to take people out of the city. So I’m a bit dubious about

the so-called economic benefits for Wellington. It appears that the road

is to take people directly from the airport out of town. Once you are on 5

the motorway the only turn off possibly Thorndon, and then you are in

Petone. Or Kapiti or wherever. The big trucks that I think maybe this is

designed for go. I don’t know, are trucks allowed through the tunnel?

See, a lot of these traffic things kind of confuse me anyway. But that

doesn’t mean I don’t have a valid personal opinion. 10

Okay, so they persuade people that the new road is a good idea by

telling them it will make traffic quicker to the airport when that part of

the plan is actually the old Vivian Street/Kent Terrace one-way system,

which you pointed out is part of Highway 1, through the commercial 15

centre of Wellington. So people who want to get out of town go

through the commercial entre of Wellington. People who want to come

to Wellington from the airport go straight out of town, they don’t go to

the commercial centre, so I guess what I’m doing there is I’m kind of

questioning the sort of so-called economic benefit of the city. 20

Now I have tried to build on some of my ideas in this document that

you have in front of you and I will try and go through it as quickly as I

can. Okay, I will just reiterate, my name is Tim Bollinger, I am a public

servant, taking time off to come and speak to you. I’m a long time 25

resident of Wellington. I live at the other end of this piece of road. I

apologise for my spelling, because I have done this very rushed, so I do

apologise for that. I feel kind of surveyed out, you know. You have got

to try and stop them taking the trolley buses off as a submissions

process that closes at 4.30 pm this afternoon, so I’m going to go back 30

home and do that afterwards.

So I live at the other end of this piece of road, the furthest end of Abel

Smith Street. Actually, Abel Smith Street ends in a set of steps and a

pathway. It’s one of these big streets that goes through the middle of 35

Wellington, but actually ends at the top of a hill, dead-end pathway. A

few houses on either side, lots of trees, lots of steps, and this is not

unusual at both ends of these roads that cross Wellington, because you

can see they disappear up into the hills.

40

[1.05 pm]

This is why so many people in Wellington walk. They start by walking

there’s no car outside my door just a pathway. So I walk the area every

time I want to go to Newtown or to motor vehicle or the eastern 45

suburbs and I haven’t owned a car for some years.


Okay. This is the same – I go into the history a bit – this is the same

road, the same plan that has been touted since the first part of it went

through the city in the 1970s. There is a lot of worse stuff that’s gone

on already, you know, and I try to point out some of the social spaces 5

that have been created by the bits of the same road that have already

been created.

And this is really just to illustrate NZTA’s legacy. I am not saying

there’s anything they can do about it now, I am not saying it necessarily 10

bears upon this but I am saying that everything is done as a project and

then then there’s no maintenance, there’s no thought about how it could

be improved if it doesn’t work out. So it’s kind of like all the money is

going into this big glossy project and then we have to look after the

social spaces that get created. 15

So it takes up vast areas of valuable inner city space, it turns them into

culturally and economically dead areas. All along the way social

spaces are created by these structures designed for just one thing, to

accommodate and cater for motor vehicle traffic, other uses are 20

secondary which, you know, that’s their brief, they are the

New Zealand Transport Agency. But as other people have pointed out

they are actually supposed to take cycling, walking and all these other

things into account and I would have thought increasingly so given a

whole lot of economic, social, environmental things that are going on 25

you see. You would thing that they would increasingly do it and they

seem to be decreasingly doing it but anyway.

The same is true for this area and I want to illustrate the extent to which

all their fine talk of accommodating pedestrians and cyclists is a 30

complete afterthought and if they were going to be doing that with a

sincere endeavour the whole thing would have been created differently.

And I think our previous speaker illustrated that pretty well as well.

Okay. The social spaces that they create are not even the ones that they 35

intend and these are my examples because I want to just illustrate so

previous NZTA examples of social spaces they have designed for

pedestrians in Wellington as a by-product. Other people here don’t

have this document but in my bag there is a plastic bag that’s got a few

but the commissioners have it. 40

So this is the Terrace Tunnel. Above the Terrace Tunnel this area

abounds one side of the Terrace Tunnel, it’s a public pathway from

Ghuznee to Dixon Street which replaced an original public accessway

through the area before the motorway went through, and I think that 45

was probably late 70s early 80s.


The pathway was originally bounded - now, when I say it was

originally bounded by a large grass covered hill for many, many years

after they put this tunnel through there was a grass covered hill up

above it, directly behind it. Now, this has recently disappeared. The 5

pathway was originally bounded by a grass covered hill that overlooked

the motorway. See the 2009 image below. And people often sat on,

they sometimes drank, socialised. The pathway was unlit at night so it

kind of got a bit hairy and when I have walked around there, because

it’s obviously a shortcut through from Abel Smith Street into town, you 10

know, there’s often young people hanging out there drinking.

Actually what they really like is they like sort of sitting above the

tunnel and looking. Now, I don’t know why, I guess it’s a sort of

animal instinct to perch and to have a big long view but they like the 15

danger of it I suspect. So this whole area became a gathering place for

drinkers and taggers and so on and so forth.

And there is still no lighting. What they did was they took out the grass

so that people wouldn’t sit on the bank so they made that so it’s just 20

like flax bushes which I guess roading, you know, they can understand

that, that’s just verge. But it is actually potentially a great social space,

you can imagine, make some pathways here, maybe a sculpture that

everybody who is driving through the tunnel can see as they are coming

along, you know. It could be such a lovely social space but it’s never 25

been thought about like that.

And the area directly above the tunnel was covered in bushes and scrub

which prevented people from getting too close to the precipitous wall

down to the road. And then about 10 years ago they erected a barbed 30

wire fence to prevent people from getting too close to the top of the

tunnel which, you know, I suppose it’s fair enough but it’s an

amelioration after the fact, I mean who wants to walk around a city full

of barbed wire fences stopping them to get there.

35

[1.10 pm]

And the same is true with the recent overbridge that was put in

Ghuznee Street that goes across the canyon that has been created for

the motorway on-ramp as you come off the bypass and you go through 40

there, Ghuznee Street now comes over an overbridge. They had to put

a whole lot of razor wire there too to stop kids getting out across the

bridge and to paint slogans on the walls because, obviously, it’s a

daring landscape and they want to be seen. This is how this society

works, we can’t do anything about that. 45


So 2012 upgrade removed the grass on the hill, replaced it with flax

bushes unsuitable for sitting on. It took out the trees and scrub from

directly above the tunnel and bounded the area instead with a locked

fence, and this has been vandalised and broken into many times and

there’s graffiti all around. So that’s how that space works as a social 5

space.

Then I have got my next example is Everton Terrace. Everton Terrace,

this is at the base of one of Wellington’s most beautiful inner city

streets. It’s a very steep thickly wooded and tree lined street that winds 10

up the hill from The Terrace in central downtown Wellington, sort of

up towards Kelburn. And underneath, it goes underneath the cable car

track whose cable cars roll over it meeting in the middle – I have got

“meeting I in the middle” so I do apologise for all my typos – and

ringing their bells every 10 minutes in a very poetic and picturesque 15

fashion. So it’s a beautiful little street. I mean I would have thought it

would be one of the tourist attractions of Wellington.

At its base the motorway has converted Clifton Terrace, which

interestingly is a street that includes a small inner school and to a 20

motorway on-ramp. Pedestrian access from side of the intersection to

another is difficult and many of the footpaths on the sides of these

intersecting roads are barely wide enough for a single pedestrian, and I

think you can see that in the last picture over the page.

25

And so I suppose what I am saying is in the process of designing these

roads which are supposed to make things faster from one place to

another, everything else becomes secondary and it’s we are just trying

to ameliorate things. So I mean, for example, this big building they

want to build down here. So they want to actually move a historic gate 30

from the front just to put a building there which is just to ameliorate the

problem that they are creating in the first place seems outrageous to

me.

I mean I think that the fact that they have moved that little Crèche 35

building is really terrible and the NZTA has moved a lot of buildings

for a lot of parts of this road and, okay, better to move them than just to

destroy them, I see that, but the ones that they have done up are only

the ones that they have moved because they’re the only ones that take

responsibility for. They still own lots of buildings, even up by the 40

bypass, this beautiful old building, wooden house on the corner of

Willis Street and Abel Smith Street, is just sitting there getting

dilapidated day by day and eventually someone will probably come

along and take it down.

45


I mean hopefully not because it’s such a beautiful old historic building.

It has big trees outside it, of course we need all the trees we can get. I

notice quite a few big trees are going to be taken out for this project too

and I don’t believe the pictures that show big ones being in their place

because it takes a long time to grow a big tree and I don’t understand 5

how that works. You can’t just put one there like a road.

