This Wellesley St on-ramp is a terrible relic, no need for it to be 4 laned. Could create a great Green connection from Albert Park to the Domain. Great potential cycleway connection from Grafton Gully to middle of CBD too as avoids need to go up and down the ridge so much. The layout of the CBD road system encourages people to cross the CBD to get to an on-ramp rather than getting to CMJ at nearest possible opportunity.
I agree, the Grafton Gully cyclepath should have a spur going west to Princes Street. There already is a bit of space on the side of the underpass, but taking out the second west-bound lane would give plenty of space for a nice green connection for cyclists and pedestrians. There could also easily be a spur to the east as that unnecessary second west-bound lane starts at the intersection of Grafton Rd. Perfect link to Grafton and the Domain.
This is NZTA land and they won’t allow cyclists or pedestrians access to their motorway corridor. Issue has cropped up numerous times over the years. NZTA’s refusal relates to why there’s no footpath across what would be a pretty convenient route across to Grafton by by foot. You know for some of those 40,000 students at AU and 30,000 at AUT who might want to access the other uni campus or hospital. But no, providing pedestrian amenity in an urban area is a stupid idea.
The real problem is when they were building the Wellesley St bridge as part of the Grafton Gully works, John Banks pulled the council funding for the footpath component to save a few hundred grand as part of his cut rates/pedestrians are useless hatchet job. So NZTA was left to build their traffic lane component alone, and that’s all we got.
So now there is no footpath across the gully, there is no room to put one on the existing structure, and therefore nothing to connect a path under Symonds St to. It’s pretty rich to demand NZTA fix the former councils bad decisions, so we are left with the current council having to spend millions to build a separate footbridge just to get a footpath on a road in the CBD.
Thanks Banksy.
Why wasn’t NZTA (was it called Transit back then) paying for the footpath component themselves? They pay for the full cost of every local road/state highway intersection normally, and of course they’re paying for the Grafton Gully cycleway itself.
In other news, of course there’s room for a footpath on that bridge in a world not run by petrol-sniffing lunatics. Just get rid of a traffic lane – the obvious candidate being the second westbound lane, which is fed by only one lane at a time from Grafton Road, and will soon merge with two entire full-time motorway offramps fighting for, again, one single lane on Wellesley Street. It’s just glorified car storage at best, it doesn’t actually move anyone (and most of the time, the whole bridge has little enough traffic that it could be served by a rickety wooden rural one-lane job)..
Yeh I walk across the Grafton Road overbridge adjacent to the Wellesley one most day, as well as along Symonds St quote often. I can report that the Wellesley St entrance to CBD has very low traffic volumes, no need for a 4-5 lane road at all. Could easily take away and lane and no-one would notice.
Gotta say this one is pretty creepy. Any photos of the original memorial? I don’t think I’ve ever been here on foot to see it up close.
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How come there was no protest when they ripped up the Rainbow warrior memorial only for it to be replaced with this rubbish?
This Wellesley St on-ramp is a terrible relic, no need for it to be 4 laned. Could create a great Green connection from Albert Park to the Domain. Great potential cycleway connection from Grafton Gully to middle of CBD too as avoids need to go up and down the ridge so much.
The layout of the CBD road system encourages people to cross the CBD to get to an on-ramp rather than getting to CMJ at nearest possible opportunity.
I agree, the Grafton Gully cyclepath should have a spur going west to Princes Street. There already is a bit of space on the side of the underpass, but taking out the second west-bound lane would give plenty of space for a nice green connection for cyclists and pedestrians.
There could also easily be a spur to the east as that unnecessary second west-bound lane starts at the intersection of Grafton Rd. Perfect link to Grafton and the Domain.
This is NZTA land and they won’t allow cyclists or pedestrians access to their motorway corridor. Issue has cropped up numerous times over the years. NZTA’s refusal relates to why there’s no footpath across what would be a pretty convenient route across to Grafton by by foot. You know for some of those 40,000 students at AU and 30,000 at AUT who might want to access the other uni campus or hospital. But no, providing pedestrian amenity in an urban area is a stupid idea.
The real problem is when they were building the Wellesley St bridge as part of the Grafton Gully works, John Banks pulled the council funding for the footpath component to save a few hundred grand as part of his cut rates/pedestrians are useless hatchet job. So NZTA was left to build their traffic lane component alone, and that’s all we got.
So now there is no footpath across the gully, there is no room to put one on the existing structure, and therefore nothing to connect a path under Symonds St to. It’s pretty rich to demand NZTA fix the former councils bad decisions, so we are left with the current council having to spend millions to build a separate footbridge just to get a footpath on a road in the CBD.
Thanks Banksy.
Why wasn’t NZTA (was it called Transit back then) paying for the footpath component themselves? They pay for the full cost of every local road/state highway intersection normally, and of course they’re paying for the Grafton Gully cycleway itself.
In other news, of course there’s room for a footpath on that bridge in a world not run by petrol-sniffing lunatics. Just get rid of a traffic lane – the obvious candidate being the second westbound lane, which is fed by only one lane at a time from Grafton Road, and will soon merge with two entire full-time motorway offramps fighting for, again, one single lane on Wellesley Street. It’s just glorified car storage at best, it doesn’t actually move anyone (and most of the time, the whole bridge has little enough traffic that it could be served by a rickety wooden rural one-lane job)..
Yeh I walk across the Grafton Road overbridge adjacent to the Wellesley one most day, as well as along Symonds St quote often. I can report that the Wellesley St entrance to CBD has very low traffic volumes, no need for a 4-5 lane road at all. Could easily take away and lane and no-one would notice.
Gotta say this one is pretty creepy. Any photos of the original memorial? I don’t think I’ve ever been here on foot to see it up close.
Great use of $100,000 of ratepayers money…