Bad Stewardship

Wellington City Council and the Wellington Regional Council, show bad stewardship by embracing its plan to merge the public transport system on the Golden Mile in order to create more car-parks in the Taranaki/Willis Street precinct.

By doing so it also invites more cars into an already geographically squeezed area of the City. With the growth in apartment dweller population in this precinct at 74%, this puts further at risk the most vulnerable of all transport modes, pedestrians. With 73% of apartment dwellers walking to work or study daily ( 9000 ) they not only expose themselves to these statistics but according to statistics from the Ministry for the Environment Wellington loses 100.000 hrs annually through restricted activity days resulting from exposure to vehicle related emissions.

This in fact shows ignorance on both the councils part and one can only wonder what the Mayor learned from Copenhagen where a sinking lid policy on central city car parks was adopted many years ago. This created an opportunity for the growth of their cycling community which stands at 37% of all transport modes. Wellington car parks 16000 Oslo and Copenhagen 8.000-6.000.

After the completion of the Urban Motorway in the seventies a critical demand for car parks saw parking buildings mushroom and are now featured in the Central City where ideally they should sit on the edge or just outside of it.

Not thinking then, still not thinking now, GW stands for Global Warming?

ENDS

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