So, anyway, I will get back to my point. Okay, so why is NZTA

allowed to design and construct social spaces including new buildings?

NZTA is not a good property owner, it has owned many historic 10

buildings and places in Wellington as part of vast tracts of land claimed

under the Public Works Act but once in its possession has deliberately

let them run into the ground. I would like to have made a submission

on the Home of Compassion Crèche which is actually not part of this

Inquiry. You see I understand that and I have got a picture of it here. 15

You can see this is in its original location, it’s got the garden behind it

but again it’s after NZTA had looked after it for a few decades and it’s

pretty run down.

I would like to have made a submission on the Home of Compassion 20

Crèche but it’s not part of this Inquiry, it officially comes under the

Memorial Park section of this road but it is nevertheless a key part of

the re-landscaping that is planned for the Basin Bridge. And I suspect a

lot of this pathway thing that they have got coming down, which

effectively is trying to extend what they’re doing at the Memorial Park 25

I think so it sort of integrates but it starts at the top of that hill where

they’re putting the old Crèche. So they’re trying to integrate it but we

are not even allowed to comment on it.

And, you know, the Memorial Park project didn’t go through this 30

process because it was considered a cultural artefact or something and

they fast tracked it through from culture and heritage. I don’t even

understand how that worked but it meant that we didn’t even get to

comment on this, designed, as you know, by local architect, John Swan,

who designed many of Wellington’s iconic turn of the century 35

buildings including St Gerard’s Monastery overlooking the harbour on

Mount Victoria and the original skyline Tea Kiosk at the top of the

cable car.

[1.15 pm] 40

This building was owned by NZTA for decades during which time it

was not only poorly maintained, its integral brick and mortar façade

was painted with a thick layer of pale yellow paint and a tall plywood

fence erected at the front that completely destroyed the original aspect 45

of the buildings streetscape.


Its relocation has destroyed its original context further, especially the

greenery of its surrounding back garden which was indeed the play area

for the children who originally inhabited it and as a sort of that back

part as a sort of sunroom or something there is lots of windows and 5

extends out to the back.

I mean this is all retrospective because what is done is done but it is

important to know that this is the place that we grew up in. Much of

the surrounding area that NZTA now claim to be landscaping for social 10

enhancement is land that is until now they have comfortably let out car

sales yard that were run down to the point of demolition, like these

beautiful set of old character shops and these are the shops that your

last speaker was referring to at one point.

15

They were demolished in what I think was a pre-emptive strike. For

any decision about which option have not even been decided but we

knew that they favoured Option A and these buildings went very, very

quickly, demolished on grounds I think of earthquake risk or

something, but they were not even inhabited by then. I did not what 20

exactly the earthquake risk was.

As you can see from these pictures this is a corner, I mean when you

are talking about pedestrians, corners are really important and people

cross at corners, people would have originally crossed the corner from 25

the Basin Reserve to get their pie at lunchtime or something when they

were watching the cricket. You can just imagine the sort of pedestrian

traffic that is encouraged by this kind of landscape and of course it has

been completely refuted by the roading engineers who find the corner

far too difficult for any pedestrian to cross. 30

They do not like people crossing at corners because it is poor visibility

for cars. The whole area I think should just be brick paved or

something but of course these buildings are not there anymore which is

just such a tragic loss. Now in its place on some of those visual 35

recreations there is this supposed building they are going to put there

instead. I guess they plan to do it before they demolish these.

It seems to have a round façade. It seems like it is glass and it looks

like it’s got cars for sale inside it, but there is no confirmation of that, 40

that is just the artists visual representation and I really do not know

what substance that has.

There is some question about what building is going to be put there. I

think that they should not be responsible for any building going there at 45

all. I think it should be up to the community to be decide what goes


there and if there is I think it should be something, this is lots and lots

of little shops. That is what we want we want streets to be alive. We do

not want them just to have big glass walls that block people out.

My last point really follows on from the previous speaker which I just 5

do not understand why pedestrians get grade separation. Pedestrians do

not behave like vehicles. They do not simply go where the road takes

them. Pedestrians want to get from point A to point B in the most

direct route and this is why Wellingtonians are so renowned for

jaywalking of course. 10

I think most of them are quite safe jaywalkers and I think that is a good

thing. I think it should be looked at as a positive thing and I notice

those seats in the artists recreation just outside the new building that

they want to put there for the cricket club and I was wondering why the 15

seats are there blocking the way for pedestrians to go through. They do

this quite a lot downtown so they put seating where people would want

to walk, to cross a road or something so it is actually not there for

convenience. It is actually there for inconvenience of pedestrians. It is

what they call pedestrian calming I think. 20

Unlike motor vehicles in order for them to do this efficiently it is not

necessary to separate north east, North West, north south and east west

pedestrian traffic, which they’ve done with this walkway that follows

the route of the road around. 25

[1.20 pm]

You know, I say here that integration and cross paths are very

substance of cultural exchange that gives an area a buzz, you know it’s 30

what happens when two roads meet, where there’s corners that people

cross, you get a conflux and lots of things start happening in that area,

and I think that these areas have been so designed, top down to

decorate the road that they haven’t even thought about where people go

or what they do. 35

I mean, these are lovely, all these pathways, they’re obviously going to

spend lots of money on this sort of wetland area or whatever it is, but

can you see where people are gonna congregate, where’s the hotdog

stand, you know, where’s going to be the – is that going to be a nice 40

place to stand and sit around at night or is it going to become like that

place above the Terrace Tunnel?

So you want a place that gives an area a buzz, bicycles, prams,

wheelchairs, other forms of transport like skateboards also integrate 45

easily together – I suggested bicycles integrate, well and I appreciate


the feelings of the pedestrian Living Streets who say that bicycles need

to be kept separate or if they are integrated they need a lot of space, and

I can see that.

Skateboards, I see a lot of people travel around on skateboards in 5

Wellington and it’s a very good way to travel, it’s doing the world a

favour and they should be encouraged as well – and they can use

pathways and roads, it’s really good – and people can use roads too by

the way.

10

It is in such areas that exchanges are made, small businesses start on

the edges and communities flourish.

This design simply tries – this design, this design – simply tries to do

with the pedestrians what it’s doing with the cars, it separates them for 15

grade separation. This is not only unnecessary, but it is unsuitable for

safe and community enhancement and social interaction, it does not

provide for people to get where they’re going by the fastest route and

we saw that several times in the previous speakers address – and it was

going to take longer to get from one place to another. 20

I mean, I don’t think that traffic engineers have “any” understanding of

how people walk from one place to another, there’s no way anybody’s

going to walk up another hundred metres up the other end just to

backtrack, they’re not going to do that, they’re going to run across that 25

highway. And this is not only unnecessary, it’s unsuitable for safe

community enhancing and social interaction. It does not provide for

people to get where they’re going by the fastest route, it makes for

large alienating spaces that look like they might be used for something,

but why are they there? To service the requirements of the road. 30

I just like to say that, the walkway, the overhead walkway, it comes

down in a place where, the only way to go is through the tunnel, I guess

because it’s sharing with cycles who need the sort of smooth thing. But

imagine being at one end of that walkway or in the middle and 35

suddenly someone grabs your purse.

Now no one down below is going to be able help you. I think that there

should be walkways up and down to that – if you’re going to have a

bridge where pedestrians walk across, there should be other avenues for 40

exit and entrance, all the way along, and I agree that there should be an

exit at Brougham Street, there’s no reason why it needs to come across

over the other street if people wanting to get to Mount Victoria. The

journey to Mount Victoria going the other way is down the sort of long

zig zaggy kind of area, it’s going to be long and arduous as well. 45


So both road – they sort of come out in different places, but neither of

them really does the job of just getting from A to B, which is actually

there already, it just needs to be improved and enhanced.

Okay. I think – I say – I suggest there should be steps down from the 5

footbridge at various points of access, but they could just as easily be

walkable ramps – not just one entrance and exit points at either distant

end. The bridge pathway overlooks the supposed plaza area, but cannot

reach it, so it’s actually separating people – like I say, you don’t need to

grade separate people, in fact, more happens and there’s a better 10

community and you build a better society and environment if people

actually crossing paths – it’s where the origin of the word “trivia”

comes from funny enough, where three paths meet.

[1.25 pm] 15

Interestingly the paths of pedestrian traffic appears of so little

importance to NZTA that the original Option A consulted back in 2011,

was looking at it in this book over here, at the bottom here, actually has

the walkway on the other side which shows a walk bridge coming 20

down in a completely different point and coming out at a completely

different point at the other end.

