‘Ridiculous roadworks’,
The Christchurch City Council’s
$1 billion roading repairs budget will include tackling over 400 transport projects over the next decade.
The state of the city’s roads is one of the major challenges facing residents and the council estimates there is more than 20 years of work ahead to get the roads to a condition in line with other New Zealand cities. It has about 400 projects on its books for the next 10 years – including finalising arterial routes through the central city.
Transport projects make up
$1.049b of the council’s planned infrastructure strategy. Major spends include replacing road surfaces, footpaths and kerbs, totalling $263 million, the major cycleway routes ($206m, up to a third of which will be paid back by the NZ Transport Agency) and public transport infrastructure
($65m, including $23m for buying the central bus interchange).
The council’s Long Term Plan, released on Wednesday, has shifted focus from underground infrastructure for drinking and wastewater to improving roads.
Some of the first projects to be addressed will be reopening the Sumner Rd Corridor, completing the Northern Corridor and the Cranford St upgrade, replacing the Pages Rd bridge, and continuing the major cycleways programme.
Manchester St will become the main north-south public transport route for the central city bus network after the top asphalt layer is laid between Armagh and Worcester streets from next week. Council planning and delivery transport manager Lynette Ellis said intensive work on Strickland St, which was open one-way to allow construction of the Quarryman’s Trail cycleway, would be completed by mid-March.
Canterbury Automobile Association chairman Roy Hughes shunned the suggested 20-year timeline for all of the work. ‘‘Around the world more drastically quake-damaged cities than Christchurch have been effectively remediated in less than a decade.’’
He suggested the slow progress could cause investors to abandon plans. He also critiqued the council for how much it was catering to cyclists and pedestrians, saying the central retail district had become a ‘‘no-go zone’’ for those who could not bus or cycle. Sharpedged kerbs on cycleways, traffic barriers, pedestrian refuges and low-level planter boxes inset into roadways had prompted a spike in damage to vehicle wheels, tyres and suspensions, he said.
A council spokeswoman said the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) would provide a subsidy for some of the transport projects. Ratepayers would bear the brunt of the costs though, with a proposed average rates increase of 5.5 per cent in the 2018-19 financial year.
Deloitte estimated the council’s costs from the earthquakes would total about $10b, of which about $2.3b would be funded by other parties. The remaining $7.7b would come from rates, debt and other sources. As of June 2017, the council’s total spend on the quakes was about $3.6b.
Cantabrians like Lidia van Kruiningen felt the time frame was ‘‘ridiculous’’. Van Kruiningen, who drives down Manchester St daily to get to and from work, said it was baffling how long it took to get around the city. ‘‘Sometimes you’ll want to go somewhere but you can’t because there’s detours everywhere
‘‘I see them digging up the road, putting it down, digging it up again, I don’t know what the logic behind it is,’’ she said.
Hospitality worker Kim Proyer said when she moved to into the Urbanz Accommodation hostel, near the corner of Manchester and Gloucester streets, the surrounding roads were a mess. The situation had barely improved a year on, which made navigating the city ‘‘frustrating’’.
Cyclist Chris Sole said progress seemed quick in some parts of the city, but at a standstill in others. ‘‘There’s not much in New Brighton that’s changed . . .’’