THE PRESS FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1980. Expressway environment

Press, 28 March 1980, Page 12

THE PRESS FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1980. Expressway environment

The weakest ground on which to condemn the proposed Avonside-Woodham expressway is the narrow environmental one that the development would ruin a stretch of the Avon. This grand traffic plan might properly be subject to attack on the grounds of cost, need, or general property disturbance; but it can hardly be thrown out as a riverbank “abomination” in the way that it has been described by the member of Parliament for Christchurch Central, Mr G. W. R. Palmer. He amplified his description of the scheme as an environmental “disaster”, by saying: "It will be a four-lane highway built next, to a picturesque reach of the • Avon. No amount of tarting the plan by calling it a parkway can alter that fundamental fact.”

There is no virtue in trying to alter that fact. Mr Palmer has described in intent what could be regarded as the most attractive and distinguished thoroughfare in Christchurch—Park Terrace—which is built in the form that he complains of. Avonside Drive, though it meanders attractively in places, is at present a pinched and uncomfortable road with barely room for two cars to pass where another car is parked. It is the kind of old Christchurch road which cries out for remodelling; in fact, an expressway whose construction corrected at the same time a difficult length of road would be killing two birds with one stone. But there is no space for giving traffic relief on Avonside drive while its southern fringe of houses remains. Its steep river bank means that the grass cannot be mowed. An example is available in Christchurch of what can be done to improve the attraction of a portion of the Avon bank: the footpath below the law library between the Victoria and Armagh bridges has been moved uphill with the exact purpose of allowing' the river bank to be regraded to a gentler slope so that it may be more satisfactorily

mown. If Avonside Driwe were reengineered, the river bank could then be extended into the present seal for the same purpose of creating a slope of mowable grass. It is, of course, unfortunate that houses —some perhaps in very good order —must go when a niotorway is put through a suburb. This battle of principle has been able to be resolved at other times in other plar.es. As far as the Avonside expressway is concerned only one house, ’Englefield, has come particularly into the argument. Englefield is at 230 Fitzgerald Avenue. Between it and Avonside Drive is property (which would have to go). The Town Clerk, IHr J. H. Gray, has declared that, oi! several possible solutions to the problem of the corridor, some would not requtire interference with the Englefield property. Christchurch needs reassurance that it would not be touched. The solution of an expressway is in any case distant. Mr Gray has pointed out that it depends on a 30 per cent increase lin the Christchurch population. Highway . construction dlotes not necessarily create ugly “aoncrete jungles,” as many examples .tn New Zealand and overseas have demonstrated. Local examples of mo torways (and Park Terrace, again) are surely exhibits of reassuring landscaping and benevolent exploitation of interesting materials and possibilities. Thine is already beauty in this area which can be enhanced by the clean lines and softened contours of modern road engineering. A little gem of aodonial housing on the corner of Hamner and Gilby Streets would be revealed Ho the general gaze by the demolitions resulting from the expressway construction. And so would the whole northern, aspect of- Englefield itself, which is at present blanketed by other buildings. In looking only at the disadvantages, real or imagined, of the plan its detractors are discounting the possibility of bonuses.