So they may have reconsidered it but that was before that we were

consulted on that one and that was before they even came up with this 25

idea they were going to have a building on the other side. So it was

actually originally the pedestrian walk bridge was going to be on the

same side as the new cricket pavilion.

Again, NZTA has owned this area for a long time with no improvement 30

until now. I suggest that proper at-grade development without the

flyover would favour pedestrian traffic and I actually think it would

favour everybody because, like I say, I think we can share the space, I

think it would be fine.

35

And then, finally, I mention what I was saying before about economic

benefits, just try and reiterate that point. I think it’s a small point but

it’s often overlooked because people talk about the economic benefits

of this road as being access to the airport, access to the hospital

et cetera. In fact this is a motorway designed to bypass Wellington 40

and take people out of the city from the airport as quickly as possible.

If people want to get to the airport quickly it would be easy and we

have talked about this great bus service but personally I think it should

be a rail service, I don’t think they should have, you know, transit to 45

the airport and back. Unfortunately, and it is beyond the scope of this


Inquiry obviously, part of the economic model for the Airport is to

have a large parking income and I suggest that that has a lot to do with

the Regional Council’s support of this roading project to and from the

airport which actually ignores a lot of the public transport infrastructure

that they would also like to dismantle. 5

If it was designed, as sometimes suggested, to get people to the airport

efficiently the flyover and the Memorial Park Tunnel would carry

eastbound traffic to the airport and traffic from the airport would follow

the route down Cambridge Terrace to Vivian Street before going on to 10

the motorway thereby taking visitors to the centre of our CBD. Instead

this arrangement is designed to take traffic with no interest in stopping

or shopping on its way to the airport through our busy CBD. And so,

you know, you just get people frustrated trying to get to the airport and

they are wanting to widen Vivian Street which is, what, one of our 15

busiest, in certain parts of it where it intersects with Cuba Street and

Willis Street, you know, these are quite busy commercial centres in

Wellington and they are getting eroded by the same piece of structural

highway.

20

Instead this arrangement is designed to take the traffic with no interest

in stopping or shopping on its way to the airport through our busy

CBD, apart from all businesses and local commerce and culture lost as

streets become roads, traffic to be siphoned through with nowhere to

stop. This represents a dual economic inefficiency to my mind. 25

I don’t know if anything can be done to make the oncoming traffic to

the airport go down this new flyover or the off coming traffic to carry

on down Cambridge Terrace but I think it would be better for the city.

And that’s the conclusion of my small contribution, thank you. 30

CHAIRPERSON: Well, Dr Bollinger, we appreciate it, thank you for coming

and I must say it was delivered with some panache.

MR COLLINS: Can I just ask one question, were you living in the far end of 35

Abel Smith Street before the Inner City Bypass was built?

DR BOLLINGER: Yes, I was.

MR COLLINS: How do you compare it with that situation now as a living 40

environment?

DR BOLLINGER: Oh, the pedestrian accessibility is far deteriorated.

MR COLLINS: In Abel Smith Street? 45


DR BOLLINGER: Yes, indeed. The intersection of Abel Smith Street and

Willis Street is a very, very busy corner. I call it a “motorway on-

ramp”, that’s where everything comes off Karo Drive and pours into

that gulf.

5

MR COLLINS: And it’s quite a long time - - -

DR BOLLINGER: Before then there was actually a really, really popular little

café on the corner and it was quite a buzzy area. You know, big roads,

and I call them roads as opposed to streets because we have a lot of 10

streets in Wellington. Victoria Street is packed, the exception that

they’ve turned it into a road because there’s a lot of through traffic and

you can’t stop, but streets tend to encourage economic and cultural

activity and roads tend to discourage it because nobody can pull over –

they’re not designed for that, they’re actually just a way of getting from 15

A to B and I think that’s how the roading planners, they just design

things that way because they’re trying to speed up the traffic times and

things like that.

[1.30 pm] 20

Which we pointed out, you know, there’s no regard given for speeding

up traffic times for pedestrians, in fact they’ve slowed down, it’s much

slower to get around Abel Smith Street and down through town than it

used to be, yes. 25

MR COLLINS: It’s quite a long phase, the lights there, getting from Abel

Smith Street across the, as you say, the road leading into the tunnel –

no, I was thinking more about the residential amenity with the traffic

coming down the terrace and around that it used to be - - - 30

DR BOLLINGER: Well, yes, the traffic - - -

MR COLLINS: That’s now stopped, hasn’t it?

35

DR BOLLINGER: The traffic use – well, I’m not sure about that, but traffic

does use Abel Smith Street now to get up around the terrace because a

lot of the other routes have been closed off, like – I can’t imagine how

it used to be, but there’s definitely a lot more - - -

40

MR COLLINS: There’s more coming up the other way - - -

DR BOLLINGER: - - - traffic kind of use – yes, using it as a sort of a shortcut

through to the terrace definitely.

45

MR COLLINS: Okay. Yes – that’s all right.


DR BOLLINGER: I always thought there should be off-ramp, I mean, as

much as I hate that bloody road, I always thought there should be an

off-ramp going north at the terrace, but there never has been, so it’s

actually, any traffic that wants to go to the terrace, it has to use the 5

local roads, which are – I mean, I think everyone should use the local

roads anyway and I really don’t like the motorway – I’m looking for it

to be dismantled which I’m sure it will be soon.

MR COLLINS: Okay. 10

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Baines.

MR BAINES: Just briefly, I’m interested in this, what you’re talking about on

your second page there, the way that, that social space has changed, 15

and I can see from your photographs, the manner in which its changed,

were there other – I’m just wondering what drove that, were there other

buildings or was it a change in the way the local streets were laid out or

something that drove that change?

20

DR BOLLINGER: The recent change? The recent change seemed to be

because they built a new – if you look on the – on at page 3, there’s a

sort of a green concrete structure on the right.

MR BAINES: Yes. 25

DR BOLLINGER: And that was constructed, and I think that that’s something

to do with trying to get fresh air into the tunnel or something and it may

be some sort of safety consideration, I don’t know – they built that,

they spent a lot of time building that, and in the process they did these 30

other changes, presumably because – I mean, you’ll have to ask them,

but I think they were trying to address some of the sort of – they didn’t

want people hanging around.

MR BAINES: Okay, but from your knowledge, I mean the other local streets 35

that we can see I the background, I mean they haven’t changed.

DR BOLLINGER: Oh no, that, that – yes, that’s right, obviously where this

road went through there was, yes, several streets which are no longer

existent. 40

MR BAINES: Okay, thank you.

DR BOLLINGER: Yes.

45

MR BAINES: Yes, thank you.


MR McMAHON: Well thank you, Dr Bollinger, that’s most useful.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well thank you very much for your assistance and

taking of your time for coming, we appreciate it. 5

DR BOLLINGER: Thank you.

MR McMAHON: Thank you.

10

DR BOLLINGER: Appreciate the hearing.

CHAIRPERSON: We’ll adjourn for lunch.

REGISTRAR: Please stand for members of the court. 15

ADJOURNED [1.33 pm]

RESUMED [2.07 pm]

20

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, good afternoon everybody.

MR WIGLEY: Good afternoon.

MR COLLINS: We meet again I think. 25

MR WIGLEY: We meet again, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Mr Clouston and Ms?

30

MRS RELPH: Mr Wigley and Mrs Relph.

CHAIRPERSON: Mrs Relph, sorry, I have got the wrong thing.

MR WIGLEY: Mrs Relph is my daughter. 35

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Mrs Relph and Mr Wigley.

MR……….: Grandstand Apartments.

40

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, now are you both going to make representations?

MR WIGLEY: Yes, we have sort of jointly built the apartments,

CHAIRPERSON: So you are going to make joint representations. 45


MR WIGLEY: So jointly if we may.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes you may indeed of course, yes, whichever is most

suitable to you people. So if you could each just for the purposes of the

record state your full name and then just move from one to the other as 5

you please.

MR WIGLEY: Thank you. Firstly, I would like to thank the other submitters

for making this space available to us. I have had a mother who passed

away yesterday. 10

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, we heard that.

MR WIGLEY: So it has been very much appreciated so I have to shoot to

Dunedin tomorrow. 15

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, understandably.

MR WIGLEY: So my name is Graham Alan Wigley and I am a fellow of the

Institute of Surveyors. 20

MRS RELPH: My name is Nicola Louise Relph and I am the owner of

Grandstand Apartments, level 1, apartment 2A.

MR WIGLEY: Right, well initially as our record shows, we were only sort of 25

partially opposed to the flyover but as we have come to learn more

about it and we are still learning about it, we have really changed our

minds to be fully opposed to such a high level structure and would now

support a ground level solution.

