by Geoffrey Churchman
Those who observed this below item on the WCB agenda for last night may not have thought much of it, but some in the community including myself had been pre-warned what it meant by the Chair, Richard Mansell —
“,,,the next big issue is the proposed closure of the south bound lane of the Waikanae Bridge for three months while they attach the clip on cycle lane. The detour is down Te Moana Road, along the Expressway, up Kapiti Road and then back along the old main road to where you might have wanted to go. NZTA are meant to be presenting to the WCB next week on this. Until then it was a closed briefing to the council last week that members are not allowed to talk about.”
Unsurprisingly, some of them showed up last night to voice their displeasure at this ridiculous disruption, including myself and two living on the south side of the river, one of them former WCB member Jill Griggs who lives in Waikanae Downs. She mentioned that there are several people in the Downs who work from home and their business will be severely affected by customers from Waikanae town who will have to make a detour of around 15 km to get there.
Another nearby resident said that if it was only a week or so it would be one thing but three months or more was unaccptable.
I added that if this was China or Japan, minor engineering work like this would only take a week, and I pointed out that far from being a country lane which the council said it would be after the Ewy was opened, it is still a major thoroughfare. The NZTA themselves acknowledge that there are about 9,000 vehicle movements over it a day.
Unfortunately, although the NZTA was at the meeting as was Higgins Traffic Management, the contractor Brian Perry Civil, was not. It would have been useful to discover why this needs to take so long. The pieces for this clip-on lane are being assembled right now in Otaki (after being sent back to the manufacturer in Australia, Wagners, for remedial work) and will be craned into place onto the support structures on the bridge west side which were installed last year.
But three to five months for that??
These pics are from the NZTA presentation last night, they may appear on the NZTA website soon:
This is how the clip-on will look — it is not separate to the bridge, but will rest on the existing sidewalk. There will be a safety barrier on both sides of the pedestrian/cycle area, and as can be seen it deviates a bit to the west at the Otaihanga end.
The blue route is what Waikanae Downs and Otaihanga people will have to take from Waikanae town — down Te Moana, south along the Ewy, up Kapiti Road to the “fun” deviation at the Kapiti Road/old SH1 intersection works already underway, and then northbound to wherever they are going.
One aspect that wasn’t mentioned, but should have been was who asked for this cycle lane on the bridge? Eva and I know from having done our own count in situ that there is only about one cyclist an hour who crosses this bridge. If they’re sensible they will dismount and walk their bicycle along the existing pedestrian area on the bridge, or they can just cycle along the roadway which isn’t long, only about 50 metres.
If a poll had been taken of people in Waikanae, how many would have said they wanted this feature on the bridge? We now know it is costing taxpayers about $2 million.
Three to five months would be the quickest they can do it . Its taken two years to get thus far so could well go over the two to five months allocated !
Kapiti road is already at gridlock so will not cope with the extra traffic volume.
Perhaps a track and Ford across the river down Nimmo ave west and connecting to King arthur drive should be put in for emergency use !
Closing the main road bridge also has huge safety ramifications for FENZ vehicles .
( Scenario , emergency at or near Gold coast house movers will take an extra 15 mins travel to reach via the detour along the ewy )
What a mess , an thoughtless and inconsiderate mess !
Will pedestrians and cyclists be able to use the bridge during the closure to vehicular traffic?
The NZTA men say they expect people to use the Te Arawai footbridge which is about 2 km downstream. Not a major thing for cyclists but pedestrians won’t be impressed.
What the hell is a Democracy Services Advisor and what qualifications do they have/need and why are they needed, what do they do. Sounds like a BS job to me
Allan
Surely it will be the north bound lane, where the footpath is? And why can’t they operate a stop go system?
No, they want to change the side of the road over this 50 or so metres — pretend you’re in America or Europe! Stop-go would cause traffic to back too much they claim.
So to get from Waikanae to Otaihanga Landfill etc, a huge detour. I would have thought we would have received emails or letters notifying us of this.
Apparently they are planning a media advertising campaign shortly.
I just did a calculation on the diversion for pedestrians as if you are a pedestrian approaching from the south and are “diverted via the Te Arawai bridge, your diversion route is 3.2km ! Now that’s ridiculous, its basically an invitation to not walk! How’s that aligned with any Carbon or Sustainability policy of NZTA or KCDC ? Their response will be “we must focus long term” I say you should focus short term not taking your eye off the long term goals. Let’s highlight the ridiculousness of this pedestrian diversion.