If you’ve come here today from reading the Capital Times - then welcome! We’ve been around since 1946, and provide a voice on architecture, design, and urban issues in Wellington. The current issue of the Capital Times has picked up on our submission for Wellington 2040 - a Council run call for submissions on what the city might look like in another 30 years time.

While no one knows for sure, in about 30 years, there are bound to be a few changes. We’ve put together a scenario of what the city might be like then - and included some nice big images for the Council, hoping that they will be as excited by the future possibilities as we are. Read the rest of this entry »

The Architectural Centre, having just put in a submission on the future of Wellington in the year 2040, where we had the pleasure of looking at the city as a whole, are of the opinion that in 30 years time the city will be very different from what we have now. Traffic needs of the city, currently throttling it to death in various places, need to be reassessed - and with a free mind.

Things like the Basin Reserve for instance, may not need to be continuously ringed with roads for traffic. Indeed, we are most concerned that the Basin Reserve is currently reserved mainly for use as a giant traffic roundabout - there are better uses for a Basin than that, and there are certainly better roundabouts. But what if the traffic was to go elsewere? While the traffic planners at Opus and the NZTA are crying “OverPass”, what if the traffic was to go in a tunnel?

Like just about any idea in the world, someone else has thought of it all before. Read the rest of this entry »

The Wellington Civic Trust is running a Symposium soon, on the area around the Basin Reserve. When they get their act together, they will no doubt update their website to have more information on it - in the mean time, keep the 8th of August free.

I suspect there will be Read the rest of this entry »

Kerry Williamson today revealed in the Dom Post the regional councils transport priorities.

That is to say those which they are petitioning the Government for assistance with.

The top Items, with budgets, are as follows:

TOP TRANSPORT PRIORITIES:

Western Link Road stage 1 (Waikanae to Paraparaumu), $82 million.

State Highway 1 Basin Reserve upgrade and bus lanes improvement, $37 million.

Rail network improvements (including seven more trains, double-tracking, signalling and track upgrades), $177 million.

Western Link Road stage 3 (Paraparaumu to Raumati), $41 million.

SH2 Melling Interchange and Melling Bridge, $51 million.

Paraparaumu and Waikanae station upgrades, $15 million.

McKays Crossing to Paekakariki median barrier, $5 million.

SH2 Moonshine to Silverstream median barrier, $6 million

It’s good to see that there are a number of initiatives that relate to public transport but since when did the Basin Reserve fly-over become a done deal?

If that is the case then why don’t the council ask for the money for the second Mt Vic tunnel at the same time? At least that would demonstrate that they have a strategy for transport in that area.

Then again maybe we should wait until the Indoor Sports Centre is built on Cobham Drive and see if it results in any additional traffic using the existing Mt Vic tunnel.