30

When we bought the apartment it was a lovely space because it was –

well, it was an office space actually owned by the Firebirds of

Wellington Cricket. But it had a lovely outlook, it had lovely sun, it

had privacy and we could see that we could add a deck to it like the

apartments above us had done to provide some outdoor space. 35

[2.10 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: That is on the western side, is it, or?

40

MR WIGLEY: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MR WIGLEY: Oh, yes, so it is now up on the screen now, yes. 45


MS……….: Plan 1(B) 04.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, can you just point it out to us? It is on the corner, is

it?

5

MR WIGLEY: Yes, our apartment is the one immediately behind that traffic

light.

CHAIRPERSON: Oh, yes, the traffic, that is right.

10

MR WIGLEY: And you can see half of our balcony there.

CHAIRPERSON: That is right, I remember now, yes.

MR WIGLEY: I am not appearing as an expert witness - - - 15

CHAIRPERSON: So, did you actually build that balcony?

MR WIGLEY: Yes, we – because the top half was converted to apartments

and the bottom two halves were left as commercial and then some years 20

later we purchased part of that floor and added an apartment.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, I see, thank you.

MR WIGLEY: As I say, I am not an expert witness today. I have appeared in 25

court before as an expert witness against an expert engineer who told

the judge that he could drive up a slope of 1 and 3. He did admit that at

the top of the driveway he would need five metre cuts and when I

extended my trusty staff five metres in the court room, the judge said

“case for the plaintiffs”. 30

Anyway, my point is that expert witnesses in my opinion are still

giving their opinion, sure it is based on better evidence than average

Joe blogs, but it is still an opinion. So I think we need to analyse this

logically and that is what I have attempted to do. 35

If this project proceeds, there is no doubt that Nicola would be worse

off after the completion of the proposal. The future rents will probably

be less because of what is happening, but in the long-term, we have got

to accept that but in getting to that point we believe that we should 40

receive fair treatment which means avoiding mitigating, remedying and

where this is not possible, giving compensation.

I will just address the various facets as we see it, and the first one is air

quality. Mr Fisher was the expert in this for NZTA, he advises that 45

those chemicals and benzene levels will not be exceeding the


guidelines, there will be more traffic on the northern side of the basin,

however this will cause a small increase in emissions as the traffic on

the bridge is flowing freely and will not stop – and I will address that

later – and that many effects decrease with the project in place due to

the better flowing traffic. 5

So, what does logic say? Even though the standards may be met

generally, this does not equate to no adverse effects on apartment 2A.

The traffic emissions are already noticeable in the apartment based on

the ground level traffic, as Nicola knows that you have got to wipe the 10

black dust off inside the window sills and things. I understand that

17,000 vehicles per day pass at ground level that cause that pollution.

These particles of carbon, diesel, rubber, benzene, et cetera – I assume

some of these float and the heavier particles will settle.

15

If we now add an additional 15,000 cars per day 9 metres above the

ground level, it appears to me that the heavier particles must surely fall,

creating an increasing pollutant effect on apartment 2A. If these heavier

particles are at ground level then they generally settle and will be

washed into the stormwater system. And what happens when the traffic 20

backs up onto this flyover from Taranaki Street as it inevitably will do

at some stage.

CHAIRPERSON: Just before you move on from that, Mr Fisher has filed a

brief of evidence which you have no doubt read, but no one has given 25

any notice to cross-examine him, you are not intending to cross-

examine him?

MR WIGLEY: No, to be honest, I have only gone through his executive

summaries. 30

CHAIRPERSON: Well, we have asked him a few questions in writing,

because he lives in Australia I think is that right?

MR BAINES: Yes. 35

CHAIRPERSON: And we didn’t want to have to bring him over here for the

few questions that we wanted to ask, but one of the questions that we

have asked relates in a more general way to what your concern is here.

40

[2.15 pm]

What I propose to do, with the other Board members’ approval of

course, is if we could send this to him for his comments.

45

MR WIGLEY: Yes, I would be very happy, thank you.


CHAIRPERSON: Would you be happy with that?

MR WIGLEY: Yes. Because it seems – when a car – there must be pollutants

on the ground, say, in the dry period - - - 5

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but what your concern- - -

MR WIGLEY: If a car flies over they must - - -

10

CHAIRPERSON: - - - what you are concerned about is that there has been no

exact modelling as far as the effect on your apartment is concerned?

MS RELPH: Absolutely, and especially, you know, you take the balcony

catchment, we used to have a couch out in the balcony and regularly I 15

have got a hose connection on the balcony for the pure reason of hosing

down the tiled balcony area, so that I didn’t bring that dust inside my

apartment. I would do that on a regular basis, every eight weeks you

would need to do that, because, you know, the particles would just sit

there, they would sit inside your window sills and that was only at the 20

17,000 traffic - - -

MR WIGLEY: From ground level.

MS RELPH: Add another 15 from this, you know, only eight metres away. 25

MR WIGLEY: Well, next week we will, as a Board, propose – because we

still will not him over here unless someone is going to cross-examine

him or unless we feel his answers aren’t sufficient to satisfy us, we will

propose a question to him, reflecting – well, we will send him a copy of 30

this with questions arising from it, and we will get the EPA to send you

– well, it will be on the website anyway, but we will send you a copy of

the question so that you can see what we have got.

MR WIGLEY: I appreciate that. Actually, just before, or during lunch break, I 35

ran my trusty staff up – the underside of the bridge is about the height

of where this sloping beam hits the top wall there in that corner.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry?

40

MR WIGLEY: It is about seven metres from here.

CHAIRPERSON: Up there?


MR WIGLEY: To the top of those curtains, you could say, yes, that is about

seven metres, that is the underside of the bridge. The bridge is two

metres higher than that and the garden rail is a metre one again.

CHAIRPERSON: So, that is the underside of the bridge there? 5

MR WIGLEY: Yes, the top level of those curtains, approximately.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, the new curtains.

10

MR WIGLEY: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: We got them put up because Mr Cameron was getting shot

in the eye by the sun, so.

15

MR WIGLEY: Okay.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay, so, and what is that start, that is the height of your

apartment?

20

MR WIGLEY: That is four metres, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Which is the height of your apartment?

MR WIGLEY: No, the underside of the bridge is about 5.6 metres above 25

Nicola’s floor level, so that is – if we take the next little bay up, that

would be about the underside of the bridge in relation to this floor in

Nicola’s apartment, roughly, that 5.6 above Nicola’s floor level.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, it is about eight metres away at the closest point? 30

MR WIGLEY: And eight metres away, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay.

35

MR WIGLEY: Yes, where did I get up to?

MR BAINES: Mitigation.

MR WIGLEY: Oh, so mitigation, yes. So, we would request, if this was 40

approved, that double glazing be installed and that will also – the older

windows never shut properly and double glazing windows will seal the

air quality better, and of course because you can’t open the windows

and particularly during the construction period, but also afterwards,

install a ventilation system or alternatively look for a ground level 45

solution.


Noise and sound. It is an inner city apartment and you do expect noise

and Nicola knows about that, I think, you can tell them about when the

buildings next door were demolished?

5

MS RELPH: So, I was living in the apartment when that happened and we

were assured as a Body Corp that the construction or removal of those

buildings – and also they did some re-roading straight outside that area

– and we were assured that it would be within the required levels and

they were doing a lot of that work sort of late at night as well, because I 10

think from a traffic perspective it was better than during the day. There

was significant noise so much so that during that time I actually moved

out of the apartment at night and stayed somewhere else, because it was

so loud and the vibration of what they were doing, especially when

they were using the roading machines that actually took up the tar seal, 15

so from a noise impact, you know, that construction period is a real

concern for me now that property is tenanted as well that, you know,

you won’t have it as great as you can with your tenants to keep them

there, and I have a huge concern around that construction noise during

that extended period of construction. 20

[2.20 pm]

MR WIGLEY: So what the experts say “my investigation has found that the

project as currently designed changes noise levels in the area very little, 25

as a consequence its noise effects are slight”. In the area is rather

interesting, what area, it could be the middle of the Basin Reserve, I’m

not sure.

The Body Corp had Mr Hegley prepare a report and I’ll just refer to 30

some things from his report. He notes that NZTA, quote “ASNZ

standards for managing effects, except where it chooses them to use a

WCC District Plan guidelines because they allow for further noise than

the Australian/New Zealand Standards”. He notes that a 55 decibel

noise level inside disturbs sleep. 35

He notes that there will be extended periods where noise levels are

above that, and he provides options of double glazing, relocating

residents in periods of high noise, or in the extreme he recommends

purchasing the building. 40

Nicola and I note that not all apartments in the building be affected as

those on the south side, on the south west corner. So NZTA may only

need to purchase the highly affected apartments.

