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P2G and WGTN Resilience, Part 2: EQ and Natural Hazard Resilience

Date: April 12, 2015
Author: Takapu
Categories: Analysis, Comment, Proposed NZTA motorway

This is the second of three posts examining the effects of the proposed Petone to Grenada link road on the network and natural hazard resilience of the Wellington road network. This post covers Earthquake and Natural Hazard Resilience.

Part 1 looks at network resilience.

Part 3 takes a closer look at the challenges of the Hutt Valley in particular.

You can download the full report as a PDF [2MB] here: Resilience WGTN P2G_v1.4

 

 

Natural Hazard Resilience – Petone to Grenada

Jump to Takapu Valley Extension

If there’s a big earthquake, both SH1 in the Gorge and SH2 along the harbour shore are expected to be closed. The map below shows “Availability State” – how bad will a given road be immediately after an event? For example, parts of SH1 through Tawa may be reduced to a single lane each way. Transmission Gully has a couple of short bits that may need a 4WD to get across.

Availability after 7.5 EQ

Availability map, from the Wellington Region Road Network Earthquake Resilience Study, Opus, 2012

 

The map below shows “Outage State” – how long will a given stretch of road be in the state shown in the map above? They’ll be able to get most of SH1 usable, even through the Gorge – though maybe only via a few lanes – within a few days (though it appears they’ll need to divert to surface streets through Johnsonville). The northbound SH1 through Tawa will still be down to a single lane for two weeks to three months, though the southbound lanes should be back to normal much sooner. Transmission Gully likewise should be cleared in that 3 days to 2 weeks timeframe.

The Hutt, though, is expected to be cut off for weeks to months, depending on whether they can safely clear the slips along the shore there.

 

Outage after 7.5 EQ

Outage map, from the Wellington Region Road Network Earthquake Resilience Study, Opus, 2012

 

How will P2G perform in the event of a Magnitude 7.5 earthquake? What does it do for regional natural hazard resistance?

The slide NZTA presented to the local chief executives at their closed-door briefing back in November was this:

CE's P2G "Resilience" slide

P2G “Resilience” slide from “Petone to Grenada and SH58: Presentation to EAG August 2014”, released under OIA

We don’t get Availability or Outage information for P2G – instead, it’s represented as a black road, apparently constructed of a magical “unbreakium” that won’t fail in an earthquake.   Note that according to the sales pitch, Transmission Gully, which hasn’t even been built yet, is already a write-off and needs to be bypassed, as does the stretch of SH1 through Tawa, which as you can see from all that yellow and blue is likely to be the least damaged piece of highway in Wellington.

So how is P2G actually likely to fare in a major event?

On the Petone/Korokoro side it has 60-85 meter deep double sided cuts:

proposed Korokoro canyon

from “Petone to Grenada and SH58: Presentation to EAG August 2014”, released under OIA

 

Cuts of that size – think canyon walls the height of the Intercontinental Hotel in Wellington, or the Quay Tower in Auckland – are capable of generating large landslips. The P2G Scoping Report 2014 notes in regard to the southern end of P2G that “failures in cut slopes can close the road for a few weeks”, and “high cut slopes reduce time for recovery.” Such slips can be very difficult to clear (think the Manawatu gorge), especially when working at the bottom of a canyon where aftershocks threaten to send more material down onto the diggers below. This means that the slips could not be quickly cleared, and the road might well be closed for at least weeks, and possibly even months.

Then there is the fact that the road terminates in Petone, one of the most geologically/geotechnically problematic spots in the Wellington region, subject to subsidence, liquefaction and lateral spreading:

Petone Liquifaction map

Liquefaction and ground damage map from P2G Preliminary Geotech Appraisal, 2013

In addition, the area is subject to Seiches – a type of harbour tsunami that sloshes back in forth in a periodic oscillation, hammering Petone and the P2G terminus again and again.

