by frog
Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast wants to build a flyover beside the Basin Reserve within 5 years. Sue Kedgley, voicing the concerns of some of this blog’s cricket lovers noted:
“I’ve got no doubt that you’re not going to hear the thud of the cricket ball because it’s going to be drowned out by the dull roar of traffic.”
Gahh! I mean putting aside my Green expectation that a city with carbon neutral ambitions would invest in public transport rather than new roads, why pick on the Basin Reserve of all things? Especially given that even the proponents of the plan in the news article say it will not ease congestion. Isn’t there like some sort of heritage site or historic graveyard they could flatten instead, like last time?
Photo Credit: wiifm69
Published in Environment & Resource Management | Society & Culture by frog on Tue, May 6th, 2008
Tags: Basin Reserve, cricket, Kerry Prendergast, roading, Sue Kedgley, transport, wellington
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Watching cricket at the basin? That should affect about ten people
Sarcasm aside, I’d like to hear both sides. Wellington does need better road capacity, but I would have thought light rail (is that another word for trams?), in particular, would work well in Wellington. It seems they aren’t ruling other options out?
I would take the train a lot more often if I could ride the Jville line to Courtenay Place, and it kept a frequent schedule….
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Come on Frog, this has been in the pipeline for at almost 20 years.
I used to work in Cambridge terrace, the land next to one of the Car dealerships has been earmarked for the flyover since 1989, it will link the tunnel up with the motorway and ease inner city congestion which is a great idea.
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Raises the possibility of one of my less auspicious cricketing moments being repeated. Some years ago on Victoria Park in Auckland I bowled an awful looping full toss that was promptly dispatched from for 6 onto the SH1 motorway flyover.
A few minutes later a very irate motorist with a smashed window in her car appeared clutching the cricket ball and demanding someone pay for the damage. And the batsman who had hit it reckoned I should be the one to pay because it wouldn’t have happenned if I hadn’t bowled such an awful delivery!
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I hope you paid up Toad
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ha! for what it’s worth BP, the basin sold out when England were here.
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That photo looks like a slice of heaven to me.
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Frog, public transport doesn’t solve every problem. We do need to continue to spend money on road infrastructure as well. I’m a great fan of increased public transport in wellington, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t put to use the benefits that modern road engineering can provide. Currently, traffic in wellington is pretty good: at the worst times of the day, the basin congestion holds everyone up, far in excess of any other urban street route, including the superduper new trolley buses. It is simply not efficient for major roads to cross each other like that. Why is it that greens are so ideological that they go into spasms when consideration of roading upgrades comes about?
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BB said: I hope you paid up Toad
We all (both teams) got out our wallets, and came up with something just over $200 in cash, which I think in those days would have been enough to replace the window. The motorist seemed satisfied anyway.
But a good example of collective responsibility – we were all playing the game, so we all should have shared and did share in meeting the costs of a third party affected by it.
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Yes, hardly news. This project has been, in some form for decades, and has been on Transit’s programme for investigations for three years. Only a minor corner would be affected and it would finally take through traffic from the tunnel to Buckle Street away from the crossings for three schools. The traffic lights at the Basin could go and delays for buses going around the Basin would be reduced. The need for a good corridor to bypass the city is long overdue, and this would relieve the nonsensical backup from the Basin Reserve to the tunnel.
The proposed plan looks very balanced, bus priority on the main corridors between the city and suburbs, and better capacity at bottlenecks like the Basin to Buckle Street, and Wellington Road. It’s not a road builder’s dream nor a public transport believer’s dream – but spending good money on worthwhile projects. Sue Kedgley as ever is ignoring the public transport plans, and besides she is as much of a car user as anyone else, one of the biggest hypocrites in the Green Party.
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Is frog so busy keeping one eye on Auckland and one eye on Wellington that (s)he didn’t see what Sideshow Bob is up to
http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4513480a6009.html
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