Editorial: Get it right, Mr Joyce

OPINION: Decisions on roading can move at a pace as ponderous as the crawl down the coastal highway into Wellington on a holiday weekend.

That's why Transport Minister Steven Joyce's announcement last week that he is looking at two options for a four-lane expressway from McKays Crossing to Peka Peka instead of the Western Link Road between Raumati South and Peka Peka, and that the public will have only six weeks to comment, came as such a shock.

Mr Joyce's desire for haste is understandable. He spent much of his youth on the Kapiti Coast and was no doubt as frustrated then as the residents are now with the glacial traffic flows.

However, the project he announced is a big departure from what was expected and, like any major roading project, will disrupt many lives. It is a fine balancing act between bulldozing through a solution and allowing projects to become mired in bureaucratic bickering. Mr Joyce may be counting on the fact that outrage can quickly disappear once a project is completed, as the Wellington inner-city bypass demonstrates, but allowing at least a little more time to listen to concerns and to allow alternatives to be proposed would have been wiser.

There has certainly been enough time to hear all the arguments for and against the Transmission Gully project. If Mr Joyce has been slightly too ambitious in his timetable for the expressway, he has been far too hesitant in deciding on Transmission Gully. The Gully road has been discussed since the 1950s and Wellington's local bodies have finally reached agreement that it is the better option. All the arguments have been made more than once and Mr Joyce should get on with making the decision on that vital part of the solution to Wellington's transport woes.

The announcement on Thursday that the worst of the choke points will be fixed is welcome after years when it seemed as though Wellington's needs were ranked well below those of Auckland and Waikato.

That is part of the solution, and so is the money for bus, train and ferry services and public transport infrastructure in the $621 million package, but the reality is that every bottleneck between Wellington Airport and Levin needs to be fixed for the system to work well.

That includes deciding on Transmission Gully and then acting on that decision, either by building it, or by providing an alternative solution. As we have said before, it is ludicrous that the main road north from the capital is an earthquake-vulnerable two-lane highway that can be closed by a single road accident.

Coming up with a transport solution is vital. It is more than just a matter of ensuring easy access to the baches of Waikanae. About seven million tonnes of long-distance freight passes through Wellington every year, a million people use the Interislander ferries and about five million passengers go through the airport.

Ensuring all that happens as quickly and as efficiently as possible is crucial to the capital's economic well-being. It is vital Mr Joyce and Wellington's leaders get it right, and that Wellington does not replace Auckland as the home of gridlock.

- © Fairfax NZ News