This would be amazing for anyone heading out to the bays or Wellington Airport, no intersections or lights to worry about, and it would make life so much easier for the CBD as well, not having so much through traffic in the CBD.
Title makes it sound like they just found an unknown tunnel and are investigating what it’s doing there.
It was undermining constitutional foundation
That’s what I thought at first. I watched too much Wellington Paranormal.
Maybe it’d be good, but this just feels like the Boris Johnson method of:
- announce some fantastical massive project that’ll never get built but will pull some headlines for a bit
- funnel some public money to cronies for contracting services to do a business case
- quietly shelve it until it’s time to pull out something else for the same effect.
If they want to reduce traffic congestion, expand public transport and make it more reliable and cheaper.
This is being explored as an alternative to a second Terrace and Mt Vic tunnels, and sounds like just an idea for now.
We desperately need to improve access to that area though, getting out to Miramar, Seatoun and Titahi Bay is a nightmare at times, including on weekends.
And public transport can only do so much, it’s not an option for everyone.
It’s not an option because we neglect it to the point it’s not usable for a lot of trips.
That doesn’t mean improvements aren’t possible, and they would help free up capacity on the existing road network. Roads are such a poor investment at this point, especially ones like these
Can I use it for when I take my kayak out there? 5.5m long boat shouldn’t take up too much space in the bus, right?
Sorry, not sure how investing in more PT options would require you to take a kayak on the bus.
That’s not what I asked you.
I’m pointing out why I won’t be taking the bus if I’m heading out that way.
So then don’t, I didn’t say it must replace every single trip for it to have value
The whole point of my reply was pointing out why public transport isn’t an option for me, and why, no matter how good it gets, we will need to upgrade our road infrastructure eventually.
Absolutely nobody has said it won’t help.
It’s not an option because I have a van full of tools, not because of the quality of the service.
I swear, people like you must think everyone in the country works in an office.
Yes, we could certainly improve public transport in Wellington, but as I said, it’s simply not an option for many people.
I know this is a hard concept to grasp, but there are people out there who are not yourself who, if the option is there, will leave their cars at home meaning the roads are less congested overall.
I never said there weren’t. What I did say, using very small words, is that no matter how good public transport is, not everyone can use it.
It’s a tough concept to grasp, it would seem.
And what I said was not everyone needs to use it to benefit from it because unlike just blowing billions on more roads, it reduces congestion overall instead of adding to it.
Anyway on the tunnel, fantasy at best, Tory grift at worst, probably both
You’re arguing a point nobody is denying, you do understand that right?
What kind of an idiotic argument is “not everyone will use it”. Who was claiming that every single human being in the city would be using it?
If others are in a bus there’s more space for you.
No shit.
A tunnel that long would tale a similar amount of time and money as an underground metro… And have significantly less utility and economic benefits…
Also it will make traffic worse, not better, as it will result in more people driving…
Definitely should dig a second one for rail as well.
Do a first one for rail and then if it really seems necessary maybe we can discuss one for cars
Rail should go first. Or pedestrians.
Sure, but hopefully the car tunnel entrance won’t cost too much to tear down when people realise it’s a waste of land later
Tearing down the Wellington Urban Motorway would probably be better value for money.
Wellington isn’t shrinking though.
Not yet… 😅
It’s an amazing idea, but the seismic implications are enough to discourage it, I’d have thought.
How the heck does one build it with a straight face when we have so many quakes and have been expecting something major for decades?
I mean, we’ve got no shortage of tunnels in Wellington, many of which have been around for over a hundred years, and withstood many earthquakes already. Building a quake resilient tunnel can definitely be done.
So there’s 3 tunnels that we run vehicles through, day to day (that im aware of). Terrace tunnel, mt Vic and the bus tunnel. The city would struggle with either of them collapsing, and I understand the ones under mt Vic are already in dire straits, going by some of the points hopeful mayors that they were campaigning on. I’m no expert but your claim feels like a huge stretch.
As for earthquakes, there’s one that was readily found via a search in 1855 and that “considerably reshaped the geography”, so, respectfully, I completely disagree. https://www.wcl.govt.nz/heritage/earthquakes.html
edit sorry, I should have clarified earlier, it’s the major quakes I’m concerned about. Not the frequent little ones
You’re forgetting Karori, and that’s just vehicle tunnels. There’s also the many train tunnels around Wellington.
I realised there’s the cable car too, although that’s a funny great area.
Certainly the prospect of building a tunnel under the guts of the city for several km (where it’s likely to cross a fault line) is edging towards this kind of nightmare: https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/files/2011/03/10_10-Canterbury-22.jpg
I can’t see how a tunnel would sustain that, which seems like a death knell for the whole idea…
It’s certainly been done, it’s not an insurmountable obstacle.
Earthquakes tend to go around voids, interestingly enough.
Lol From the sound of the headline, I thought someone had dug an unauthorized 4km tunnel and it had just been discovered. Was thinking WTF
Let’s pretend this government is going to stay in power for thirty years.
I predict this project wouldn’t be completed in their tenure if they approved it tomorrow. Look at how long it took them to bypass Cambridge on SH1 FFS.
Listening to The Kaka this morning, Bernard Hickey has a nice take, one primary reason is that this will save politicians approx 15min between the airport and parliament…the cynicism made me LOL
It would save me fifteen minutes every day too, to be fair.