Petone Tsunami zone

Petone Tsunami risk map from WREMO – the P2G terminus would be in the orange high-risk area at the far left

 

But it is potentially even worse than that. In the 1855 Wairarapa Earthquake Petone was uplifted about 2 meters.

1855 EQ ground movement

Ground movement, 1855 Wairarapa Quake

The Wellington and Wairarapa faults tend to induce movements in opposite directions, so if the next major regional EQ is along the Wellington fault, then all of Petone could be thrust back down ~2 meters over the course of 60 seconds. The end result would be that P2G, even if it was made of unbreakium (and note the P2G/SH2 interchange at Petone is mere meters from the Wellington Fault), could end up linking to little more than a rubble-strewn lake.

… And speaking of lakes, here’s the 1976 Korokoro Flood, caused by a large storm – that flooding is from Korokoro Stream, by the way, not the Hutt River. The photo below is of Ullrich Aluminium and the current Petone overbridge, right where P2G will connect to SH2 in Petone.

1976 Korokoro flood

from GWRC presentation “Floods and People, a historic perspective of the Hutt River”

Petone is not the best place to put one end of a road intended to be a natural hazard resilience route, even if that road itself were not so vulnerable.

 

Natural Hazard Resilience – Takapu Valley

 

We’ve already addressed how the Takapu link does not offer very much in terms of network resilience, how about natural hazard resilience? The resilience specialist consulted for the P2G Scoping Report rated the Takapu Alignment highly.

Unfortunately, the specialist made another mistake and also missed the fact that the proposed alignment runs directly along and atop an active uncharacterized fault:

Takapu/Moonshine Fault

from GNS Active Faults Database, accessed 29 March 2015

 

GNS has listed the Takapu Fault as a spur of the Moonshine Fault. The Moonshine Fault has a nice long failure interval – NZTA sources quote a figure of 11,000 years. Unfortunately, geotechnical sources we’ve consulted tell us that it’s not correct to assume that the Takapu spur operates at the same displacement or interval that the Moonshine Fault does. That’s why GNS has all those “not established”s in the database.

The fault itself is not necessarily the problem – you can’t throw a stone in Wellington without throwing it across a fault line, after all. The problem is that Takapu Valley is narrow and in places quite steep, and the best land has long been occupied by power pylons. Lots of them.

Even with the best alignment they could pick, the Takapu link road features “moderate height cuts that may fail, closing the route for up to two weeks”. (The section of SH1 it is supposed to “bypass”, by contrast, is expected to remain usable immediately after a quake.) The proposed narrow, two-lane Takapu extension runs through terrain with a moderate to high risk of slope failures, particularly at the southern end, which has an overall greater extent of at-risk slope than the Duck Creek and Linden sections of Transmission Gully.  (The worst bit is the southern end of the valley, unfortunately cut off in the image available.)

Takapu slope failure map

Images from Appendix A, Statement of evidence of Pathmanathan Brabhaharan (Brabha) (Geology and geotechnical engineering) for the NZ Transport Agency and Porirua City Council. 18 November 2011

 

This is the other shoe dropped by the fault line: even if you give the fault itself minimal clearance (and first they’d need to pay GNS to figure out where it actually is, because that bit you can see – where you can see it at all – is only where it happened to break the surface the last time it ruptured), the rock all through there has been fractured and crushed by the movement of the fault over millions of years.

When describing the resilience aspects of the southern end of P2G, the specialist repeats multiple times: “Away from poor rock conditions and faults [the cuttings] can be engineered to reduce failures in earthquakes”, “Likely to have better rock conditions being further away from the Wellington Fault Zone”, “Rock conditions are likely to be better being away from the Wellington Fault zone, and a short crossing of the inactive Korokoro Fault scarp.” If the fault isn’t the problem, the rotten rock near the fault is. It’s difficult to build on – as the Transmission Gully team has discovered attempting to site the foundations for the Cannons Creek viaduct, which nips off the top of the valley – and it’s far more likely to fail than even the usual Wellington “wheatbix” greywacke.

