AA

The Welling­ton­istas received this email yes­ter­day & giv­en the impor­tance of safe & eff­i­cent trans­port routes in & out of the region, we think it’s a good idea to pass it on to our read­ers to con­sid­er, and even make a sub­mis­sion if you so desire.

The Coastal High­way and Trans­mis­sion Gul­ly

Dear Welling­ton­istas

The Greater Welling­ton Region­al Coun­cil is cur­rent­ly con­sult­ing on the Coastal High­way North­ern access route. This con­sul­ta­tion is part of the for­mal process to decide on future North­ern road access for the region.

The choice between the Coastal High­way and Trans­mis­sion Gul­ly roads is one of the biggest road deci­sions fac­ing motorists in the Welling­ton region and will affect access into and out of Welling­ton for decades to come. The AA (Welling­ton Dis­trict) believes it is impor­tant that you, Welling­ton AA Mem­bers, are giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have your say.

You can make a sub­mis­sion on the West­ern Cor­ri­dor Plan by click­ing here. This will take you direct­ly to the sub­mis­sion form on the Greater Welling­ton Region­al Coun­cil web­site.

There is no wrong way to make a sub­mis­sion, you can just say what you think.

Sub­mis­sions close at 5:00pm on Fri­day 4 Novem­ber 2005.

What the AA thinks:

The AA Welling­ton Dis­trict Coun­cil will be mak­ing a sub­mis­sion in sup­port of the Trans­mis­sion Gul­ly road. This sub­mis­sion will be avail­able for view­ing on the AA web­site from 4 Novem­ber 2005. We set out our rea­son­ing below.

We have been work­ing close­ly on behalf of Mem­bers with the rel­e­vant deci­sion mak­ers to pro­mote and sup­port a pos­i­tive deci­sion to build Trans­mis­sion Gul­ly. It has not always been easy. Ini­tial­ly costs for all options were beyond the resources avail­able to the region. The Gov­ern­ment then made extra funds avail­able, for improved North­ern access but these were only enough for the Coastal High­way option, and not for Trans­mis­sion Gul­ly.

The Finance Min­is­ter recent­ly sig­nalled his sup­port for a staged approach for the devel­op­ment of the Trans­mis­sion Gul­ly road with the North­ern sec­tion through to Paua­hatanui being con­struct­ed as phase 1. We had been advo­cat­ing for this option to be con­sid­ered for some time as an afford­able first stage solu­tion for the region.

The chart below com­pares the two roads. This is not a full com­par­i­son of the two roads options but high­lights some of the dif­fer­ences we believe are of inter­est to motorists.

Click here to view the chart.

*Costs quot­ed are the pre­lim­i­nary costs from the Tran­sit New Zealand con­sul­ta­tion doc­u­ment.

Thank you for your time, please feel free to for­ward this email to inter­est­ed friends and fam­i­ly.
Yours sin­cere­ly

John Chris­tian­son

Dis­trict Chair­man
WELLINGTON DISTRICT COUNCIL
The New Zealand Auto­mo­bile
Asso­ci­a­tion Incor­po­rat­ed