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

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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

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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

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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/