Downscaled Eastern Corridor Gives Project More Certainty

Opting to build a scaled-down Eastern Transport Corridor across Hobson Bay rather than tunnel under Parnell makes practical sense.

“It will allow the long-designated route option to be pursued, and get freight and commercial services between the CBD/Port and eastern suburbs off local roads into a more efficient corridor,” said Mr Barnett, chief executive of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce.

Now that Council has made a decision to proceed, business wants no time to be wasted in designing a final scheme and seeking an assessment for environmental effects.

Coupled with last week’s announcement from Government to proceed with the next stages of the Western Corridor, today’s announcement is proof that the region is at last getting the required action and focus around delivering the urgently needed transport infrastructure, said Mr Barnett.

Mayor Banks’ persistence in championing the project deserves to be acknowledged, he said. “Without his energy, we wouldn’t have had the progress we are seeing today.”

However, today’s decision is far from the final word on this project, and the period ahead must further secure badly needed certainty that the project is irreversible,” said Mr Barnett.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>