Source: Radio New Zealand
RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
An obstacle course of road cones throughout Hutt City may be frustrating residents, but the agencies responsible for them say its short term pain for long term gain.
Across Hutt City Council, Greater Wellington and the Transport Agency there are multiple projects underway in Lower Hutt to future-proof service infrastructure, improve flood protection, develop the CBD and improve transport connection.
Much of the work is part of Te Wai Takamori o Te Awa Kairangi, formerly RiverLink.
The works have caused major delays and gridlocked traffic, with commuters as far as Upper Hutt and the Wairapapa feeling the impact.
The rolling road closures to get the work done has reignited residents frustration time and time again.
Last week new roadworks on Queens Drive and High Street shut down a crucial intersection in the Hutt CBD for the next nine months.
Nearby businesses told RNZ foot traffic is down, costing them money, and that works were too slow and too frequent in number.
Front of house for Shine Cafe Jade Wirepa said they were losing customers who did not want to go all the way around the closures, a process he said could take 15 minutes compared to two minutes prior to the road closures.
His own commute had gone from 15 minutes to between 45 minutes and a hour.
He wanted to see the agencies speed up the works.
“They should be having around the clock workers working through the night if it’s that important,”
Gentle Dental practice manager Rose Riley said the roadworks were hard to dodge.
“You try to avoid it and go another way, and then there’s some more somewhere else, yeah, which is quite annoying.”
She said driving to nearby Petone was also a nightmare.
“I tried that once in my lunch break and that was a terrible idea.”
Bedrocks Bar duty manager Venus Kitiona also felt the length of the planned roadworks was too long, although the time of her commute meant she got to avoid the peak traffic.
‘We want to be out of there as soon as we can as well’
Greater Wellington Public Transport Committee chair Ros Connolly said while there are options that could be explored to make the project go quicker – such as working around the clock – for Greater Wellington and Hutt City Council, they have to deliver the project through rates.
“We hear a lot of issues around people saying their rates increases are too high, so we’re trying to focus on delivering these projects at an efficient and affordable rate,” she said.
“So things like night works and speeding up the works does have implications for the overall cost budget.”
Matt Hunt, NZTA Waka Kotahi’s project director for the State Highway to Melling Transport Improvements Project, said there was continued consideration around whether work could go more quickly.
“We want to be out of there as soon as we can as well,” he said.
He said for the transport agency one of the biggest constraints is noise.
“We use a lot of big machinery, and it’s very noisy, and so being cognizant of the consent conditions around noise and how can we work overnight and within those noise parameters is something that we’re looking at.”
He said there will be night works in some places.
Hunt said agencies were also coordinating and monitoring works to mitigate impact as much as possible.
Lower Hutt Mayor Ken Laben said workers on the project are doing the best they can.
“The reality is there’s going to be congestion, there’s going to be long waits, there’s going to be long queues, and there’s going to be frustration.”
But he said its short term pain for long term gain.
“It’s inconvenient, it’s disruptive, and it’s annoying. But unfortunately, that’s the reality of our life over the next few years while we begin the process to keep the city safe and secure over the course of the next 30 or 50 years.”
The RiverLink project is expected to continue until 2031.
People advised to take public transport
For people heading into Wellington, the agencies had suggested taking the train as an alternative if they wanted to avoid the clogged roads.
Metlink trains are the responsibility of Greater Wellington.
“If you’re a commuter who is swapping to the trains because you’re experiencing those peak time traffic effects, at the moment you’ll be getting a really good service from the train, reliable and timely,” said Connolly.
However she said there were still some buses replacing trains during weekends or of-peak periods.
Connolly said this was due to a legacy of deferred maintenance on the tracks that meant infrastructure needed to be brought up to standard.
“So we’re going to have buses replacing trains as part of our public transport reality for the foreseeable future. “
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
