Govt Out Of Step With Mayors

 

Pressure is growing on the Government to get with rail.

Wellington’s Mayor says there is a groundswell of public opinion in favour of good choices for transport like light rail.

And that’s happening now in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown was welcoming the fact that Christchurch has embraced the idea of introducing light-rail public transport as part of the draft plan for the rebuild of the quake-hit central city.

“It is good to see that the Mayors of Christchurch, Auckland - and Wellington - are united in the view that rail has an essential role to play in terms of mass passenger transport in coming years,” Mayor Wade-Brown said.

Mayor Wade-Brown said Auckland Mayor Len Brown’s proposal for a rail loop around central Auckland confirms that the mayors of New Zealand’s three largest cities share the view that the time for high-quality public transport has come.

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker yesterday announced a proposal for a light rail public transport system to link a rebuilt central Christchurch with outlying suburbs.

The first stage would connect the city centre to Canterbury University, while future links are proposed for the airport and suburban areas, including Hornby, Northlands and New Brighton.

Mayor Wade-Brown said she continues to advocate for a light-rail link from the Wellington CBD to Newtown and Wellington Airport. “Mayor Parker said today that if they can’t physically move the University into the Christchurch CBD then they can at least ‘hard-wire’ it in,” she said. “We can do the same in Wellington with our airport.

“There is a groundswell of public opinion in favour of good choices for transport like light rail.”

Yesterday Mayor Wade-Brown met for the first time with AECOM, the consultants contracted earlier this month to carry out the Wellington Public Transport Spine Study.

The 18-month study will identify and assess the most feasible long term options for a high quality public transport route through Wellington, from the railway station to the regional hospital in Newtown and connections with the wide public transport network.

The public and Mayors are embracing rail

The $1 million study, being carried out by Greater Wellington in partnership with Wellington City Council and the NZ Transport Agency, is part of the Ngauranga to Wellington Airport Corridor Plan.

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5 Comments

 
  1. Matt L says:

    The government is completely out of step with the country on transport issues and unfortunately I can only see them digging their heels in further as they are probably worried that if they help one city build more rail infrastructure then they will have to help all of them and that would require funds to be diverted from roads whose main goal seems to be to help trucking firms

  2. Andrew says:

    Which is just plain silly, because getting cars off the roads leaves more room for urban roadfreight.

    Which means trucks.

  3. John Dalley says:

    It’s becoming fairly obviouys that if Auckland or NZ wants good PT, they are not going to get it from National. as far as Auckland goes, Len Brown is going to have to make PT an election issue.

  4. Antz says:

    It’s great that many people are now fully supporting light rail. Sooner or later the government will be forced to give.

  5. Kurt says:

    This government is not listening even though its thinking on roading is backward/archaic and more importantly it doesn’t have to listen because of its popularity in the polls. Simple as that.

 

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