Basin Reserve Precinct Transport Plans – Latest Diagrams, Details and Technical Papers Released

For a long time, since the final defeat of the previous Basin Reserve flyover proposal in 2015, all we’ve had to go on are private assurances that whatever plans eventually emerged would not include a new Basin Reserve flyover. But it’s taken until the past few weeks, with the release of a slew of Let’s Get Wellington Moving reports and technical documents, to get some idea of what those plans entail.

The good news is that those private assurances have now been backed up by publicly released information. The roading changes proposed around the Basin do indeed seem to avoid bridges or flyovers – though there is an underpass proposed for walking and cycling use for those entering the ground from the north, and without careful design, underpasses can be exactly the sort of places pedestrians and cyclists don’t want to go.

LGWM Proposed Scheme around the Basin Reserve Area
October 2018 Recommended Programme of Investment Basin Reserve Concept

The redoubtable and well-informed “Leviathan” has put up an excellent and very informative post on the Eye of the Fish blog on LGWM’s plans for the Basin Reserve area, evidently drawing on the recently-released trove of LGWM documents, and including the two diagrams above plus Leviathan’s own drawings of how these might look in context:

http://eyeofthefish.org/public-transport-network/

The diagrams released by LGWM were developed in the assumption that Karo Drive undergrounding would be included in the funded package – but it wasn’t. So a current question is: what if any design changes near the Basin will result from that?

While the overall picture of Let’s Get Welly Moving with regards to the Basin is encouraging, the level of detail available to the public remains vague enough that continued vigilance is needed – just as it is to ensure that the project meets its overall goals of reducing transport emissions, reducing dependence on private cars, and promoting walking, cycling, public transport and rapid transit.

European Cyclists’ Federation Supports Save The Basin

It isn’t just Wellingtonians, or even New Zealanders, who can see that building a motorway flyover at the Basin Reserve is a very bad idea. We’ve had support from overseas as well – residents of cities in which flyovers are being torn down as the outdated relics they are have been shocked to hear that New Zealand is contemplating building a new one in the centre of the nation’s capital.

The European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) is the latest group to offer their support, and in their recent newsletter they carried an excellent article which concisely states the case against a Basin Reserve flyover and for a modern, sustainable transport system for Wellington. It’s well worth reading in full, but here is a key quote:

Major roads suck up resources that could be spent on infrastructure for cycling, walking and public transport and because of the principle of induced demand most road building results in increased congestion, not decreased. Conversely reducing road capacity by turning roads in to public spaces and green corridors actually reduces congestion, not increasing it. There is a growing body of cities that have implemented freeway demolitions with a huge positive effect on their cities.

Save the Basin is grateful to ECF for its support. Thanks, Kevin, Peter, and friends!

 

The Proposed Basin Reserve Flyover Pedestrian/Cycleway: Too Narrow To Be Safe?

In presenting their case for the motorway flyover they want to build at the Basin Reserve, the NZ Transport Agency has made great play of the shared pedestrian/cycleway they plan to build along the flyover’s northern edge. NZTA witnesses even made the extraordinary claim that adding a pedestrian/cycleway to the proposed flyover would somehow stop people thinking of it as a flyover.

Unfortunately, NZTA seems to have become so enthusiastic about the “decorative” potential of the pedestrian/cycleway that they have neglected to focus on more fundamental aspects of design: making it usable and safe.

During the Basin Reserve Board of Inquiry, both walking and cycling advocates have criticised the design of the proposed pedestrian/cycleway, and in particular its planned width – a mere 3 metres, when, to meet the environmental conditions found at the Basin Reserve, a shared facility for pedestrians and cyclists should be at least 4 metres wide, and preferably wider.

In his submission, cycling advocate Patrick Morgan pointed out a 3m pedestrian/cycleway becomes effectively even narrower when the width of bike handlebars is taken into account: handlebars shouldn’t be scraping the guardrail, or banging into other users. And Living Streets Aotearoa’s Ellen Blake also pointed out how hazardous such a narrow pedestrian/cycleway could be for pedestrians, when the grade, frequent windy conditions, and the need to avoid cyclists and other pedestrians is taken into account.

So why haven’t NZTA designed walking and cycling facilities that meet standards? The answer appears to be that to make the proposed pedestrian/cycleway any wider may mean having to change the designation under which they have applied for the project – and that would land them in all kinds of legal difficulties.

When it comes right down to it, NZTA is all about cars and trucks and motorways. Pedestrians and cyclists are afterthoughts, despite the figures that show an increasing trend away from the use of private motor vehicles. NZTA thought they could get away with designing an inadequate and potentially dangerous “solution” for pedestrians and cyclists because that would make the flyover look less offensive. It seems they thought wrong.