Bus routes will accommodate temporary library

Gisborne District Council has given library users another reason to celebrate.

Not only will library services remain available, but the bus service have announced changes to bus routes to stop outside the library’s temporary location.

Tairawhiti Roads General Manager, David Hadfield says “People use the bus service to access the library so we need to continue this.”

In December last year, The Council confirmed they were happy to award the contract to start construction of the library’s upgrades, which are due to begin next month. As a result of construction, the library is temporarily relocating to 53 Awapuni Road, in the old Gilmours building.

The bus routes will remain the same with a small detour along Salisbury Road then Awapuni Road to stop at the library, before finishing the route at the Bright Street depot. Depending on the specific bus route from Elgin, Mangapapa or Kaiti this may add another 5 to 8 minutes to the journey” Says Mr Hadfield.

Changes to the bus routes will coincide with opening date of the temporary library on March 6.

Parking and access issues during upgrade construction.

The library extension will have some impacts on parking in the CBD, especially in the Bright Street carpark adjacent to the library. The upgrade will remove 23 car parks from the Bright Street parking lot.

As part of project research, Council commissioned Traffic Design Group to conduct a study of parking and traffic trends through the CBD to measure the impacts of removing these parks.

“We understand that parking availability in the CBD needs to be maintained, so we sought independent studies which showed that although there will be a loss of 23 parks, there are in excess of up to 60 parks elsewhere in the CBD on any given day” says Planning and Development Group Manager Nedine Thatcher-Swann.

“Alternative parking is available, the Grey Street car park behind the Farmers building often has a lot of unoccupied parks on most days of the week and it’s only a block away.”

The carpark which currently has paid public access was brought by the Williams family at the same time as the current library for the purpose of eventually being used for an extension.

H B Williams Memorial library is one of Council’s most used facilities, which has about a thousand people use its facilities per day.

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