45


He notes that following confirmation that adequate noise levels cannot

be achieved, that the owners should choose those options not NZTA.

He gives a recommendation of 30 decibels inside, and also

recommends a ventilation system. The Hegley report further 5

recommends installing a noise monitor in the grandstand apartments.

What does logic say? Well I’ve talked about noise in the area, it’s the

noise levels that affect our particular apartment that concerns us.

10

Nicola has recently stood under the Thorndon motorway over bridge

and was surprised at the echo effect of the traffic passing under the

bridge. Now this will also occur with this flyover, now particularly so

once the new, or if the new Basin Reserve building is in place. In other

words, so you would have the bridge above, you’ve got the Basin 15

building at the bottom and the roadway, so you’re creating a cave affect

which will create echo.

Then we’ve got the car noise of course as it travels across the bridge,

the bridge connections. I know when you’re in your car travelling 20

down the motorway over the Thorndon over bridge, it’s quite a noise

you hear when the tyres cross where the horizontal structures run onto

the piers.

Now NZTA did offer Grandstand Apartments I think about, was it 25

250,000? - - -

MS RELPH: I think so, yes.

MR WIGLEY: - - - towards the cost of double glazing, but in the end there 30

were sort of strings attached to that, that most of the owners decided

that if I sign that I’ll sign away too much of my rights. So in the end

there wasn’t enough owners signing to accept that proposition.

But it does show us that they are prepared, or at least I hope they are 35

prepared, to put money towards helping with adverse effects.

MR McMAHON: Just on that matter, was that an offer, and I appreciate it

might be confidential and you might not be able to talk about it, but

was that an offer that was put to the Body Corporate per se or was there 40

any negotiation with individual apartment owners.

MS RELPH: It was an offer to the Grandstand Body Corporate, and their

submission as a group.

45

MR McMAHON: Yes, okay.


MR WIGLEY: I think it still allowed for individual owners to take issue with

other aspects but not of noise.

MR McMAHON: Sure. Thank you. 5

[2.25 pm]

CHAIRPERSON: Well, again, the noise experts are actually giving evidence

and I think there is going to be some cross-examination, so either of 10

you to come along and either listen to them or even ask questions if you

give notice to the EPA that you want to. In any event we will make

sure that your concerns are addressed.

MR WIGLEY: Yes, thank you. 15

CHAIRPERSON: So it is good that you are doing this before they have

actually given their evidence.

MR WIGLEY: Yes. 20

CHAIRPERSON: It alerts us to your concerns.

MR WIGLEY: I am travelling away on 1 June so that is one of the reasons we

have come forward. 25

So Nicola and I accept the conclusions of the Hegley Report, slightly

modified to what we have requested. So mitigation is still double

glazing, as we have mentioned earlier and sound is also trapped with

heavy curtains on external windows and heavy curtains can have 30

multiple benefits for other adverse effects.

MR McMAHON: Just before you leave that topic, are you satisfied that the

proposed conditions reflect Mr Hegleys’ recommendations?

35

MR WIGLEY: No, the Hegley Report is not satisfied.

MR McMAHON: Okay.

MR WIGLEY: And we support what he said. 40

MR McMAHON: Yes, so you are saying there is a gap between what he said

and what is proposed in the conditions?

45


MR WIGLEY: Yes. I mean I have been around the construction industry for

a long time and some of the noise you just can’t avoid, no matter how

much you might try, to me there is noise you just can’t avoid and, to

me, it will exceed periods at times. We had hoped to get to talk to

people who are closer to the current tunnels, the Memorial Tunnel, to 5

see what they have experienced. I am not sure if this Board have heard

that from other evidence from other people but one suspects - - -

MR BAINES: The body corporate has been to speak to us.

10

MR WIGLEY: Yes.

MR COLLINS: Oh, yes, the, what’s it called.

MR BAINES: The apartment building up here. 15

MR WIGLEY: Yes.

MR BAINES: Yes, we have heard from them.

20

MR WIGLEY: And I am sure they were concerned at noise because they are

actually experiencing it now, aren’t they?

MR BAINES: That’s right, yes, and they certainly indicated that they had

experienced noise but I think they also acknowledged that when it is all 25

over they will have a new park very close by.

MR WIGLEY: Yes. When ours is all over we won’t quite have the same

experience unfortunately.

30

MRS RELPH: I am going to speak about point 3 which we are calling light

and glare. I am going to refer to plans 1B.06 and 1B.07. So the two

things - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Well, we get them on the screen, shall we. 35

MRS RELPH: So the two major concerns we can see here is obviously light

from the permanent bridge lights and more recently, after seeing these,

I had concerns then about the LED lights from the underside of the

bridge. We had originally popped in here about vehicle lights, we have 40

since removed that - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Why have you removed that?


MRS RELPH: Well, we are assuming that if the vehicle lights are mainly

coming from the east to west flow and if the green wall is doing what it

should, the direct vehicle lights should hopefully miss my apartment.

MR WIGLEY: Actually more importantly - - - 5

CHAIRPERSON: Well, we heard some evidence on that the other day about

they wouldn’t. One of the purposes of the green wall is to stop the

lights from the traffic coming from Paterson Street up towards your

apartments and swinging around. 10

MRS RELPH: Right, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: You are happy with the green screen?

15

MRS RELPH: No, not particularly and I - - -

CHAIRPERSON: But you would prefer to that rather than lights?

MR WIGLEY: Well, actually why I crossed it out today - - - 20

CHAIRPERSON: Well, that is why I asked you why you have crossed it out.

MR WIGLEY: Was because - - -

25

CHAIRPERSON: Because it is a matter that has been raised during the urban

design evidence it was raised by someone, I forget.

MR WIGLEY: I can just, behind our submission is - - -

30

MR BAINES: Just while you are looking for that can I just listen to what you

said, lights mostly coming from the east, what did you mean by mostly

coming from the east?

[2.30 pm] 35

MS RELPH: Well obviously at the moment we already have lights coming

up, well we have two areas, we have traffic coming up Kent Terrace,

which is status quo, and we already currently have the traffic lights that

are sitting right outside our apartment, so the current lighting situation. 40

MR BAINES: Okay.

MR WIGLEY: The main reason, if you turn to the rear of my submission you

will find a group of photos, and then if you look at photo number 4, and 45

why I crossed it out is I realised now that the bridge flyover level is


quite a lot higher, you will see it’s right up on the floor above us. So

once I sort of realised that, I crossed that out because I don’t think now

that the cars coming out of Mount Victoria tunnel, they’ll be a real

problem maybe for the two floors above us.

5

CHAIRPERSON: So you won’t have the green screen, you’ll have the bridge

building?

MS RELPH: Well, theoretically have half a bridge building and half a green

screenish. 10

MR WIGLEY: A bit of screen.

CHAIRPERSON: I see.

15

MS RELPH: But also as part of the discussion around the building next to

Grandstand Apartments there, is that the whole window could

theoretically be removed from my bedroom completely.

MR WIGLEY: We’ll come onto that further in our submission. 20

CHAIRPERSON: Okay, sorry, I shouldn’t have interrupted you.

MS RELPH: So obviously from an expert’s perspective we’ve got A P

Collins, to sort of summarise the points there. They mentioned that the 25

lights on the bridge will have a five degree tilt to stop any light spill.

They have indicated that there will be LED lights under the bridge.

That they’ve indicated that the green wall will mitigate the car light

effects, as just discussed, and that the lighting will comply with the

regulations of ASNZS and the Wellington City Council District Plan. 30

Logic though, how I see it, is if you can imagine you fly over a small

town in a plane, most of those lights are pointing downwards, yet the

glare off that is quite substantial. So my understanding with light is

that it reflects off any surface that it has, whether that be glass, mirrors, 35

hard shiny vehicles, whatever it is, that that light will bounce.

So, yes, the green wall may mitigate some of the lighting issues for the

people above us. Whether the green screen will provide a better

outlook than the current outlook, absolutely not, mostly the people on 40

the south wall, myself included and those above, actually have a great

outlook right now because we look onto the Basin Reserve and its

beautiful.

45


The other issue is obviously the pedestrian and cycleway will be lit,

and this 7.6 metres above my apartment floor level. There is going to

be increased light spill, and even though it may comply with standards,

it’s still going to have a major adverse effect on my apartment.

