Continued 1960’s planning or near 100 year heritage

 

The debate on what to do with the six Pohutukawa Trees on the Great North Road at the St Lukes Interchange comes to ahead tomorrow when the Auckland Transport Board passes its decision on whether to proceed with cutting the trees down.

On one side of the debate the road engineers overseeing the St Lukes Interchange upgrade along with Chief Operating Officer Greg Edmonds say they must go to allow the road to be widened for efficiency sake. That is efficiency for cars with bus and cycle provisions rudimentary at best. 

On the other is those wanting to save the old native trees while still allowing the upgrades to go ahead that give cater for all modes of transport rather than just one.

 

Simon Wilson of Metro Magazine put a piece together as the debate comes to that critical point tomorrow:

Auckland Transport (AT) plans to cut down six mature pohutukawa opposite Motat on Great North Rd. Should that happen? We asked AT to explain its reasons, and opponents to put their case.

Photos by Josh Griggs.

NO!

Cost efficiency rules

Greg Edmonds

The founding premise of the Auckland super city was that the city’s congestion was costing $1 billion a year in lost productivity and this had to change.

To address this drain on the Auckland and New Zealand economies, one council was created to provide a single direction and strategy, concentrate effort and apply economies of scale to the management of all of Auckland.

Auckland Transport (AT) was created to solve the congestion problem and the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) was tasked to work with AT. Between us, we have to produce the one network without which nothing will be solved. Urban roads and state highways working together to keep the traffic flowing and fast, efficient road, rail and ferry passenger services that — together with walking and cycling — entice Aucklanders out of their cars.

Both AT and NZTA spend public money and it is our legal and moral responsibility to deliver the most objective cost-efficient solutions to the ratepayers and taxpayers that planning and engineering can devise, for the least possible cost.

That is the context for the pohutukawa controversy.

We need buses to flow freely westbound on Great North Rd

………

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YES!

Big, old and beautiful

Jolisa Gracewood and Mark Graham

The Pohutukawa 6: a stand of massive, mature trees at Western Springs that Auckland Transport wants to cut down. Why? To make way for an extra turning lane approximately seven car-lengths long, onto the newly widened St Lukes Rd bridge.

It’s not just a few local tree-huggers who are appalled. It’s urban design experts, traffic engineers, cyclists, drivers, public transport enthusiasts, local historians, ordinary people both young and old, and more than 3000 supporters (and counting) on a Facebook page.

……

Auckland Transport has offered a string of justifications for the trees’ demise, none of which stack up. It has claimed that the trees will “make way for cycle lanes” and improved bus lanes, but its “preferred option” features only intermittent bus lanes and puts bikes on the footpath with pedestrians, so that looks like a lie. The council itself, especially the parks department and the Waitemata Local Board, has staunchly opposed the trees’ removal, but has been bulldozed by AT at every step of the way.

Citizens have found the process of objecting to AT’s plan Kafkaesque. At a hearing in November, most of those opposed to felling had their submissions disallowed because they had been given the wrong reference number.

A “community liaison” meeting in January degenerated into farce. AT’s representative claimed it had fully considered all possible options, but a few questions from the floor revealed this was not true. Then AT gave the impression Motat had doomed the trees by favouring parking spaces, which was again not true.  On top of that, one of the options AT drew up (Option 6A) provides all the vehicle lanes it says it needs, and keeps the trees. But now it says that won’t work, without explaining why.

As one observer recently put it, we keep destroying inner-city heritage and amenities so that people who live miles away can get home a bit faster. AT claims that only by removing these trees can it manage projected delays in a worst-case peak-hour scenario a decade from now. But its figures are based on outdated projections and take no account of changing commuter habits and improvements to public transport, including its own recently announced light rail plan.

…….

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Source to full column: http://www.metromag.co.nz/city-life/columnists/auckland-debates-keep-pohutukawa-six/

 

A revelation and somewhat damnation against Greg Edmonds and his roading engineers (dealing with the Pohutukawa saga). That is Edmonds’ tone and remarks smack of “My Way or the highway” approach even if a better option such as 6A pops up which is a win for all.

Then again watching COO Edmonds since Auckland Transport was brought into existence his tone does not surprise me either. I have commented on this before in the earlier days of Talking Auckland with things from Edmonds being quiet recently until this saga came along. Now to make this crystal clear this is on an Executive Manager I am commenting about not the entire organisation. An organisation can not be tarred by one person’s deeded even if he is the Chief Operating Officer (second in command after the CEO). AT do have some very good projects on the move but Edmonds dealings with the Pohutukawa issue does not cast Auckland Transport in a good light. Maybe time for a new more encompassing Chief Operating Officer perhaps.

Look if Option 6a is the best option that is a win for all and it reflects a 21st Century Auckland that treasures its native heritage rather than trash it for sake of cars then Edmonds needs to get off his high horse and tell his engineers handling the intersection to also get with it in regards to Option 6a

it is that simple – it really is.