By Pass

Earlier this year, as part of a transportation geography paper, I had to debate that the Wellington Inner City Bypass is a good thing. This wasn't too hard, as those that support the by pass (ie Transit NZ, most of the Wellington City Council) have money, and are able to form a considerably more concrete case for it than those that are against it (ie CBC or whatever they call themselves).

However, I'm fairly sure the whole idea behind it is to gentrify Te Aro to hell, so that liberals (such as former VUWSA exec member, Lenka Rochford or on video here) can no longer afford to live there, and Kerry ensures herself another three years as Mayor.

The whole bypass is like fitting wheels to a turnip - time consuming, and utterly pointless (yes, that is not original). It will mearly shift the conjestion point to another part of town.

The current situation is thus:

A 100km/hour four lane motorway, feeding through a two lane tunnel (The
Terrace tunnel) into a 50km/hour indirecturban street (with pedestrians,
traffic lights, intersections etc), along an fourlane duel carrage
way, and then back into a two lane tunnel (Mt Victoria tunnel).

The by pass will mearly straighten this out. There will still be 5 sets of traffic lights, it will still be a 50km/hour road. It will make it slightly safer for pedestrians (providing they stick to the designated routes). It will save an estimated 90 seconds travelling through the central city.