Northern outlet

Press, 14 October 1986, Page 12

Northern outlet

Sir, —For the life of me I cannot understand how June Wright (October 11) thinks the Northern arterial will save St Albans from stagnation. It will do just the opposite. The Northern Motorway will not serve St Albans, you won’t even be able to get on it inside Innes Road. It is designed for high speed and heavy freight traffic from the north of Christchurch. The St Albans Residents’ Association has put forward various proposals but the M.W.D., by stalling the project now for 20 years, is allowing time to foreclose one alternative after another. The Burwood ring road to direct freight to Lyttelton is less of an option and the rundown of Railways has meant, less and less, that businesses are using this for central city freight. Increasingly heavy freight thunders through the suburbs. The motorway will cut St Albans like a knife and destroy its character forever. — Yours, etc., STUART PAYNE. October 11, 1986.

Sir, —June Wright (October 11) asks why she has received encouraging phone calls since her letter (October 4) was published. Perhaps she could tell us why? I should like to question the motives, ambitions or interests of the motorway supporters. If all of them have honest motives, then I can only think that they are misguided. Of all the cities throughout the world that are served by motorways only a small number have urban motorways, and they have much greater traffic problems than Christchurch. The brief traffic jam in the evenings could be overcome if we had a main road with more than one lane heading in a northerly direction. If we were to build such a monstrous “white elephant” as a motorway, in an effort to overcome our lack of a fast, efficient commuter service, it would be an irresponsible waste of taxpayers’ money. — Yours, etc.,

DAVID T. BISHOP. October 11, 1986.