Transit has confused Wellington’s Mayor about “bypass” benefits

“Wellington Mayor, Kerry Prendergast is confused about the benefits of the proposed Wellington inner-city‘bypass’” says CBC spokesperson Alan Whiting. The Mayor recently stated (25 Jan, Dominion Post) that “Transit New Zealand figures show it [the Wellington Inner-City “bypass”] would reduce travelling time by 12 minutes”. However the Scheme Assessment Report1 which Transit supplied to Transfund as part of its application for design funding in 2001 indicates that at best 1.7 minutes will be saved from the 11 minute average peak hour travel time. The Mayor is claiming 12 minutes will be saved on an 11 minute trip. This makes no sense.”

The Mayor’s claimed time savings are seven times greater than those in the Scheme Assessment Report.

“The Mayor’s comments indicate that Transit has provided one set of figures to Transfund and a separate and completely contradictory set of figures to the city council. This has led the Mayor to massively overstate the benefits of the scheme. Transit needs to make clear to Wellingtonians just how limited the limited benefits of the‘bypass’ are2” says CBC Spokesperson, Alan Whiting.

The “bypass” (Stage 2) requires 700m of new road which will pass through one of the oldest surviving areas of Wellington, . The new one-way system would run at street level as the current one-way system does. There will be six sets of traffic lights travelling South and five travelling North (Willis, Victoria, Cuba, Taranaki and Tory and if travelling South, Cambridge Tce).

1 The Scheme Assessment Report (Final), March 2000 was prepared by Opus International Consultants Limited and supplied to Transfund New Zealand by Transit New Zealand for consideration under the National Roads Program 2001. The tables of travel times and savings are shown on those pages immediately after page 28. Tables 9.5 and 9.7 relate to morning (AM) peak and evening (PM) peak periods respectively. This (rather weighty) report can be obtained by Transit. CBC has a copy and we can mail/fax the pertinent pages if required. Please phone or email as per details below.

2 Transit's recently developed web-site (http://www.transit.govt.nz/innercitybypass/, launched in September 2002) omits to mention what the time savings will be.

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