Author: stb_nyltr0

NZTA Refuses To Publicly Rule Out A Future Basin Reserve Flyover

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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.

Governance Group Launches Post-Flyover Engagement Strategy on 5 April: RSVP Now

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As we signalled, the Ngauranga to Airport Governance Group has now sent out invitations to the launch of its post-Basin Reserve flyover engagement strategy, “Let’s Get Wellington Moving”. This is the Governance Group’s response to the defeat of NZTA’s Basin Reserve flyover proposal: effectively, a reset button for transport developments in the Ngauranga to Airport Corridor.

This time round, the focus is much wider than just the Basin Reserve – it covers the whole Ngauranga to Airport corridor, and it’s about transport behaviour change as well as transport infrastructure. So people who care about the future of the Basin Reserve, and people who want Wellington to transition to a sustainable transport system, should take the chance to get involved at an early stage and shape the principles that will drive the process.

Getting involved starts with having a strong presence at the engagement process launch. Numbers are limited, so I encourage you to RSVP now and make sure your voice can be heard. The invitation is below, and the key details are:

Where: Prefab Theatre, 14 Jessie St
When: Tuesday 5 April, 5pm

RSVP to Suzanne.Creasy@getwellymoving.co.nz by 5pm Thursday 31 March

Click on image to enlarge

engagement_launch

From what we’ve been told, the engagement process will be in three broad phases:

  • April-June 2015: development of principles to guide future planning
  • July-August 2015: seeking ideas and proposals for future transport developments (including proposed changes to transport behaviour as well as proposals for transport infrastructure development)
  • September 2015-Feb 2016: Analysis of proposals, using a new set of modelling tools that will supersede those use by NZTA in developing its Basin Bridge proposal, followed by selection of a small set of options.

The engagement will be region-wide, including with regional mayors, so it’s really important that Wellington voices, and pro-sustainable-transport voices, are strongly heard. Make sure you RSVP, get along, and get your voice heard!

12 April: Mt Victoria Transport Forum

Of course the engagement process launch is only the beginning – and the Mt Victoria Newsletter is hosting an event a week later to discuss these matters further, especially as they affect Mt Victoria. We’ll post more about this next week, but in the meantime, you can download the flyer here.

MT VICTORIA TRANSPORT FORUM:
The Basin Reserve in the wider city
7.30pm Tuesday 12 April 2016
St Joseph’s Church Hall
152 Brougham St, Mt Victoria
Convened by The Mt Victoria Newsletter
For further information Email: MtVictoriaNewsletter@gmail.com

 

 

Places, Please: The Next Basin Act Is About To Begin

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Summer at the Basin - no flyover in sight
Summer at the Basin – no flyover in sight

It’s been a quiet first few months of 2016, at least in the public eye, as far as post-Basin Reserve flyover transport planning for central Wellington goes. But a burst of articles, presentation and comments in the media signal that this intermission is almost at an end.

Before this post-Christmas intermission, the previous act finished with the drama of the defeat of the New Zealand Transport Agency’s appeal to the High Court, and the news that the Ngauranga to Airport Governance Group, consisting of representatives from Wellington City Council, Greater Wellington and NZTA, had been given official responsibility for determining what should happen next. In December, representatives of Save the Basin and a number of other groups involved in the High Court action met with the Governance Group. Since then, at least in public, the curtain has been down on developments.

But now the players are taking their positions and the next act is about to begin. We understand that a public engagement process designed by the Governance Group, which we hope has taken into account input from Save the Basin and other community groups, will be launched in April. After Andy Foster had a quick say, Ngauranga to Airport programme manager Jim Bentley made a presentation to Wellington City Council earlier this week.

In its article reporting on this, the Dominion Post repeated two common errors: firstly, it assumed that an expensive piece of infrastructure was needed to “fix” congestion at the Basin, and second, it assumed that congestion in central Wellington’s roads stemmed from the Basin itself.

In Wellington Scoop, Lindsay Shelton succinctly debunks both arguments. The Transport Agency themselves have said that incremental at-grade (ground-level) improvements can be made around the Basin – while we believe a wider engagement process is necessary, we support short-term incremental improvements as well.

There are grounds for hope that NZTA may be moving away from the “bigger is better” approach that has bedevilled their transport planning in the past. A focus on making simple, readily affordable changes around the Basin would be a good start – and you can see what other steps we proposed for the Basin in the aftermath of the High Court decision.