In a series of answers to questions raised by Hutt City Councillors, the P2G project team identified as key risks for Option D specifically:

  • Geotechnical, relating to the stability of the large cuts and differential settlement within road embankment fills required to form a link road in complex terrain
  • Geometric constraints, particularly with respect to horizontal curvature and gradient, as a result of difficult terrain

An alignment which gives a safe clearance to the fault line may not be possible, with the pylons to the west and the steep hill faces to the east – there’s also the Wellington water main and the gas main to avoid, particularly at the north end of the valley. They could be forced into an alignment requiring still higher, more vulnerable cuts into multiply-fractured, slip-prone hillslopes – though if they go too high, they’re into more power lines.

Speaking of which:

Pylons at Takapu Substation

Photo taken at the north end of Takapu Valley, looking south along proposed road alignment.

 

The Wellington Region Road Network Earthquake Resilience Study released by Opus in August 2012 pays special attention to sections of the network – particularly in Upper Hutt – that are at risk from fallen power lines.

The alignment of the proposed Takapu extension weaves under and through the 33, 66, 110 kV lines and under the 220 kV lines and the HVDC link – right up through the spot where more than a dozen sets converge on the Takapu Substation. Even when well-sited, the pylons themselves may fail in an earthquake or severe weather event. One of the sets of pylons running alongside the proposed road alignment was built in 1924.

 

Conclusion

 

P2G does not provide very good regional natural hazard resilience, due to the vulnerabilities of the deep cuts on the Petone end, and the simple fact that it connects to Petone, one of the most geotechnically problematic areas in the region.

The Takapu Valley has mediocre to poor natural hazard resilience, due to its constrained alignment along an active fault line in steep, fault-fractured terrain. What it does do is add extra lane-kilometres of road that will need to be cleared (or abandoned) after a disaster – likely to be low priority compared to the adjacent Wellington RoNS corridor.

Part 3 looks at road access to the Hutt Valley after a major event.

Part 1 looked at network resilience, in the case of a crash or congestion.

You can download the full report as a PDF [2MB] here: Resilience WGTN P2G_v1.4

 

 

 

 

P2G and WGTN Resilience, Part 3: The Hutt Valley

Date: April 12, 2015
Author: Takapu
Categories: Analysis, Comment, Proposed NZTA motorway

This is the third of three posts examining the effects of the proposed Petone to Grenada link road on the network and natural hazard resilience of the Wellington road network. This post looks at road access to the Hutt after a major event.

Part 1 looks at network resilience.

Part 2 examines earthquake and natural hazard resilience.

You can download the full report as a PDF [2MB] here: Resilience WGTN P2G_v1.4

 

So how do we rescue the Hutt if the Big One hits?

 

As described in the previous post, all of the routes in or out of the Hutt Valley are vulnerable to long outages following a major event. The Wellington Region Road Network Earthquake Resilience Study (Opus, 2014) modelled the effects of a 7.5 Magnitude earthquake, and determined that the Hutt Valley should expect to be isolated for “many weeks to months”. They’re cut off from Wellington by slips where SH2 runs along the harbour, cut off from the Wairarapa by slips closing SH2 over the Rimutakas, and cut off from Kapiti by most of the Akatarawa road having fallen down a gully (again).

Unlike other parts of Wellington, Porirua and Kapiti, the Hutt Valley is not well-served by water access. The current plans require relief by air to Trentham, or supply boats making beach landings at Petone or Seaview. Petone, as discussed previously, is vulnerable to a variety of quake-related problems: liquefaction, lateral spreading, tsunami, and – in the case of a failure on the Wellington Fault – significant downthrust which may drop that end of the valley by up to two metres.