5

I only saw the two pictures that I’m referring to, 1B06 and 1B07 on the

walkabout last Sunday, and it really hit home to me the effect of this

project at night with these LED lights. I did ask the representatives at

that walkaround “What’s been discussed so far about that underside

lighting?” I understand that it has to be really well lit, because they 10

don’t want homeless, crime, graffiti, all of those sorts of things that

might happen. Yet if it is really well lit then obviously from apartment

it’s going to almost be like a bit of a Christmas tree sitting right there.

At the moment we have a little bit of street lighting, we have car 15

lighting, and we actually have streetscape. I can see sky, I can see the

Basin Reserve, it’s actually a really pleasant outlook to be night and

day. It’s going to have a significant change in the view both during the

day and during the night.

20

MR BAINES: Can I ask you, your second bullet point starts with the words

“high school …”

MR RELPH: So just my learning from high school is how I know that, sorry.

I have put for me to remember. 25

MR BAINES: I thought you were rather a long way from Wellington High

School.

MR RELPH: No, no. That’s what I learnt at high school was about the 30

reflecting of light.

So mitigation there, maybe heavy curtains might help, so that when my

tenants are asleep in their bedroom it’s not like daylight outside.

Whether the green screen will help or not there’s a lot of debate. 35

[2.35 pm]

Point four is sunlight and light. This is probably one of the most

important factors for me. When I purchased this apartment, when I 40

developed this apartment, I looked at probably 70 different locations to

buy. I ended up with this apartment because I loved what it can give

me in a city. I loved that it could give me the addition of a balcony. I

even went up to level three and I knocked on their door and said can I

come out and have a look at what your apartment looks like. It was 45

such a great outlook compared to another building straight in front of –


like there is plenty of apartments in the city that don’t have the vista

and outlook that this does. That’s why I chose this particular apartment

to invest all my time and my money in doing.

We have met with NZTA regarding these issues, and in one of these 5

meetings I said, do you know what’s going to be the most significant

change for me is my sunlight. I look west, I use that apartment balcony,

the sunlight floods in. The key for me is in that meeting we were

shown evidence of “don’t worry they’ll be sun lost as 2 o’clock, at 3

o’clock, 4 o’clock, at 5 o’clock, the sun won’t change. 10

I lived there for three years and I knew there’s got to be more to that

than there’s going to be no change. At 6 o’clock and 7 o’clock in the

summer time when that sun comes right round, there will be significant

impacts of the sunlight direct into and onto the balcony and into my 15

lounge areas. That’s the very time of day that me tenants will use that

area, because they’re working. So it’s not until 6.00 and 7 o’clock at

night when we used to go out there on the balcony, have a barbecue,

actually sling the doors open and enjoy it.

20

MR BAINES: Could I just ask, in relation to this, I’m just trying to picture it

as the sun comes round? What’s the first structure that starts to take the

sun away from your – or the first – how can I put it - - -

MR RELPH: I think, and this is - - - 25

MR BAINES: It’s a matter or terrain, or is it building.

MR WIGLEY: Perhaps if you refer to photo one. It’s probably terrain.

30

CHAIRPERSON: The hill.

MS RELPH: Yes, obviously you’ve got the Basin Reserve’s grandstand, that I

think we must be sitting in, which affects it in the summer for a short

period of time, and then it pops up. 35

MR BAINES: The RA Vance Stand?

MR RELPH: Yes.

40

MR BAINES: All right.

MR RELPH: Then I believe, and obviously I don’t have any drawings in front

of me, but I believe then it would be the top of the hills.

45

MR BAINES: Okay.


MR RELPH: And so we got sun to that apartment very late in the evening.

MR WIGLEY: In the summer.

5

MR RELPH: In the summertime, yes, absolutely.

MR BAINES: In the summer. So it sets, from your point of view it sets on

the south side of the RA Vance Stand?

10

MR RELPH: Yes, I believe so. Obviously mitigation there, don’t build the

flyover or alternatively compensate loss of value.

Visual amenity and outlook. Obviously as described there is three

aspects of quality apartment, they are outlook, sun and privacy. This 15

apartment has an amazing outlook currently from the lounge and dining

areas, bedroom areas and the deck compared to other apartments in the

city, which obviously aren’t located on somewhere like Oriental

Parade, that have also great views.

20

The green vista of the Basin Reserve and the various trees all go

towards enhancing this apartment’s outlook.

D Popova, the expert, if I can refer some of the things that she has

pointed out. The visual effects will be substantial and will be most 25

pronounced within 200 metres of the north and the east of the bridge.

She’s referred to it as within 200 metres, I would like her opinion on

what that assessment might be only eight metres from the bridge and

nine metres below it.

30

CHAIRPERSON: Did she visit your apartment?

MR RELPH: I don’t believe so.

CHAIRPERSON: No. 35

[2.40 pm]

MR RELPH: 11.21, I’m not sure, I think it’s at the back here, if we can have

that up on the screen. 11.21 shows a view from an apartment just 40

above ours, I believe it is on level 3, just to give you an idea. So, this is

not the directly above us, but one more floor above us.

CHAIRPERSON: Two floors above?

45

MS RELPH: Yes.


MR BAINES: Is this literally 11.21 or does it have another number, Glen?

Excuse me, Glen, is this literally – you know how they have been

renumbered – is this 11 – what is the number of this? It is 11.21, sorry,

thank you. 5

MS RELPH: She further states that the visual effects will be most significant

for the residents in the immediately adjacent properties, for some of

whom the adverse visual effects aren’t able to be mitigated.

10

Also it is critical that the final build be consistent with the intended

quality of design both built and landscape. And I will talk further about

how this fits in with the Building Under the Bridge, which I now

understand a little bit more information on and I will come to that later

on. 15

In terms of visual amenity, if you would like to just flick towards the

back of our presentation in photo 6 and 7, I went to the Thorndon

overbridge to kind of get a little bit more of the understanding of sound

as Graham has already talked to, but I also took these pictures to sort of 20

try to understand – this picture on the screen at the moment is eye-

level, I am actually going to be under that structure and there is no

picture that has been recreated from the balcony of level one, so I am

not sure exactly what the underside of that bridge might look like, but I

have just taken a couple of the Thorndon Bridge. So, that is photo 6 and 25

photo 7.

MR BAINES: Presumably your photo three is what you think it will look like

from your – I mean you have attempted to - - -

30

MR WIGLEY: Oh yes, I will come to that.

MS RELPH: We were also just pointed out that in some of our meetings we

weren’t told that the outlook won’t change if you are standing at the

back wall of our lounge and look out our windows, which is true. 35

However, I never say to my friends “come have a look at my view”.

CHAIRPERSON: You don’t have a barbeque deck.

MS RELPH: - - - and then go back – I go forwards and say “Look at my 40

view”, so the angles are quite different.

So, says that the negative effect on the outlook from this apartment will

be dramatic, as it is now located well below the level of the underside

of the bridge, which will have a dominating effect being located only 45

eight metres from this apartment. We believe that apartment 2A is one


of the worst affected apartments within the Grandstand Apartment

Building looking out and up to this concrete monstrosity.

To satisfy the demands of the Wellington City Council, NZTA are

spending $11 million to build a new stadium. We believe that is to 5

satisfy batsmen, say, 20 days per year, so they are not distracted. In

doing so, however, they are increasing the adverse effects on my

apartment. This new building will block views below the bridge to the

south, while the bridge will block the views to the skyline and this is, if

you can refer to the photos 2 and 3 at the back of our presentation, we 10

have stitched a couple of pictures together to try and give you an

indication on what we believe might happen to the view to the south

side of my balcony, so we have just crossed in where the stadium

building might be, we have crossed in there where the double pier

might stand, or will stand, and then the flyover over the top. 15

MR WIGLEY: It is all a bit approximate of course, but it does portray the

approximate effects of what will happen.

MS RELPH: The current outlook from the window on the south wall is also 20

stunning; it has got views over the Basin Reserve with the green park.

The window also enjoys late afternoon sun during summer. The

proposed flyover combined with the building under the bridge have

been proposed to cover half of this window, obviously having a

devastating effect on the amenity of this building. 25

[2.45 pm]

MR WIGLEY: Photos 8 and 9 there for the view out of the southern window.

And if you look at photo 4, you’ll see I’ve drawn in approximate the 30

height of the existing roof of the building under the bridge, and you’ll

see that is going to cover at least - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Photos what sorry?

35

MR WIGLEY: Photo 4. Now in one of our meetings with NZTA they said,

“Yes, we’ll try and lower that level to down, if it is practicably

possible”, well that doesn’t give us enough faith, and we say later on

further about that.

40

CHAIRPERSON: Did you buy the building before or after the building on the

corner was removed?

MR WIGLEY: Before.

