Month: April 2016

Please Submit On Wellington’s Low Carbon Capital Plan – Deadline Friday – Submission Guide Now Available

Posted on by stb_nyltr0

 

Image from FIT Wellington
Image from FIT Wellington

Submissions on Wellington City Council’s Low Carbon Capital Plan close on Friday – and now there’s a helpful submission guide you can use, prepared by Wellington climate action group Keep a Cool World.

Why should you submit? Because Wellington City Council has learned how to talk a good game on climate change, while continuing to make decisions that result in increased greenhouse gas emissions that make climate change worse – like supporting further road-building that will lead to increased emissions from induced traffic, or backing an airport runway extension that, if it goes ahead, is projected to lead to a major increase in both truck movements through the central city, and aviation emissions.

Wellington City Council claims to be a leader on climate change action, but for that claim to be credible, its actions have to match its words.

The Keep a Cool World submission guide takes you through some good points you can make, but please adapt it to make the submission your own – cookie cutter submissions are generally less effective!

You can submit as follows:

(If you are submitting by post, you’ll have to be very quick to meet the deadline! There’s a printable submission form at http://wellington.govt.nz/~/media/have-your-say/public-input/files/consultations/2016/03-annual-plan/printable-form.pdf)

Remember, the deadline is this Friday – so please act today!

Fill In The “Let’s Get Welly Moving” Survey

Posted on by stb_nyltr0

Here’s two useful things you can do for the campaign. One takes about ten minutes, the other could take a little longer. If you don’t have time to do both, please do the first!

1) Fill in the full survey at the “Let’s Get Welly Moving” site set up by the Governance Group: Go to http://www.getwellymoving.co.nz/, scroll down to the “Take the survey” button, and spend ten minutes telling the Governance Group what you do and don’t want to see happen to Wellington City and Wellington transport. What’s more important to you – a liveable city, or faster throughput of cars? This survey lets you state your preferences.

Though the Governance Group is using lots of engagement methods to find out what Wellingtonians, and residents of the region, want for Wellington transport, this survey is the most significant way you can participate at the moment.

Please encourage like-minded friends to fill this survey in as well.

2) Make a submission on Wellington City Council’s “Low Carbon Capital Plan” for the city – a plan which, you might want to suggest, is entirely incompatible with building more motorways or bringing more cars into the central city. You can find all the details on the plan, which as part of the Annual Plan 2016/17, and the consultation process here:

http://wellington.govt.nz/have-your-say/public-inputs/consultations/open/annual-plan-2016-17

and make your submission here:

https://submissions.wellington.govt.nz/submission.aspx

PS: Very soon, Wellington International Airport Limited is expected to submit its resource consent application for an extension to Wellington Airport runway. It was previously indicated that this project, if it goes ahead, would result in massive additional truck movements through the central city during a 3-year construction process – which could have a big effect on both inner city residents and Wellington’s transport systems. Watch out for more news on this in the near future.

NZTA Refuses To Publicly Rule Out A Future Basin Reserve Flyover

Posted on by stb_nyltr0

At the post-Basin flyover engagement process launch last night, I asked Jim Bentley of Let’s Get Welly Moving (the new brand of the Ngauranga to Airport Governance Group, the joint NZTA/Greater Wellington/WCC body) whether a Basin Reserve flyover was absolutely off the table as an option.

And, although he came up with a carefully-worded answer that they wouldn’t be reintroducing a previously rejected proposal (i.e. the flyover proposal rejected in 2014), he would not say that a flyover as such was off the table. When I asked him to clarify his initial answer, he simply repeated it.

That’s disturbing. And if you’re as disturbed by that news as I am, you’ve got a chance to tell NZTA directly, because they will be participating in the Mt Victoria Transport Forum next Tuesday, 12 April. It would be great if Save the Basin supporters could get along. Details are:

MT VICTORIA TRANSPORT FORUM: The Basin Reserve in the wider city

When: 7.30pm Tuesday 12 April 2016

Where: St Joseph’s Church Hall, Brougham St (see map)

Convened by the Mt Victoria Newsletter

Full details can be downloaded in this flyer.

The forum is to discuss all aspects of the post-Basin engagement process, which looks at wider transport issues across the Wellington region. I think that’s an important conversation to participate in, and it gives us the chance to describe the Wellington we want to live in. You can give your opinion at their new website.

But there are also things we don’t want. Let’s keep making that point loud and clear.