Seaview has the same tsunami and seiche risk as Petone, and will require bailey bridges to reach, as the current bridges are not expected to be usable after a major event. Supplies and personnel landed at Petone or Seaview then have the entire length of the valley to traverse.

Petone-Seaview planning map

from Restoring Wellington’s Transport Links after a Major Earthquake, Wellington Lifelines Group and WREMO, March 2013

 

The best candidate for a resilience road for the Hutt is SH58, which in conjunction with Transmission Gully actually looks pretty fantastic:

 

Haywards outage map

Wellington Region EQ Resilience Study, Opus, 2012

 

…except for that pesky red bit right at the end, where the road sidles along a hillside and then swings down to join SH2. This is a far shorter section of road than either SH2 over the Rimutakas or SH2 along the harbour shore, and unlike the proposed Petone to Grenada link, the road is not at the bottom of a 20 storey canyon.

Towards the Porirua end, SH58 connects directly to Transmission Gully, which, supposedly built to the highest seismic standards, is being touted as the EQ saviour of the (rest of the) region. At the eastern end, SH58 connects at the boundary between Upper and Lower Hutt, providing good access to both ends of the valley. It’s a short, straight shot on good roads to Trentham, where the Army Camp and racecourse form a natural logistics centre.   SH58 would be the lifeline for the 150,000 people of the Hutt.

At the 9th March meeting of the Regional Transport Committee, a vote was taken to (finally) upgrade the interchange between SH58 and SH2. With that work already approved, and funding freed up by the Transmission Gully PPP burning a hole in NZTA’s pocket, now is the ideal time to bring that dodgy last couple of km up to scratch and give Hutt Valley a real resilience solution.

Additional reading: Wellington Lifelines Group

 

Conclusion

Where Petone to Grenada proposes an improvement in an area of poor network resilience, SH58 must become a priority for regional disaster resilience.

Part 1 looked at network resilience.

Part 2 examined earthquake and natural hazard resilience.

You can download the full report as a PDF [2MB] here: Resilience WGTN P2G_v1.4

 

P2G and WGTN Resilience, Part 1: Network Resilience

Date: April 12, 2015
Author: Takapu
Categories: Analysis, Comment, Proposed NZTA motorway

This is the first of three posts examining the effects of the proposed Petone to Grenada link road on the network and natural hazard resilience of the Wellington road network. This post covers Network Resilience.

Part 2 looks at earthquake and natural hazard resilience.

Part 3 takes a closer look at the challenges of the Hutt Valley in particular.

You can download the full report as a PDF [2MB] here: Resilience WGTN P2G_v1.4

 

Background

If the stars and the BCR align – and NZTA has been working very hard on the latter, to be sure — Wellington will be getting a new road, the Petone to Grenada Link road. To recap a bit, here’s the situation. The extra blue lines are a rough indication of NZTA proposals for Petone to Grenada. The brownish one shows a rough outline of Transmission Gully.

Wellington road map

Wellington road map, with TG and P2G added, problem area circled.

As you can see in that red circle, there are currently two routes out of Wellington:

  1. SH1 goes up Ngauraga Gorge, through Johnsonville, Churton Park, Tawa and Porirua to (eventually) Kapiti.
  2. SH2 runs along the edge of the harbour and goes through Petone, Lower and Upper Hutt, and then over the Rimutaka Hill Road to the Wairarapa.

By “cutting the corner” to connect these two routes, P2G is intended to increase resilience for the Wellington Region.

However, there are two different meanings of “resilience”, and each has to be looked at separately.

  • Network Resilience – The ability to route around congestion, crashes, and other events that temporarily block a part of the road.
  • Natural Hazard Resilience – The ability of any given road to withstand damage from storms, earthquakes, etc., and how quickly a damaged road can be brought back into service.

 

Network Resilience – Petone to Grenada

Jump to Takapu Valley Extension

Improving network resilience is especially important for areas where there are no alternatives – and this is the big problem with the Ngauranga Triangle region, in the red circle above.

