Wellington’s $1.2m bus stops costing more than a home
The full costs of a post-Let's Get Wellington Moving capital are becoming clear, with leaked details showing new bus stops costing more apiece than a house and a further $57 million for two new bus lanes.
This week, Wellington City councillors were emailed a breakdown of transport projects going to the Government, via Waka Kotahi, to get funding under the National Land Transport Programme.
It comes after the new National-led Government pulled the pin on the $7.4 billion Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) transport overhaul for the capital. It was to be funded by Waka Kotahi, the Wellington City Council, and Greater Wellington Regional Council.
It shows the regional council is currently budgeting $12m for new bus shelters and information boards along the Golden Mile, from Courtenay Place to the railway station. The regional council has confirmed that money was for 10 new stops, eight of which had shelters, making for an average of $1.2m per stop.
The most recent QV figures show an average Wellington region house now costs $874,295. A four-bedroom house with a studio near the beach in well-to-do south Wellington suburb Island Bay is currently for sale with inquiries over $1.15m.
The two councils are jointly funding a “Harbour Quays bus corridor”, with bus lanes taking out a car lane in each direction along the harbour quays, with a $57.5m budget. There is also a regional council-funded $2.5m business case to upgrade the bus lanes to a “rapid transit bus corridor”.
A further $21.2m is being budgeted for an bus corridor to the eastern suburbs and $4.5m for bike improvements out east. Like the harbour quays, $2.5m will go on a business case for the regional council for rapid bus transit to the east.
And the city council is looking at $11.2m for central city biking improvements.
Regional council transport committee chairperson Thomas Nash said it was expected that the Government, via Waka Kotahi, would pay 51% of the cost. The figures were “indicative”, he said.
Each bus stop cost about $1m, with about $200,000 earmarked for electronic signs and other costs such as design and project management. A big part of the cost was the underground work, with the ground under the Golden Mile a “labyrinthine environment” of pipes.
The “grunty shelters that will last a very long time” were comparable to bus hubs in Kilbirnie and Newtown, which came in with similar costs, he said.
The costs of the bus shelters and other listed projects were scaled back from what they would have been in LGWM.
But he confirmed the $57.5m harbour quays work, and $2.5m business case, was with an eye to reanimate a LGWM dream of rapid transit. Nash said this would ideally, eventually mean light rail but could also be bendy buses on dedicated and priority lanes.
Light rail had been ditched by the National-led Government but Nash was optimistic: “Governments can change their mind and governments can change.”
The harbour quays work was not as simple as painting some bus lanes on the road. It also included new bus stops, not budgeted for in the $12m Golden Mile changes, as well as changes to intersections, curbs, and gutters. There would be pedestrian crossings, changes to the road, and the phasing of traffic lights would likely need to change, he said.