Motorway plans may be abandoned

Press, 9 June 1978, Page 1

Motorway plans may be abandoned

By

STAN DARLING

Much of the long-disputed Southern Motorway corridor through Sydenham could be abandoned, according to a Christchurch City Council report released yesterday.

That could mean future widening pressures on the controversial Brougham Street Expressway system to the south. In effect, the over-all report is a suggested revision of the city’s transport corridor network — subject to approval by surrounding local bodies in the Canterbury Regional Planning Authority, and the Ministry of Works and Development. Several suggested minor deletions of designated land do not include a deletion of the Northern Motorway corridor through St Albans. Almost all that proposal should be retained, according to the City Council Traffic Engineer (Mr M. L. Gadd), even though the council this year narrowly voted to get rid of it. There are strong doubts that other authorities, without compelling arguments to the contrary, would agree to that action. Mr Gadd had urged that his report should be considered behind closed doors until other local authorities had a chance to study it. But a majority of the town-planning committee did not agree. The committee chairman (Sir Terence McCombs) said he did not have a strong opinion that it should be kept in committee, but he had always believed that first stages of negotiations between local bodies should be confined to those bodies. Mr Gadd said the report should first go to the Canterbury Regional Planning Authority’s transport survey committee. In spite of some proposed deletions and downgrading of major street projects, the report is discouraging for Labour councillors. One of their main election planks was that the St Albans corridor should be scrubbed and other transport plans given another look in light of changing conditions. The report is pessimistic, from a legal standpoint, about the council’s leverage in getting longstanding plans changed so late. If joint action between the Ministry of Works, regional planners and the council cannot be achieved, the issue is

bound to go to appeal. That process “could take many years,” the report says, and the Minister of Works in the end would still have the authority to require the council to provide for a motorway. It would also “have the ultimate decision as to whether it was built.” Even though conditions had changed since the original transport scheme was revised, Mr Gadd said, he still had “reasonable confidence” of the broad need for corridors. "Despite changes in the economy, slackening in the growth of population, and the price of energy for transport, the need for

mobility continues to rise,” he said. Nothing could be done in less than 20 years “to alter the fabric and method of operation of the City of Christchurch,” he said, so there had to be transport provisions for the effective movement of people and goods. The City Engineer (Mr P. G. Scoular) said he believed that “we are now in potentially bad trouble over the condition of our streets.” It was either a question of upgrading all existing streets for increasing heavy traffic using and damaging them — a course the city could not afford

— or directing that traffic to streets built for it. Mr Gadd said construction of some motorwaytype streets was required to avoid too many accidents and pressure for land development in the wrong places. Councillor M. R. Carter said it was necessary to get as much information as possible to the public — “the public are even more confused than before. We should do all we can to clarify the position.” Councillor Vicki Buck said there was too much emphasis being placed on present traffic problems: “You can get around Christchurch all right. There may be minor delays, but they are not insurmountable.” Instead of modifying corridors, she said, the council should be breaking away from them. “We state positions that each of us has stated many times before,” said Cr D. F. Caygill. “I think there are much better choices, but we do not seem to have the tools for making those choices.” The Principal Planner (Mr W. T. Williams) said the council was bound more than ever before by the regional scheme under the new Town and Country Planning Act. If the council wanted to change the transportation plan, it should initiate changes ,to the. regional scheme. The more the city discussed its position with metropolitan local bodies, the better, said Cr Caygill: “It is possible we can persuade them, but not without a lot of darned hard work.” Mr Gadd said his report “represents a substantial reduction in land affected, and in investment terms. However, any further reduction in the plan would be difficult to accommodate.” Mobility was an essential part of modern life, he said, and no alternative existed to meet business and employment needs. The reduced plan was the least that could be recommended to meet those needs for the next 22 years, to the end of the century.