Neither SH1 through the Gorge nor SH2 along the harbour shore have much in the way of alternatives, if there’s a blockage. For instance, if a crash blocks SH2, the only way to get into Lower Hutt is to go up SH1 all the way to SH58 up at the top of the map there, and then come back south.

With P2G, if you need to get to the Hutt and SH2 is blocked, you’ll be able to take SH1 up the Gorge and cut across P2G to get to Petone, instead of going all the way up to TG and SH58. But see what they’ve done:

Option C Map

Option C, Tawa end, from NZTA Petone to Grenada Project website

The main connection to P2G is all the way up at Tawa. There’s access from Churton Park via Mark Avenue, a 5km shorter trip, but only via surface streets and roundabouts (the unmodified Churton Park interchange is just out of the image at the left). If Hutt-bound traffic tries to use P2G to route around a blockage on SH2, the undersized linkage will quickly clog northbound SH1 at the Churton Park interchange.

The same applies if there is a problem in the AM peak – Hutt drivers will try to take the shortest route, and be balked by the Mark Avenue roundabout.

There is less of a problem if the blockage is on SH1 in the Gorge, depending on how far north people are going/coming from, and whether they get the word early enough to get onto P2G at Tawa or get stuck queuing at Churton Park – but SH1 drivers can and do avoid the Gorge via designated roads through Broadmeadows and Khandallah. Hutt drivers have nowhere else to go.

To sum up: the best option for network resilience would be to make the primary P2G connection via a robust, preferably high-speed interchange at Churton Park. This is basically what the 2009 Feasibility Study recommended. The 2014 Scoping Report also identified a connection at or near Churton Park as “provid[ing] the best network-wide performance results” – unfortunately, an analysis error resulted in this option being dropped from consideration before it could be developed further.

 

Network Resilience – Takapu Valley

 

Not content to stop at Churton Park, or even at Tawa, NZTA has proposed extending Petone to Grenada up Takapu Valley along the rejected Transmission Gully route, to connect with the main TG alignment just east of Linden.

 

Link Road Options Map

Link Road Options Map, from NZTA Petone to Grenada Project website

 

This Takapu extension, they say, “provides a complete bypass” for a short (~3km) section of SH1 though Tawa, and an equally short (~2-3km) section of Transmission Gully at Linden. Unfortunately, the resilience specialist who gave the Takapu option such a high rating in the Scoping Report missed the fact that the connection to TG at the top of the valley is via one-way ramps:

 

One-Way Ramps at Takapu/TG

Takapu-Transmission Gully interchange at Cannons Creek viaduct, from the Scoping Report

 

If you tried to use the Takapu link as a bypass for a crash in Tawa, you’d be stuck on TG all the way to the northeast corner of Whitby, many km out of your way, and have to make your way back via surface streets.

Even if they changed the one-way ramps to a full interchange, there are already alternate routes between Tawa and Linden – Main Road on the west side of SH1 and Woodman Drive on the east side – do we really need to spend $60-140M on another one?

Conclusion

 

The Petone to Grenada road has the potential to provide significant improvements to regional network resiliency, especially if the interchange at Churton Park is improved so it can efficiently handle high speed, high load traffic flow between SH1 and P2G.

Due to the one-way ramps and the limited geographic separation from SH1, TG, and nearby junctions, and the existence already of multiple alternate routes, the proposed Takapu extension to Transmission Gully does not contribute significantly to network resiliency.

Part 2 examines earthquake and natural hazard resilience.

Part 3 looks at road access to the Hutt Valley after a major event.

