Council left with $597,000 road bill

Press, 8 July 1982, Page 4

Council left with $597,000 road bill

The Christchurch City Council wants the Government to pay $597,000 for improvements to streets that were part of the State highway system until recently.'

So far, the National Roads Board has agreed to provide only $164,000 of that amount. Parts of Bealey, Fitzgerald. and Moorhouse Avenues have now become a council responsibility, with stretches of Lincoln Road and Halswell Road.

State highway designations were shifted to other routes, such as Madras Street and Barbadoes Street. Immediate maintenance needs on newly designated highway sections have been estimated about $59,000. compared with the much higher cost of work on streets now a council responsibility. i Council engineers have said that top priority should be given to a rubberised bitumen seal required on Lincoln Road.

The major responsibility accepted by the Government is a $129,000 Moorhouse Avenue improvement between Colombo Street and Durham Street. Lavatory in Square The men’s underground lavatory in Cathedral Square will probably be closed for repairs and painting for five days- in late September or early October.

The council said that signs indicating the nearest alternative — at the Manchester Street parking building — should be placed at the Square lavatory in plenty of time for people to get used to the temporary change. If the work required more than five days, the lavatory should reopen temporarily from Friday to Sunday nights, the committee said. ‘ Street closing

Evelyn Couzins Avenue will be closed to vehicles at its River Road end for six months from Monday. The experiment will determine traffic reactions to a permanent closing which has been proposed for some years on the narrow, winding street which has been used as a shortcut by cars and heavy vehicles. Critics of the move have said that traffic flows would be diverted into other streets, such as River Road, not designed for them. Disabled parking A planning solution to ease disabled parking problems at Christchurch Hospital may 'have been found. Because of a Planning Tribunal condition for approval of the new hospital bridge to the clinical sevices block, only disabled persons being driven to the hospital

may be taken across the Rblieston Avenue bridge. Councillors said that the North Canterbury Hospital Board might have grounds for asking the council for a varied restriction because of changed circumstances.

Such a change, sought by the Co-ordinating Council for the Handicapped, would allow disabled drivers to take their vehicles across the bridge to parking spaces close to the hospital. Veranda posts A new Sumner shopping centre in Nayland Street and Wqkefield Avenue may be allowed to have veranda posts on its footpath frontage. Sumner residents have sought permission for the posts so that the business centre’s street scene can be maintained through building designs compatible with one another.

The council said that the veranda posts should be allowed if they z were removable to allow access for future telephone and waterworks servicing.

Veranda posts are usually not permitted because they would obstruct service authorities and be in the way of pedestrians. They can also be used as bicycle leaning posts, making for a further footpath obstruction.