45

CHAIRPERSON: Before, so those rooms wouldn’t have got a - - -


MS RELPH: So the window was existing.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

5

MS RELPH: The building sort of dog legged at the back.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MS RELPH: So the buildings could have air ventilation and the windows 10

opened and shut.

CHAIRPERSON: I see.

MS RELPH: It wasn’t obviously the view that you get now. 15

CHAIRPERSON: No, no, yes.

MS RELPH: You get a significantly better view, completely understand.

20

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MS RELPH: But at least it wasn’t an internal bedroom.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes. 25

MR WIGLEY: It was three metres wide wasn’t it?

MS RELPH: Yes.

30

MR WIGLEY: So you looked into another building, about three metres - - -

CHAIRPERSON: Yes three metres away, which could possibly happen again

if they built, if something was built there?

35

MR WIGLEY: Yes, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

MS RELPH: Absolutely, yes. 40

CHAIRPERSON: But that’s not a bridge – I’m saying, I say - - -

MR WIGLEY: Well, we suspect if it’s not a bridge - - -

45

CHAIRPERSON: So a buildings not a bridge, so that’s what I’m saying.


MR WIGLEY: Yes, sorry.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

5

MR WIGLEY: We suspect if it wasn’t required, there may be enough public

demand to keep the space as a green space because it looks really nice

and, maybe it – I mean, as you say “it’s possible it could become

another building” and we’d be worse off.

10

MR BAINES: So if you look photographs 8 and 9 for example, and

photograph 8 for example, when you bought it, how much of that view

would you have seen?

MS RELPH: So three metres out that window was another building. 15

MR BAINES: So in fact you didn’t see that view at all?

MR WIGLEY: No.

20

MS RELPH: No.

MR BAINES: No view at all?

MS RELPH: No. 25

MR BAINES: Okay.

MS RELPH: So for me it’s around – it’s a rental property, it’s a “great” rental

property, I haven’t had one week’s vacancy in six and a half years of 30

renting it, not one week. There is a significant difference between

trying to let out an apartment with rooms that have the ability for fresh

air and a window versus a completely internal room, so that’s my

care’s (ph 2.56) utility.

35

CHAIRPERSON: Right.

MR COLLINS: But there is no – nothing on your title giving rights across the

air space next door, is there, is it – that’s probably the corporate

window, but sometimes in these situations there’s easements over 40

adjoining properties, you don’t have that.

MR WIGLEY: Yes, no I don’t believe there are any rights of that nature.

45


MR COLLINS: No. So I mean, I do appreciate the difference that this would

have, but I’m just wondering about your suggestion that there should be

compensation for loss of value because if you had no rights to that, in

fact no right to the window there at all, could you reasonably claim

compensation? 5

MR WIGLEY: If compensation was assessed, truly as, for the loss of view,

then you could really only compensate for the deck and the back of the

property - - -

10

CHAIRPERSON: For the western - - -

MR WIGLEY: - - - not so much - - -

MR BAINES: Yes, for the western deck. 15

MR WIGLEY: - - - the southern window view.

MR COLLINS: Yes.

20

MR BAINES: Because when you bought the apartment in fact you didn’t

have a view out there, you had your view out west.

MR WIGLEY: That’s correct.

25

MS RELPH: Correct.

MR BAINES: Yes.

MS RELPH: Correct. But we did have fresh air and ventilation. 30

MR BAINES: But you did have fresh air, yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, okay. And you’ve got a nice view.

35

MS RELPH: A great view, so much so I rented the window to make it even

better – put in a brand new window.

MR COLLINS: But again there is no legal rights - - -

40

CHAIRPERSON: Yes we saw that.

MR COLLINS: - - - to your window at all, that lies in the air and anything

else, so if it was compensation, it’s just got to be, I imagine,

compensation for the things that are lost that you’re not entitled to. 45


MR WIGLEY: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: Anyway we can’t award compensation – it’s not within our

jurisdiction.

5

MR WIGLEY: Right, privacy, the existing deck - - -

CHAIRPERSON: We’ll have to speed up just a little bit I’m sorry because we

have to get flights.

10

MR WIGLEY: Yes. The existing deck provides the outdoor space and with

the pedestrians on the cycle bridge above, the outdoor privacies

completely lost. The pedestrians will be eight metres from the deck and

7.6 metres above the deck. Pedestrians will be able to look straight

down into the lounge and the master bedroom, both are which currently 15

completely private and when you’re barbequing on the deck, which

was completely private, someone can come along and say, “Hey, chuck

another sausage mate”, you know. Or someone could - - -

[2.50 pm] 20

CHAIRPERSON: All I have got to say, yes.

MR WIGLEY: Somebody could chuck something down. Once again

mitigation, the privacy curtains and loss of value. Economic effects, 25

there’s no doubt that there will be loss of rental following the operation

of the flyover but we believe Nicola shouldn’t suffer financial loss for

the benefit or supposed benefit of commuters.

With the estimated growth of the city I really wonder whether this is a 30

long term solution. I worked on the Terrace Tunnel back in the 1970s

and who would have thought then that the traffic would back up from

Willis Street right through the tunnel and right back to the Bolton Street

Bridge, yes.

35

And I really firmly believe that history will repeat itself here and then

what about the pollution when the cars are stationary above Nicola’s

apartment?

MRS RELPH: I just want to talk about the Building Under the Bridge. It was 40

originally, obviously we have got a bit of concern that that building

might not actually be built as part of the NZTA’s project as originally

indicated to us. NZTA experts have said that the Building Under the

Bridge will be an attractive space to certain tenants.

45


Logic says that that building will do little to enhance the overall

project. We were told initially by the NZTA that they would be

constructing the building. However, on the walkabout on Sunday 4

May we were told that that land is actually going to be offered for a 49

year lease to a developer and the developer would then construct the 5

building. So what we are seeing in these pictures may or may not

actually be what it looks like.

And if it is the case obviously – sorry, I have just lost my point here.

10

MR WIGLEY: The assessment of effects.

MRS RELPH: So if this is the case the assessment of effects given by

Ms Callaghan on the architect’s impression may actually be

meaningless. Due to its busy corner any commercial occupant would 15

need to rely mainly on pedestrian traffic as parking is reasonably

restricted in the area. This will limit commercial success and could

lead to extended vacancies of that building. During daylight hours the

space under the bridge will be darker and with little or no sun the

footpaths may remain wet for longer and I don’t really see that whole 20

area to be overly pleasant.

NZTA advised that it will not be built at the time of the bridge

completion but could be a year, maybe longer, after completion of the

project depending on developers’ interest for the lease. So my question 25

is if that is the case then who constructs the green wall if those

buildings aren’t up at the end of the project, the green wall can’t attach

to anything underneath.

MR McMAHON: What we can say is that we have raised that same concern 30

with the applicant and Mr Daysh, their planner, will respond to that

matter. Yes, we are very much alive to that issue.

MRS RELPH: Right, okay, good.

35

MR WIGLEY: The bedroom window on the south side, we have sort of

discussed that and mentioned that there was a building three metres

clear but it did allow light near.

And in the last month we became aware that the proposed new building 40

will be halfway up this window. So we are pretty concerned about that

because then there is already one bedroom there, one internal bedroom

without any outside window and to have an apartment then with two

bedrooms out of three with outside windows - - -

45


CHAIRPERSON: Do you know how far the Building Under the Bridge is

going to be from your apartment window?

MR WIGLEY: It will be hard against it.

5

CHAIRPERSON: It is hard against it.

MRS RELPH: Hard against.

MR WIGLEY: Yes, and as best we can judge, because there is no fixed plan 10

of it, at the moment it is halfway up that south window. And we feel if

this is the case this would completely destroy the value of the

apartment as of the three bedrooms only the master bedroom would

then have decent external windows.

15

CHAIRPERSON: Just two bedrooms are on the south side?

MR WIGLEY: Yes, the middle one doesn’t have any window at the moment.

It has borrowed light, borrowed light windows that come from the

lounge, hi-lights I am talking that let day light in. 20

CHAIRPERSON: I recall that now, yes.

[2.55 pm]

25

MR WIGLEY: The only solution in that case we would have to ask NZTA to

purchase the apartment, but if they could guarantee to keep that roof

level below and there is certainly plenty of height there to do a one-

storey building and keep it below that window and Nicola would be

happy to hang on to the apartment. 30

MR McMAHON: Just remind us, what would that level be?

MS RELPH: It is in your plan. You refer to - - -

35

CHAIRPERSON: It is in the photo, isn’t it?

MR WIGLEY: Yes, photo 4 shows it, I haven’t actually put a level, but it

would be somewhere between the 12.22 and the 9.16, those levels I

have taken off the, you know, title plan for the block, so they are mean 40

sea levels and they relate to the same levels that NZTA have got on

their bridge designs.