You can download the full report as a PDF [2MB] here: Resilience WGTN P2G_v1.4

 

 

Senior NZTA staff hiding conflict of interest? Not cricket if it is

Date: March 26, 2015
Author: Kokopu
Categories: Comment, NZTA behaviour, Proposed NZTA motorway

Are Senior Staff of NZTA writing Letters to Editors and not declaring conflicts, or providing transparency, or worse – passing themselves off as the public to deceive?  Surely there are rules about this?  A very knowledgeable Murray Carpenter wrote this letter to the Indepentent Herald this week:

NZTA-4

Is he the same Murray Carpenter, senior Engineer at NZTA, designing the exact same road his letter to the editor promotes? Here’s a link to Murrary Carpenter of NZTA, the author of a section of the scoping report for the exact road he’s promoting (flick to page 189). Here’s part of it below:

NZTA-letter-to-Editor2

 

If they’re the same person, where does he declare his credentials and conflict of interest for transparency?

Would it therefore be appropriate that he should be passing judgement on Hon. Peter Dunne and people opposing plans of NZTA, given his job for NZTA (assuming it’s the same Murray Carpenter)?

Worse still, if this is the same Murray Carpenter, there appears to be an attempt to deliberately mislead readers and deliberately conceal his conflict of interest further by trying to pass himself off as a member of the public, saying:  “After attending the Open Day held last year at Tawa and studying the plans and information, I support the proposed new link …….The advantages are…”.  That public open day was created by his employer, and the report he ‘studied’ is the same one he helped write (if it’s the same person).

NOT THE FIRST TIME

Here’s another letter to the Editor by Murray Carpenter attacking one of the fundamental problems of NZTA building new highways in Wellington – traffic volumes being static for a decade. Of course a roading engineer would argue this wouldn’t they?

Perhaps the Minister of Transport could look into this serious matter.  It’s really not cricket as thay say, but then anyone who has opposed NZTA’s plans will know that playing with a straight bat isn’t their strongest point.

 UPDATE 16 April 2015: A complaint was laid with the State Services Commission, and their response was:

Thank you for your 26 March letter in relation to a possible undeclared conflict of interest by a Mr Murray Carpenter and his work with NZTA.  We are satisfied that, while a Mr Carpenter worked for a company contracted to provide advice to NZTA several years ago, if this is the same Mr Carpenter,  we understand that he has been retired for the last two years, and would be acting in the capacity of a private individual.

This might be legally correct, but we’re concerned that this Murray Carpenter did not declare his professional connection with the proposal when he used a public forum to criticise people opposed to it – that’s not cricket.  The fact that he may have been retired at the time does not escape the fact that he was a part author of the report he tries to appear as an independent commenter of.  We think he should have declared his interest, and our concerns still stand.

 

 

Transmission Gully Road changes traffic flows north from Wellington – SH1 vs SH2 (& SH58)

Date: April 7, 2014
Author: Kokopu
Categories: Analysis, Comment, Proposed NZTA motorway

We were wondering what Transmission Gully Road would do to Wellington traffic flows once completed?  Transmission Gully will shift the main Wellington northern corridor east, bissecting SH58 at Judgeford.  What would this mean if you were a truck heading north from Wellington? Save for a few traffic lights on SH2, your route is clearly much better via SH2 and SH58 for fuel economy and wear and tear (see blue line below).  So why are NZTA saying they need to invest $50-150m on extra capacity between Tawa and Porirua (SH1 widening or bulldozing rural Takapu Valley to make a ridiculous short parallel motorway), when for much less money they could remove traffic lights and fix a few bad corners on SH58?

Transmission Gully changes to traffic flows SH1 vs SH2 north from Wellington

Transmission Gully changes to traffic flows SH1 vs SH2 north from Wellington

These sudden proposals (options C and D) have arrived without Council knowledge and have totally circumvented the regional and district planning process.  It’s clear to see that they’re being rushed through with haste by NZTA with no regard to wider regional needs.  We say build Transmission Gully, and build Petone to Grenada Road if necessary, but wait to see what will happen before destroying communities and a whole rural valley.

