Massaging message

John Milford (April 6 and March 23) should come to grips with this Government’s enlightened transport policies and stop cherrypicking information to support his backward 1960s thinking, which is out of step with his overseas colleagues, who understand the benefits to business of providing better public transport.

He has massaged the feedback from Let’s Get Wellington Moving to suit his ends, glossing over the immense support for public transport – the most by far being for light rail. Most of the Scenario D supporters were from outside Wellington – an expected result as these people are often forced to drive into town, through not having a continuous rail connection into and through the CBD, as outlined in Brent Efford’s letter (April 6).

Milford’s earlier mention of the proposed motorway expansion in the 1963 De Leuw Cather study, while suppressing the rail extension being mooted at the same time, is hypocritical. Indeed, the rail extension was supposed to precede any motorway construction.

As DB Dallas, the engineer involved at the time, concluded in his landmark paper presented to IPENZ in 1992, ‘‘One hopes that Wellington will not suffocate from the insatiable onrush of the motor car while ... the prospect of [a railway extension] fades, to remain merely a haunting spectre of the might have been.’’ DEMETRIUS CHRISTOFOROU Mt Victoria