THE CITY IS OURS faster - slower

An Official Information request by the President of the City is Ours Inc, the society that sought to stop buses from running through a popular pedestrian mall, revealed the Council did not commission an independent report on the bus travel time savings after the opening of the bus lanes in Manners Street on the 28th of November 2010. The Official Information request was lodged with Greater Wellington but transferred to Wellington City Council for a reply.

In Councils 2009 summary of information on reasons for opening Manners Mall to buses it states in the proposal;

"Bus operations through Wellington's CBD and along the Golden Mile are currently unreliable with significant delays for a large number of bus services during both peak periods and between those times. It goes on to say that according to a report furnished by Opus International the savings were expected to be to be anything between 35 and 162 seconds".

The president of the City is Ours Maria van der Meel lodged the request because she felt the ratepayers were entitled to know whether the $ 11.1 million spent on the project had in fact delivered the outcomes promised by council as predicted by Opus International and/or reached the targets set in the BCR. She further indicated a formal inquiry would be send to both the Mayor and the leader of the Transport Port Folio Andy Foster asking why this report is not available for public scrutiny. An inquiry as to why GW never asked for such a report as the agent for NZTA who funded the project is also in the pipeline.

The Golden Mile Improvements were partly funded by NZTA which paid for the construction of the two way bus lanes in Manners Street, according to the projects budget they contributed $ 3.354. million.

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