NZTA tell us traffic volumes are going to miraculously skyrocket after Transmission Gully sending much more traffic past Tawa.  We find this incredibly hard to imagine given traffic volumes have been dropping in Wellington, and when this elevation infographic diagram above suggests that Hutt Traffic (and possibly much Wellington Traffic) will prefer SH2/SH58 (over SH1 past Tawa) to Levin and beyond, further reducing flows.

Overall, this adhoc major infrastructure building by NZTA in road project silos is not serving the Wellington Region well.  All these roads need to be put through a proper established strategic planning framework.

Petone to Grenada Link Road ‘Takapu Motorway tack on’ has big recreation implications for Belmont Regional Park

Date: March 17, 2014
Author: Kokopu
Categories: Analysis, Comment, Environment, Recreation

NZTA plans for a new motorway through Takapu Valley (option D), by tacking it onto the Petone to Grenada Link Road, has major implications for Wellington’s outdoor recreation users.

The proposed ‘Takapu Motorway – option D’ will effectively cut off the key access points to western Belmont Regional Park, leaving only southern and eastern points.  These access points are important for mountain bikers, trampers, walkers and horse riders, with the carpark often overflowing on sunny weekends.

Belmont Regional Park access issues by proposed NZTA Takapu Motorway (option D)

Belmont Regional Park access issues by proposed NZTA Takapu Motorway (option D)

We know the Greater Wellington Region is very proud of this park, so loosing these access points is of great concern.  The whole plan has arrived suddenly, doesn’t exist in any district planning, is being driven with haste, will have little consultation, compared to Transmission Gully and the Petone to Grenada Roads which have had decades of consultation.  This is madness.

“Ōhariu MP Peter Dunne is calling on NZTA to drop altogether proposals for a link road between the Transmission Gully Highway and the planned Petone to Grenada road “until it gets its act together.” 

We think the impacts on recreation in the Wellington Region also warrant a major rethink about this sudden adhoc last minute tack onto the Petone to Grenada Link Road.

You’d think being chastised twice by a Cabinet Minister would be enough to halt the NZTA’s outrageous plans to bulldoze a 4 lane Motorway through Takapu Valley without due process, consultation or planning.

We’re slowly uncovering considerable incompetence by NZTA (such as watching WCC grant consent for a whole subdivision soon to be bulldozed – that could cost WCC ratepayers dearly I’d think), and an intrinsic culture of lies and deceit to the public and landowners.  We’ll be documenting this more, one action with possible criminal implications.  Not to mention the unethical and immoral strategy of playing neighbours and communities off against each other to do their work.  Questions need to be asked of this Government Department and it’s Chief Executive that condones such behaviour, paid for by the tax payer.  Peter Dunne is right to be concerned by this behaviour.

“Time to Drop the Link Road Proposal”

Ōhariu MP Peter Dunne is calling on NZTA to drop altogether proposals for a link road between the Transmission Gully Highway and the planned Petone to Grenada road “until it gets its act together.”

Mr Dunne says NZTA’s handling of the link road plan which emerged only three weeks ago has been a “public relations and planning disaster from the outset.”

“I think the plan is now doomed because of its own incompetence, and the sooner it is dropped altogether, the better.

“First off, was the announcement that the preferred option was to slice a link road through Takapu Valley, understandably angering the 80 odd residents who live there, and who had no idea that was being considered.

“Then, NZTA refused to front angry residents at a site meeting, saying it was not ready to talk to them yet, and would prefer to do so on a one-on-one basis anyway.

“Next was the announcement that if they could not proceed with the Takapu Valley option, NZTA would callously play communities off against each other by widening State Highway One by Tawa instead, affecting about 40 properties.

“That brinkmanship is simply disgraceful.

“Now comes this week’s news that people buying sections in a new subdivision at the top of Grenada Village find the proposed road cuts right through the land they are in the process of buying.

“NZTA was even not aware of that until I raised it with them earlier this week.

