The Local - Mt VictoriaA stoush is brewing over bus stops, as the Wellington City Council moves forward on changes to Courtenay Place to speed up buses.
The controversial Golden Miles changes, which include the removal of cars from Courtenay Place, will see a cycleway winding its way snakelike along the enlarged pavement, all car parking removed between Kent Terrace and Taranaki Street, and bus lanes narrowed.
But it’s the removal of two popular bus stops that has caught the attention of local politicians.
The bus stop outside the St James, and the one opposite outside the former Reading Cinema complex are both to be scrapped, according to the proposals.
That would result in a 550 metre – or just over half a kilometre - gap between the bus stops at the Embassy end of Courtenay Place, and the next set on Manners Street.
According to Google Maps, that’s a 7-minute walk.
Lambton councillor Nicola Young said it was madness to remove the two Courtenay St bus stops, when the council had invested three-quarters of a billion dollars’ worth of ratepayers’ money in facilities in the area, such as the St James Theatre, Tākina events centre, the Town Hall, Central Library – and in the future the Opera House and Michael Fowler Centre.
She also pointed to future Golden Mile plans to remove the Lambton Quay bus stops outside Farmers and the former David Jones.
“These are all possibly Wellington’s busiest sops. It’s madness! The justification is that it will make the buses more efficient; if that’s the aim: why not remove all bus stops?”
Another Lambton councillor resident in Mt Victoria is Iona Pannett, who says she uses the buses on Courtenay Place on a daily basis.
“I’m completely opposed to the removal of the bus stops at St James and Reading and have been advocating for their retention for some time. This is part of a programme from the Council and Greater Wellington to remove many bus stops around the city.”
She was also opposed to the design of the new bus shelters which she said would have no walls.
“These stops are necessary; on a cold, rainy day, we need proper shelter from the weather.
“Wellingtonians are great supporters of public transport so it is important that people continue to have access to frequent, reasonably priced buses with good bus stops.”
However the third Lambton councillor, Geordie Rogers, supported the changes and pointed out that the work on the Golden Mile wasn’t being done in isolation.
“It’s part of the continuous effort to improve the network for everyone that uses it. When the work on the second spine and the Golden Mile are completed there will be more stops in the central city than we have now.
“Overall, this change should make the network better for most people and therefore has my support.”
Courtenay Place business owner Karl Tiefenbacher, who stood for council in the last local body elections, is highly critical of the new design, and has identified a 13 ‘disastrous’ design flaws, including the removal of the bus stops.
“This does not deliver any positives to the city, let alone the business community who oppose it and will struggle to survive the 3 years of construction, and is unlikely to meet any of the projects supposed objectives.”
The Wellington City Council said timing for the construction work on Courtenay Place was still being worked out, as well as the total cost.
The Courtenay Place project had initially been estimated at $54 million, when the project was part of Let’s Get Wellington Moving. NZTA will pay approximately 51% of the costs.
Tiefenbacher claimed that the design was being driven by the need to secure NZTA funding, and that meant changes were not able to be made.
“So we’re going to have bad design, based around the fact that we might lose our funding to do the bad design.”
Councillor Pannett said the only way to stop the changes was for NZTA to refuse funding to Greater Wellington to remove the stops.
“I encourage members of the public concerned about this issue to write to their local representatives at the City and Regional Councils expressing their concerns,” she said.
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