Posts by Duncan McKenzie
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INeighbours on the opposite side of my road (northern end of Bollard Ave) got a letter from NZTA last night, saying they want some or all of their properties. It seems the corridor goes out a bit further than shown on the maps.
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Bus-ted
John Boscawen and partner free-riding the New North Road bus this morning handing out pamphlets.
NZ Bus have been informed. It is not company policy to allow election or advertising material to be handed out on a bus. -
But Pak n Save has been spared (road builders too frightened to take them on). All this ducking in and out of tunnels will mean the road will be something of a roller-coaster.
And Joshua, did you get any work done today? :-)
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Motorway corridor - 50 metres plus.
Railway corridor - 20 metres
So saying the motorway follows the railway corridor is weasel words. It looks like Alan Wood Reserve is fucked. -
If you live outside the area, I suppose it is nice to think that the sacrifice of the good people of Mount Albert (in terms of homes, neighbours, open space, schools and peace of mind) benefits somebody. I'm not so sure the Mt Albertians quite see it that way.
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build a new port at Te Atatu
Was that ever considered?
It was still on the books well into the 70s, but container ships got bigger and someone worked out the huge money and environmental cost of maintaining a channel. The bridge was built with a navigation span and ships do go up to Chelsea and Kauri Point - but probably not container ships.
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I live and work on the edge of the Waterview Connection Study area and have participated in the process to date. I'm angry about this for a number of reasons.
We entered in good faith into a participation process which has lasted quite a few years. This process, as it exposed the costs and benfits of the various options, inexorably steered the designers to a bored tunnel solution. The solution, and the process that led to it, have been kicked aside so that people from the outside (one of whom won't even visit the site) can impose their cheap-arse solution.
The cheapness of the surface option will depend on the mitigation that is demanded. In particular, will NZTA be expected to provide compensatory open space when Allan Wood Park, Oakley Stream reserve etc are ripped up for motorway? Full mitigation would presumably mean more properties acquired, more money spent and more community disruption.
There has never been any route protection for this route. It more or less follows the Southdown-Avondale Railway for part of the route - the railway route protection that went beyond that to Te Atatu was removed yonks ago when someone finally worked out that no-one was ever going to build a new port at Te Atatu. So people who may or may not live on the route have been faced with uncertainty ever since connection options were first raised. If you appear to be on the route (which has meandered from one extreme to the other of the Study Area over time), and you want to sell your property either you lie, you take a price hit because of the uncertainty, or you grovel to NZTA with a hardship application. (Whereas if the route was officially designated, you can compel NZTA to buy at "market rate". But that's a whole other story).
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Have you forgotten that six months in 1999 when ACC was partially privatised?
Yes - my company chose an outfit called HIH-Workable. I am pleased we were back to ACC by the time that outfit became HIH-Broken. Not really looking forward to choosing between the dubious offerings when we have to go through this again.
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Notable about the 1918 flu pandemic is how badly it affected young and fit people and affected some areas more than others. My grandfather was a policeman, patrolling the Armistice Day celebrations, in Invercargill (from the back of a horse) when he contracted the disease. He was dead within days, leaving five boys aged 12 to under one.
Invercargill was particularly badly hit because of the attitude of local health authorities. There is a particularly densely popultaed part of the Invercargill East cemetery where there were scores of burials over a matter of a few weeks. More progressive authorities enforced progressive notions such as strict quarantine and were less hard-hit.
So I'm filling the water bottles and preparing to stay in.
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How does Mr Saatchi think it should be pronounced?
Aro-Ah, or Aro-Eh? (with question mark and terminal rising inflection)