“These are inept blunderbuss tactics of the worst type – despite its assurances to me personally and in public, NZTA seems to have no comprehension of, or concern about the impact of its cavalier announcements on local resident who stand to be seriously adversely affected.

“In the circumstances, NZTA’s only credible option is to can the plan now, go back to its drawing board, and work with the local community, the Tawa Community Board, and the Wellington City Council on the best way forward,” Mr Dunne says.

Peter Dunne stands up on the appalling behaviour of NZTA on Twitter   | 1 Feb 2014

@nzta_news cowardly on Takapu Valley Road – you cannot ride roughshod over people & then refuse to front, so just drop this mad idea now”

https://twitter.com/PeterDunneMP/status/429484656065380353

Dunne Seeking Answers on Takapu Valley Roading Plan

Ōhariu MP Peter Dunne is seeking a full briefing from NZTA on its roading plans that are likely have an impact on Takapu Valley residents.

Mr Dunne says he first became aware of the specific proposals yesterday, and shares the concern being expressed by Takapu valley residents.

“Proposals like this which come like a bolt from the blue are understandably very disruptive of people’s lives and need to be handled with sensitivity, something government agencies are often not very good at”.

“However, it is not entirely clear how firm the plans are, which is why I want a full and urgent briefing from NZTA”.

“In particular, I want to know:

  • The actual status of the proposals currently being reported;
  • How, if at all, this proposal is linked to the development of the Transmission Gully highway;
  • The current status of the Petone to Grenada link road proposals;
  • The time frame for and projected cost of the construction of any link road through Takapu Valley;
  • The process and time frames for reaching any decision on the proposal;
  •  What alternatives and other options might be considered;
  • The rights of affected property owners”, he says.

Roads of National Significance – Greenfields to Motorway by stealth – Takapu Motorway

Date: February 20, 2014
Author: Kokopu
Categories: Comment, NZTA behaviour, Proposed NZTA motorway

NZTA quietly decided the Petone to Grenada Link Road would become a Road of National Signficance (RoNS).  The minute note below shows.

This is very signficant.  It means that the road does not have to meet the same cost benefit analysis of other roads, and also gets fast tracked through planning and consent processes and environmental safeguards.

NZTA have suddenly tacked a ‘Takapu Motorway’ (Option D) onto the Petone to Grenada link Road (P2G).  The P2G has been discussed since 1975. In contrast the Takapu Valley Motorway was dropped on residents, farmers and landowners a mere 3 weeks ago out of thin air!  It exists in no planning or consultation documents publically available!  NZTA are giving 6 weeks consultation to fight a motorway from a cold start.  Is this how NZ works these days?

By virtue of NZTA quietly adding P2G to the RoNS (somehow they’re saying the P2G road is in the Wellington Northern Corridor [Wgtn Airport to Levin]), and then suddenly tacking a while new ‘blue sky’ Takapu Motorway on at the last minute, you get from green fields to 4 lane motorway with no District Plan, Strategic Traffic Planning, fair public process, or regard for communities.

Amazingly brazzen feat of total disregard for public process and democracy by New Zealand’s largest Government Ministry

5c
Update from the 28 October 2009 State Highways Board Committee meeting
Resolved:That the New Zealand Transport Agency Board:
Wellington Northern Corridor (Levin to Wellington) Route of National Significance: State Highway/local road considerationa.APPROVES that the Petone–Grenada Link be included in the definition of the Levin toWellington Road of National Significance (RoNS);
b.AGREES to keep the Committee report in Committee until it has made a decision on the overall scope of the Levin to Wellington RoNS and the Minister of Transport has announced the Levin to Wellington RoNS
As I write this, the Petone to Grenada Road website says P2G IS a RoNS project and outlines its tenious link, while the RoNS website map show P2G ISN’T a RoNS?  I expect this to change or the links to die, as we’re fast discovering that NZTA are good at manipulating what they share with the public online.