MR McMAHON: Yes, thank you.

45


MR WIGLEY: Obviously that park is not formally a zone park, and we have

been told that if the land was sold someone could build up past that

window, you know, that is how it is at the moment, but it may be, if the

land is not needed for a flyover, then it might be coming up in the park.

5

Now, at one of our meetings we asked NZTA, “Can you purchase our

apartment?” and they said “No, because it is not in the designation and

we are not taking any land from the Grandstand Apartments”, so I then

asked “Are you taking land from the Basin Reserve?”, “Oh, no, we are

not doing that either”, then why is that in your designation and not 10

Grandstand Apartments? Well, as you probably know we are a small

cog in the wheel compared to Wellington City Council and – so they

are going to spend $11 million so that for 10 or 20 days of the year the

batsmen don’t get distracted by traffic, but about the 365 days that this

apartment is affected by the traffic and the flyover? 15

The offer of a green screen, which may or may not have benefits, and it

is all in a bit of a worry that well, it depends who you talk to, you

know, if we get a huge soft southerly come through, will that kill the

plants going up the – I don’t know, we have been shown some lovely 20

green screens but not in Wellington’s weather, they might have been up

the country, where it is a bit more sheltered, a bit more tropical. So,

what we don’t want to be left with of course is a metal structure that

would start to rust and – it is a very difficult one that.

25

So, yes, we were offered that they would and keep the building below

the window, but if we get a guarantee that they will do that, then we

would be very happy.

Traffic. This is real interesting to me, as a Joe blog’s public man, on 30

Wednesday I travelled from Miramar to the Hutt Valley, 4.15, when I

came out of the tunnel, stopped at the first lights out at the bottom of

the tunnel, went round the corner and were completely stopped. And

we crawled from there right through until Willis Street. And it wasn’t

because of the lights, it was because the traffic from Willis Street was 35

backed up to – what is the next street?

MR COLLINS: Victoria.

MR WIGLEY: Yes, and that four blocks in between were full, so it was only 40

when one block shot out to the motorway that everyone could come

forward. Now I for the life of me, I can’t see how this flyover is going

to make any difference to that, because it is being held up at the front

end. Sure, in non-peak times, yes, everyone will whistle across there,

but in the main peak times, what we are trying to fix? I can’t see how it 45

is going to improve the matters and what I can see is the traffic back


right across that flyover, all of them sitting there, shuffling out diesel

fumes and so on and no one going anywhere quicker than they are

today by going around the Basin.

MR BAINES: Well, we have been told I think a number of times that the one 5

thing that will make a substantial difference to the sort of phenomenon

that you are talking about is the work that is going on at the moment at

the Buckle-Taranaki Streets intersection, and of course at the moment

there is a lot of toing and froing and hanging around, because that

underpass is being constructed and everything is a bit tight, but the idea 10

is that they have an extra lane there and that that, we have been assured,

will actually make a substantial difference.

[3.00 pm]

15

MR WIGLEY: Yes, well, I can’t see it, because they have recently finished

the two sections further away from that, haven’t they? That is all

finished, and yet that is blocking up, so no matter how many lanes they

put beside – you could probably stack up a few more cars, if you have

got another lane - - - 20

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, a number of witnesses have mentioned the problems

further west.

MR WIGLEY: Yes, I mean, if those other roads went over the top then I can 25

say, yes, you will fly through.

MS RELPH: Nearly at the end, just talking about construction problems.

Obviously there will be noise, dust, vibration, light and glare. This is a

really desirable apartment, as I have mentioned, we haven’t had even a 30

week’s vacancy. These disturbances may well drive out existing

tenants. This is supposed to be a two to three year construction period

and any impact on tenancy during that time will have a significant

financial impact on the ability for me to pay my mortgage.

35

I know that if a tenant goes to Tenancy Tribunal and says “I have to

leave my fixed-term tenancy because I can’t sleep at night”, Tenancy

Tribunal will award them, exit. And to then try and find a new tenant

on the basis that one has just moved out because of noise will be

difficult. And so for me it is about saying I need some sort of 40

reassurance or rental guarantee that – I have got a track record that that

apartment is very tenantable, if it is not during that construction period,

I would like a rental guarantee that says “Don’t worry, we have got you

covered, you will still be able to pay your mortgage”.

45


MR WIGLEY: Nicola has got the proof of that, if it is required, for the six

years of unbroken rental - - -

CHAIRPERSON: I can well understand you are having an unbroken rental

for that place, it is a delightful apartment. 5

MS RELPH: Thank you very much, a lot of heart and soul went into that

apartment.

MR WIGLEY: Right, just concluding, at the very back of the report there is a 10

couple of the Transit construction plans. I just put in there – I mean, it

is a colossal structure. You know, when you look up there and you see

– that is the underside of the bridge, you have still got two metres to the

deck and a metre hand rail, it is a huge, huge structure.

15

And the other amazing thing about the site works, if you look on the

second little sheet, I have shown that it is approximately 32 metres

depth of piles to get into bedrock. 32 metres, when you look at the

staff, at eight times that it is a humongous depth, it is hard to

comprehend, eight times that down, so, there will be a lot of noise and 20

so on.

MS RELPH: Vibration.

MR WIGLEY: Conclusion. NZTA could not walk over Wellington City 25

Council and it so has provided $11 million – what do we call it, I don’t

know, recognition of the effects, I guess, but we are a small cog but we

still believe that we should receive fair remedy and where those effects

can’t be mitigated and certainly the Hegley report and others show

areas where they can’t be mitigated Nicola should be justly 30

compensated.

While we have not yet had evaluation of our particular apartment, the

tenant on the same corner on the fourth floor has been trying to sell her

apartment for some time and it is down $60,000 on a year ago in its 35

previous evaluation, and more recently down $100,000. Now, certainly

in between those two evaluations the earthquake strengthening has

come up so half of that loss will be as a result of the building requiring

earthquake strengthening.

40

So, yes, we would request that the NZTA relook for a ground level

solution and we feel that the money saved will be far better spent on

improving the public transport system.

45


So, mitigation for the completed project we would request that NZTA

provide us with double glazing, a ventilation system, privacy curtains

and heavy curtains to make the apartment reasonably habitable and

usable during the construction period and then afterwards.

5

[3.05 pm]

Mitigation of the construction effects. A guarantee of the current rental

plus a CPI for the construction period, because if you include the

building under the bridge it could go on for at least four years and 10

maybe a bit more, and offer our tenants alternative accommodation in

periods where there will be maybe extreme noise, they could bail out

for a week while the works done.

And to ensure that the building proposed on the south side of 15

Grandstand Apartments is designed in a way that will not prevent light

or ventilation or exclude views to the bedroom on the south side, and

that the building’s roof will not extend higher than the bottom

windowsill on the south side.

20

If they can’t give some guarantee like that then we would request that

NZTA include this apartment in the designation and then offer to

purchase the apartment at current market value as compensation

assessed pursuant to part 5 in the Public Works Act.

25

Nicola and I thank you for the opportunity to make a submission.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, well thank you very much Mrs Relph, and thank you

Mr Wigley. Thank you for preparing a very careful and focused and

succinct submission, we appreciate it. 30

We will of course take into account in making our determination.

Some of the matters you’ve requested are outside our jurisdiction.

MR WIGLEY: Yes, we appreciate that. 35

CHAIRPERSON: We can, in the event of us, first of all your submission will

be taken into account in determining whether or not the project should

be allowed. If it is allowed then it will be taken into account as far as

condition are concerned, but those conditions can only apply to 40

mitigation measures which may be able to mitigate in some way some

adverse effects, but unfortunately doesn’t extend to compensation.

MR WIGLEY: Yes, so it could be like double glazing or that sort of thing.

45

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, that sort of thing, yes.


MR WIGLEY: I understand.

CHAIRPERSON: So another tribunal is vested with that responsibility, and I

think it’s a fairly torturous process, but never mind, it’s outside our 5

concerns. Just to let you know exactly where we stand, but thank you

very much we do appreciate it.

MR RELPH: Thank you for your time.

10

CHAIRPERSON: We will definitely take it into account.

MR WIGLEY: Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON: As we will have to take all of the evidence into account of 15

course. And I’m very sorry for the death of your mother, Mr Wigley.

So I hope you have a safe trip down to Dunedin and everything goes

well for you.

MR WIGLEY: Thank you. 20

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, we’ll adjourn until 9.30 on Monday morning.

MATTER ADJOURNED AT 3.08 PM UNTIL

MONDAY, 12 MAY 2014 25

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