Representatives from the Wellington Tunnels Alliance met with the Mt Victoria Residents Association before Easter, so that they could inform local residents about the night closures of the Mt Victoria tunnel. It was largely an exercise in window-dressing, as the timing of the closures, the traffic arrangements and the putative mitigations for local residents had all been pre-decided by the engineers before the meeting.

While the verbal briefing was useful, the Tunnels Alliance staff had failed to arrive with the requested documents – such as the traffic management plan and the hazards mitigation plan – so it was hard to draw any concrete conclusions about the effectiveness (or otherwise) of the arrangements. These documents have now been requested under the Official Information Act. However what did stand out from the briefing was the fact that the Tunnels Alliance appears to have little interest in filtering the exhaust emissions from the tunnel, which are vented into the grounds of Wellington East Girls College.

The engineer present at the meeting noted that the current tunnel ventilation system was not very efficient, and that the upgrades would result in a far better removal of toxic fumes from the tunnel …. into the grounds of the school!

He also noted that it was unlikely that the nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide and diesel particulates would be filtered, confirming our earlier suspicions – that the traffic engineers are prepared to spend tens of millions of dollars on protecting drivers from tunnel fires that have never occurred in 80 years, but won’t spend a cent on filtering the emissions that kill 400 people per annum.

It’s a very strange world we live in.

Image credit: wellington.scoop

The Wellington Tunnels Alliance – the private/public partnership charged with upgrading the Terrace and Mt Victoria tunnels – has decided to close the the road tunnel for five nights a week, but hasn’t bothered talking to Mt Victoria residents about the detail of the plans. According to wellington.scoop:

The Mt Victoria tunnel is to be closed for five nights a week from next month until Christmas. Cars and pedestrians will be barred from using the tunnel from 8pm to 6am, Sunday to Thursday, while the ceiling is replaced.

The last meeting between the Tunnels Alliance and local residents was last year, when we were told that the plans for the possible closure times were still being developed. Since then, silence – until the announcement was made in the media. And we do have considerable concerns that these closures will result in significantly higher traffic volumes in Mt Victoria’s narrow streets as drivers use Majoribanks Street to head over the hill to access the Eastern suburbs. However there’s no evidence that the Tunnels Alliance has made any plans to manage the additional traffic flows – at least, not any plans they’re sharing with residents.

Not to put too fine a point on it, this is just bloody rude. If the Wellington Tunnels Alliance can make the time to talk to Hataitai residents, then they can make the time to talk to us as well. Discovering that your neighbourhood will be the rat-run of choice for the city’s drivers via a media release is utterly unacceptable.