Save The Basin’s Meeting With The Ngauranga to Airport Governance Group

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Last week, the Ngauranga to Airport Governance Group flew in via private charter flights and met with a number of the groups who had been closely involved in the Basin Reserve flyover hearings – including Save the Basin. We had been pressing for a meeting with the Governance Group, which has been given the responsibility by the Regional Transport Committee for making decisions about post-flyover transport options around the Basin precinct, for some time, and we were pleased that it finally agreed to meet with us and other groups.

Prior to these meetings, Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson called a number of groups together to develop a common approach to the engagement and transport planning processes – a process reflected in this press release from Grant Robertson. Save the Basin was one of the groups that signed on to the letter which Grant Robertson sent the Governance Group.

The meeting itself was brief but constructive. After Save the Basin reiterated our desire for a genuinely consultative and open process to decide on the best transport options around the Basin precinct that also maintained and enhanced the Basin’s significance in terms of heritage, landscape and urban design, the Governance Group assured us that they were committed to the same process, that they found much to agree with in the proposal that Grant Robertson had sent them, and that there was no intention to reintroduce flyover plans by stealth.

So that’s encouraging, but it’s very much early days, and words need to be matched by deeds. Provided the Governance Group’s deeds live up to its words, Save the Basin will be keen to continue to engage with it in 2016.

Grant Robertson: Time for a real say on Basin Reserve transport issues

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The New Zealand Labour Party has just put out the following press release, setting out a community-driven proposed process for making decisions about the future of transport around the Basin Reserve precinct following the defeat of the Transport Agency’s flyover proposal. The Save the Basin Campaign has signed up as one of the groups supporting this proposed process.

– Tim Jones, Save the Basin Campaign Co-Convenor

Time for a real say for Wellingtonians on Basin Reserve transport issues

7 December 2015

A number of community organisations have proposed a new, grassroots process to find a solution to the transport access issues around Wellington’s Basin Reserve, Wellington Central Labour MP Grant Robertson says.

“With the flyover proposal thankfully shelved, it is time to create a sustainable solution for transport access around the Basin Reserve. The community who live and move around the area have spent considerable time and resources opposing NZTA’s ideas, and have now come together to work on a positive alternative.

“As the local MP I brought together a number of groups to see if they could find common ground following the High Court decision on the flyover. The result is a set of principles and a draft process for finding the transport solution for the Basin Reserve.

“The core of the proposal is taking an inclusive approach that builds a solution from the ground up. The principles recognise the importance of the Basin Reserve area as a cultural, heritage and recreational space. They also call for improvements to start with ‘at grade’ solutions that balance the need for all modes of transport.

“The plan is to have a draft design process that would be professionally and independently facilitated, including a public ‘design-a-thon’ and proper testing of all proposals.

“The Board of Inquiry and the Court were very clear that NZTA had not properly assessed alternatives to the flyover, nor had they consulted as well as they should have. It’s time to find a new way to reach the best possible outcome for Wellington.

“Along with these community groups I am asking NZTA, the Wellington City Council and the Greater Wellington Regional Council to adopt a process that gives the people of Wellington a real voice in what happens in this important project,” Grant Robertson said.

“Along with these community groups I am asking NZTA, the Wellington City Council and the Greater Wellington Regional Council to adopt a process that gives the people of Wellington a real voice in what happens in this important project,” Grant Robertson said.

The groups who have agreed to the principles and draft process are: Living Streets Aotearoa, Save the Basin Campaign, Mt Cook Mobilised, Mt Victoria Residents Association, Newtown Residents Association and FIT Wellington. Other groups are likely to sign up in coming weeks.

NZTA Hasn’t Yet Learned The Lesson That A Flyover Is A Terrible Idea For The Basin Reserve

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In response to the defeat of their Basin Flyover proposal in the Board of Inquiry Hearing, NZTA commissioned a Lessons Learnt Review (PDF) from Synergine Consulting. Now, as a result of an Official Information Act request, that November 2014 review has been released. It makes interesting, but depressing, reading – because it look as though NZTA has learned the wrong lessons from their failure of their flyover proposal.

What makes us say that? This quote on p. 7 sums it up:

In all the interviews the LLR (Lessons Learnt Review) team has carried out and in the LLR workshop there was strong support for the bridge option, Option A.

Option A is the flyover NZTA was so keen on building along the Basin Reserve’s north-western boundary. In its detailed analysis of NZTA’s review, which is well worth reading, Wellington Scoop says:

The report indirectly acknowledges opposition to the flyover, but seems to believe that this could somehow have been overcome if the Transport Agency had done more communicating.

