Show Your Love For The Basin Reserve This Valentine’s Day

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Save the Basin invites you to come show your love for the Basin Reserve on Valentines Day, Friday 14 February. Meet at the northern end of the Basin Reserve, near the CS Dempster Gate, at 10am to show your support for the iconic Basin Reserve precinct, and why it’s just too precious to spoil with the construction of the proposed flyover. Bring your banners, signs and anti-flyover T-shirts, but most of all your love for this nationally significant part of our city.

Friday 14 February is also the first day of the New Zealand-India cricket Test at the Basin, so plenty of people will witness your declaration of love for the Basin!

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/201680093364430/

NZTA’s Basin Flyover Plans In Serious Trouble: Media Agrees

Opponents of NZTA’s proposed Basin Reserve flyover have said all along that NZTA behaved in an arrogant and high-handed manner during the supposed “consultation” process on its Basin Reserve flyover plan. Now that arrogance and high-handedness has come back to bite NZTA – and it’s not just us saying it.

The updated Basin Bridge Project Traffic and Transportation Peer Review (PDF, 4.1 MB), commissioned by the Board and prepared by Abley Transportation Consultants, raises such severe criticisms of the project that NZTA’s only honourable course of action would be to withdraw their current proposal and think again. (Of course, NZTA has dismissed the Transport Peer Review’s criticisms and announced its intention to press on regardless.)

There has been a striking shift in the tone of the Dominion Post’s coverage of the proposed flyover this month, and Michael Forbes of the DomPost has prepared this excellent summary of the key criticisms contained in the Abley Report:

Serious red flags raised over flyoverhttp://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/9639260/Serious-red-flags-raised-over-flyover

Wellington Scoop, which has a distinguished track record of investigative journalism on the issue, expanded on the Dominion Post article, noting previous criticisms by Save the Basin:

More (and more) confirmation that there are better alternatives than the flyover: http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=63947

This article highlights the transport evidence to be presented  at the forthcoming Board of Inquiry hearing by one of Save the Basin’s expert transport witnesses, David Young:

David Young, who for eight years was Transit NZ’s national planning manager, confirms that there is a low-cost at-grade option for solving Basin traffic problems without a flyover. He asks why the Agency failed to allow Wellingtonians the choice of this non-flyover option. Had it been been identified and included in the consultation process, he says, it is likely that it would have been preferred by affected parties “and would, or at least should, have been selected by the Transport Agency.”

This expert witness also says the “grossly uneconomic” flyover will cause significant adverse environmental effects and he asks why the Agency is understating environmental issues related to the flyover.

Wellington Scoop’s report of the original version of the Transport Peer Review is here: 49 key concerns about the flyoverhttp://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=63947

Radio New Zealand also covered the issue on Checkpoint: Basin Reserve flyover plan criticisedhttp://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/234062/basin-reserve-flyover-plan-criticised

As a campaigner, it can be easy to feel like a lone voice in the wilderness. Not any more!

EPA Imposes Ludicrously Short Response Time On Basin Flyover Submitters

The whole Basin “Bridge” (flyover) Board of Inquiry process  has been rendered dangerously close to farce by the nine-month timetable imposed on the Board process by the Government. However, the latest move by the Kerry Prendergast-chaired Environmental Protection Authority, which administers the Board, has plumbed new depths in its apparent contempt for submitters on the project.

At 5.35pm on Friday 17 January, the EPA sent submitters the Draft Hearing Schedule, a complex document that requires careful consideration – even making it legible is a challenge. Each submitter needs to check the time(s) that they are meant to appear and respond to the EPA if any changes are needed.

And how long have submitters been given to respond? One working day. The EPA has imposed a deadline of 5pm on Tuesday 21 January, and Monday 20 January is a public holiday in Wellington – so it’s Tuesday or bust, especially if you’re away from Wellington for the weekend.

Is this fair or reasonable? Absolutely not. Whether this is a deliberate attempt by the EPA to make it impossible for submitters to appear before the Board, or whether it is merely the product of incompetence, we will leave for the reader to decide. But such absurd and unrealistic deadlines raise serious questions about any notion of this Board of Inquiry conducting a fair, unbiased and objective hearing process.

Please contact your local MP and let them know how unfairly this EPA process is treating submitters.

What’s The Basin Reserve Flyover Issue All About?

In case you’re new to the issue, here’s a quick introduction to what’s being proposed for the Basin Reserve, why the Save the Basin Campaign is opposed to it, and what you can do to help.

What’s the Basin Reserve?

The Basin Reserve is a recreation ground near the centre of Wellington. It is best known for being Wellington’s Test cricket ground, and has often been praised for its setting and its beauty.

What’s proposed for the Basin Reserve?

The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA), as part of the current New Zealand Government’s focus on building more motorways rather than funding public transport, walking and cycling, is planning to build a 10-metre-high one-way motorway flyover on the north-western boundary of the Basin Reserve at an estimated cost of at least $100 million. If built, it will be clearly visible from many parts of the ground.

Hang on a minute, did you say “one-way”?

It’s bizarre, but true. All this effort, expense and disruption is for the sake of a one-way road, running east to west. In fact, one of the many concerns about this proposed flyover is that it, if built, it may need to be followed by a second unsightly flyover running in the opposite direction.

What effect would a flyover have on cricket at the Basin?

Nobody is quite sure, but a number of senior international cricketers and cricket officials have expressed serious concerns at the potential effects on players, and also on the Basin’s future as an international cricket ground. We’re told that ‘mitigation measures’, mainly in the form of a new structure designed to block the view of the flyover from the pitch, have been agreed, though details have yet to be released of this agreement, but these measures don’t appear to shield the flyover from many fielders or spectators.

Why does NZTA want to build a flyover?

The NZTA is trying to convert the present route through Wellington to Wellington Airport into a motorway designed to carry increasing numbers of cars, even though traffic volumes are dropping. It wants to build a flyover as part of this route, and has been determined to do so for many years, despite a great deal of evidence (that will be presented at the forthcoming Basin flyover hearings) showing that a flyover is not necessary. NZTA has deliberately skewed figures to make other transport solutions appear not to be viable.

Was there any consultation before NZTA went ahead with its plans?

If you can call it consultation: NZTA gave Wellingtonians the option of agreeing to a flyover, or a slightly different flyover. NZTA ignored the many submissions calling for there not to be a flyover and then announced one of the flyovers as the preferred option. This is, sadly, typical of NZTA’s approach to engaging with the public.

What happens next?

The Government has set up a Board of Inquiry to hear the resource consent application to build what NZTA persists in calling a Basin “Bridge” – presumably because it realises the public doesn’t like flyovers. The Board of Inquiry hearing is scheduled to begin on Monday 3 February and is expected to report by the end of May. Save the Basin Campaign and an number of other organisations are presenting detailed cases covering why a flyover is unnecessary and shouldn’t be approved.

We hope that this Board of Inquiry will fully and carefully consider the question of whether the flyover should go ahead. However, the Government set up the Board of Inquiry process to fast-track projects it wants to see go ahead, and so far, that’s what Boards of Inquiry have done.

If the Board rules that the project should not go ahead, it will have made the right decision. And if it rules otherwise, we still have other legal avenues open to us.

You keep saying the Government is behind this project. Do all political parties support it?

Absolutely not! In fact, five parties have stated their opposition to a Basin Reserve flyover: Labour, the Greens, New Zealand First, the Mana Movement and United Future. It’s entirely possible that the Government that emerges following the 2014 General Election may be opposed to a Basin Reserve flyover going ahead.

How can I help?

We’ve listed a number of ways, but the two most important things you can do are: