Life And Near-Death In Single-Lane Bus Tunnel

Wednesday, 11 February 2009, 10:21 pm
Opinion: Lindsay Shelton

I’ve always had a soft spot for Pirie Street, which climbs up Mt Victoria from Kent Terrace. It was the first place where I lived (or rather boarded) when I came to Wellington as a teenager. At the top of Pirie Street is a single-lane tunnel, the second-oldest in Wellington. It was built more than a hundred years ago to give trams access to Hataitai, and now it’s clearly marked for buses only. But the tunnel has become a life-and-death problem for the city.

The Mount Victoria Residents Association sounded the alarm in mid-January when its website [ http://mtvictoria.org.nz/?q=node/58 ] said the bus tunnel was becoming the thoroughfare of choice for a growing number of impatient motorists including boy racers.

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The association’s vice-president Kent Duston said the situation was “an accident waiting to happen.”

When an accident did happen in the tunnel two weeks later, it was the worst possible validation of the local community’s concerns. And it involved a pedestrian – seriously injured by a vehicle which didn’t stop to help him.

A man walking through the tunnel in the early-morning – when no scheduled buses would have been expected - was hit by a vehicle using the tunnel illegally. He suffered critical injuries including a broken pelvis, a dislocated hip, broken knee and broken hand.

In spite of the accident, people are still walking through the narrow, badly-lit tunnel. They face a double hazard – not only from buses which use the tunnel legally, but also from cars which are still driving through it illegally, ignoring the no entry signs and the red lights.

Only three hours after police reopened the tunnel after the accident, an SUV was photographed driving past the no entry sign and into the entrance from Pirie Street.

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And the following day, to prove that nothing had changed, local residents videoed two cars and two pedestrians using the tunnel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_VzDLLcygQ

Kent Duston, who says that illegal use of the bus tunnel is continuing every night, has spoken to some of the pedestrians, and has found that they all give the same reason – they say the air quality in the main Mt Victoria tunnel (two blocks away) is so bad that they’re prepared to take life-and-death chances in the bus tunnel.

He sees the cause of the hit-and-run accident as not solely the fault of an irresponsible driver who kept going. “It was also the direct and inevitable result of failed central and local government policy.

“It’s a graphic illustration of how pedestrians in Wellington are effectively worthless in the view of the transport planners, who seem to think that the lives of pedestrians can be thrown away either quickly through hit-and-run incidents or slowly through carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide poisoning.”

Kent Duston tells me that many submissions concerned about pedestrian facilities in the main Mt Victoria tunnel were made as part of the consultation process about the transport corridor from Ngauranga to the airport. He says such submissions have been made for decades, and they have been ignored. “Not a cent has been allocated for upgrading pedestrian facilities in the main tunnel.”

He was briefly encouraged after the accident when a city council spokesman indicated that a meeting between the responsible agencies was being arranged. But the meeting doesn’t seem to have happened.

Before the accident, speed bumps had been removed from the tunnel entrance during roadsealing work. They were hastily reinstalled the following day, though they do nothing to stop illegal traffic.

There’s been talk of barrier arms as an option. They wouldn’t stop pedestrians. But at least they might give some assurance that a speeding vehicle wouldn’t be likely to smear you against the tunnel wall.

The only other option for those on foot: to walk over the top of Mt Victoria, avoiding both tunnels. A friend who moved from London to Wellington a few years ago took pride in walking to work every morning from Hataitai - over the hill and down again. His enthusiasm for exercise didn’t last, though as far as I know he’s never been foolish enough to walk through the bus tunnel.

And the future? The main tunnel through Mt Victoria – a notorious traffic bottleneck every morning and afternoon - was built during the Great Depression by “an unemployed army” whose members were paid 14 shillings a day with a wage subsidy from the government and “unemployment loans” raised by the city council to ensure fair and humane treatment of the city’s unemployed. Perhaps the long-debated third tunnel may find similar funding during the great financial crisis of the 21st century. And if it’s built, perhaps there’ll be enough money to provide clean air for pedestrians at last.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Lindsay Shelton

Wellington Scoop Editor

Lindsay Shelton started work as a journalist with the Dominion, then the Sydney Morning Herald and later TVNZ, where he was editor of network news. Then he became the first Marketing Director of the NZ Film Commission. He's been editing Wellington Scoop since November 2008.

Contact Lindsay Shelton

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