 

Of course, NZTA’s high-handed, arrogant communication and “consultation” process didn’t help matters – but the real problem is that building a flyover at the Basin Reserve is a really, really bad idea – and no amount of improved communication or better coordination between project partners is going to change that. Some lessons, it seems, will take a while to learn.

 

 

Public Transport in Wellington: Are We On Track? Wednesday 2 December

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Image from FIT Wellington
Image from FIT Wellington

This very timely event has been organised by FIT Wellington, who collaborated with Save the Basin on our Pizza and Panel Evening in 2014. With the future of Wellington’s transport system now very much on the table, this will be the place to be on Wednesday 2 December.

Are we on track?

Come and hear a discussion of the merits of Bus Rapid Transit or Light Rail for Wellington.

Greater Wellington Cr Paul Swain
Wellington City Council Cr Andy Foster
FIT Wellington John Rankin
Trams-Action Wellington Demetrius Christoforou
Moderator Dave Armstrong
Date: Wednesday 2 December 2015
Time: 6 to 8pm
Venue: Aro Valley Community Hall, 48 Aro Street, Wellington
Koha: $15 ($5 students and unwaged) in support of our cause
You can join the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/104161293282040/

 

Is Good Governance About To Break Out?

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The six-member Ngauranga to Airport Governance Group, consisting of two representative each from NZTA, Wellington City Council and Greater Wellington, is the official body with the job of running the post-Basin Flyover decision-making process. You can find out more about it at NZTA’s new Basin Connections website.

Both NZTA and the Minister of Transport made statements in the wake of NZTA’s decision not to pursue further legal action signalling that things were going to change and that NZTA would be turning over a new leaf: out with secrecy and spurious “consultation” processes about decisions already made behind closed door, in with openness and transparency. But the early signals out of the Governance Group were not encouraging.

However, and following pressure applied from various quarters, the just-released minutes of the Governance Group’s 20 October meeting look a lot more promising:

The agreed Programme will be managed in 5 main phases:

1. Engagement with the community and other key stakeholders on establishing process and confirming scope, to begin in early November.

2. Jointly developing urban design and transport principles to guide assessment of scenarios which will be developed in Phase 2.

3. Jointly developing scenarios which will be assessed against criteria based on the agreed principles.

4. Assessment of scenarios to determine the preferred options for more detailed assessment and consent application.

5. Consultation on the assessment of scenarios and on the preferred options to be taken forward to further analysis before consent application.

On the face of it, this process looks closer to the type of thorough and early engagement with the community Save the Basin has been calling for.

Now, all sorts of words of caution are advisable at this point. “Words are wind,” as George R. R. Martin has observed; and, since the Game of Thrones books contain an awful lot of them, he should know. Deeds, not words, will determine whether these promising signs bear fruit. But the possibility is at least worth exploring.

Beyond the flyover: what’s next for the Basin Reserve? A seven-point plan from Save the Basin

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Basin Reserve rainbow. Photo: Patrick Morgan.
Basin Reserve rainbow. Photo: Patrick Morgan.

Save the Basin’s feature article on post-flyover next steps appeared in the Dominion Post last Friday. The core of the article is this seven-point plan of next steps at and around the Basin. This has received a good reception so far, but we’re still trying to get to grips with the consultation process on post-flyover options. We’ve been told that it will be open and consultative, but it remains shrouded in secrecy so far.

But when the six-member Governance Group is ready to listen, we’re ready to talk. Here is our set of proposed next steps:

  1. Reframe the Basin as a sporting, urban development and heritage area as well as a transport corridor. The politicians and the NZTA need to grab the opportunity to engage the community in thinking about the future of the Basin and its surroundings.
  2. Create a master plan for the whole area. Its national significance needs to be given appropriate recognition: instead of seeing the Basin, Pukeahu National War Memorial Park, the Governor General’s residence, numerous local schools and the heritage of Mt Victoria as isolated pieces, the rich history of the whole area should be celebrated.
  3. Go through a robust process to evaluate which of the transport options highlighted by the Board will have the most benefits. Start by carrying out small improvements to bring relief to frustrated transport users, and evaluate these before considering whether a more expensive option is justified. .
  4. Upgrade the Basin and strengthen and preserve the Museum Stand.
  5. Prioritise a Reserve Management Plan for the Basin (as already agreed by the City Council) that will establish key principles on how the ground should be preserved.
  6. Put in place heritage protection for the whole ground in the City Council’s District Plan.
  7. Re-develop Kent and Cambridge Terraces as grand public and private spaces well connected to the Basin – which could include uncovering Waitangi Stream that flows between them.