This par­tic­u­lar Wel­ling­tonista was just down at a protest tak­ing place at the Great­er Wel­ling­ton Region­al Coun­cil offices.

Of course, the GWRC trans­port plans (PDF) are well worth protest­ing about: more roads, no light rail? Des­pite the hun­dreds (and the great major­ity) of sub­mis­sions ask­ing for the oppos­ite? 

As Wel­ling­ton City Coun­cil­lor and Greens’ spokes­per­son Iona Pan­nett points out…

The Plan ignores Wel­ling­to­ni­ans’ huge sup­port for more pub­lic trans­port, their oppos­i­tion to new tun­nels and Wel­ling­ton City’s com­mit­ment to car­bon neut­ral­ity … Over 4,500 people made sub­mis­sions on the study the Plan is based on, with 3,750 people sup­port­ing light rail, more buses and walk­ing and cyc­ling options whilst oppos­ing the two tun­nels and fly­over. In con­trast only 480 people sub­mit­ted that the tun­nels should be built. So, by a ratio of nearly 8 to 1 there was huge sup­port for pub­lic trans­port and oppos­i­tion to roads…

Quite.

But, what really caught the eye was the many pro­test­ers plac­ards. Not so much the front of them, but the back. It was heart­en­ing to see the Greens and their allies recyc­ling (pre­sum­ably) dis­carded Real Estate sig­nage upon which to dis­play their protest slo­gans. Nice.