by Geoffrey Churchman
Today being the first day since Sunday when there hasn’t been an abundance of Dougherty’s precious water from the sky (remember his signs proclaiming, ‘our water is precious’ that he plonked around Kapiti at the time of the water meters about 10 years ago?), I went to inspect the ‘Transport Hub’ which is finally in operation at Paraparaumu Station.
The view from the Kapiti Road entrance. (‘NIS’ doesn’t mean the bus is going to Nis in Serbia, but ‘Not in Service.’)
The 2 x $1 million bus shelters seen about 50 metres from the entrance. They have steel frames to cope with the weight of the ‘organic’ roofs. But $1 million each? The two pohutukawa trees that the Paraparaumu Community Board saved can be seen.
The $2 million blurb on a window.
And where has the rest of the $18 million total cost gone? This?
Hmm. ‘Underwhelming’ would be an understatement.
By way of comparison, here’s a pic I took in April of the downtown train station plaza of San Diego.
The bus shelteres are a failure as they do not provide continuous cover from bus to train station. An absolute necessity for a transport hub. Also we ratepayers are footing most of a bill that should have been met by the Regioal Council and Transport NZ.