News

NZTA held a meeting for those whose properties border the Glen Innes to Tamaki Drive shared path. The meeting was held on Wednesday 3 April 2019 at St Thomas’ Church Hall, Kohimarama. Tim Duguid, the Meadowbank  & St Johns Residents Association’s spokesperson for the GI to Tamaki Drive shared path attended the meeting and his report follows.

Attendees

There were about 6-10 NZTA / AT PR / Community Relations and Project Team Engineers present. The focus of the meeting was for “neighbours” i.e. those residents living in properties backing onto the path. There were up to 10 residents while I was there (7:30-8:00 pm).

Meeting format

Fifty or more A1 colour drawings of the entire route from St Johns Road to the Boardwalk were laid out on trestle tables around the hall. Very impressive. In fact they couldn’t all fit on the tables. Two (or more) of the engineers them had walked the entire route, on surveys and knew it in great detail, which was excellent. Given the focus of the meeting, the sheets showing where the path ran adjacent to properties were prioritised.

Summary of points noted

Project scope / timeline

1. The detailed design for the route of the path appears complete; some changes may be possible; some aspects such as bridge / handrail / lighting pole design elements were not apparent from the plans presented.
2. Construction will start in October 2019.
3. Completion scheduled for 2021 (I believe early 2021).
4. Only the end-to-end path is in scope: none of the side paths were even shown on the drawings, other than John Rymer Place (JRP), which is shown “greyed out” as a possible construction path, and a possible connection.

Comments on project scope

1. I asked firstly about JRP. I said it was a key access point and “everyone” was looking forward to it opening at the same time as the path. The NZTA team were at pains to point out that it ran through a Watercare property and was out of scope, and in a different project managed by AT. I said I understood that and let them know my involvement in identifying the potential use of 64 JRP as a northerly access point five years ago (I gave them the name of the engineer who took it on board from which the concept design was drawn up four years ago). Anyway I just wanted to know if the JRP access path project would be coordinated to open at the same time. No-one could / would say of course. I didn’t pursue the point.
2. I asked if 64 JRP was certain to be used for construction access and was told there was some doubt about that. There is an alternative (longer) possible access route, heading down from the path where it leaves the pony paddocks behind Whytehead Cres. I hope that doesn’t happen, because that would not secure the JRP link in the way that using JRP as the construction access point would secure it: my view being that if a construction access path is built to JRP, it will not be removed.
3. The guys I spoke to knew nothing at all about the Gowing Drive underpass; had not even heard of it. I later found one person in the team who had. I gave the engineers the background of what I knew, noting that the OLB and AC funds that had been committed. They were interested. They need to know! See design comments below.
4. By contrast they were aware of the plans for local links at Tahapa Reserve East, Tahapa Reserve West and at Meadowbank Train Station, and noted that these were being planned by others (OLB).
5. They also knew of the possibility and usefulness of putting in a boardwalk style walking path linking the path to the Kepa Bush trail south west of 53 Thatcher St, to allow access through to Thatcher St at number 35, but said that had been stripped out of scope due to cost overruns and/or budget constraints.

Comments on designs (from East to West)

1. Notwithstanding that the JRP access being out of a separate project, I asked the engineers if they were familiar with the Watercare site at 64 JRP, including its driveway, layout, rear boundary fence and the ground levels in the bush behind it. One of them was, which itself is encouraging, because these details matter. I asked him if the fence was still broken down, as it was the last time I was down there, when there was a gap which you could get through into the bush. He said it was still there and acknowledged some people were apparently using it. I said I expected lots of people to start using it as soon as the path had got across the train tracks at Tahapa Reserve East and along to the relatively open land roughly level with the eastern end of the cemetery, because at that point, you could safely and easily walk right up to the 64 JRP boundary fence, whether there was an official new path there or not, and of course people would use it because it would be the shortest route by far heading north.
2. The eastern end of the bridge over the upper reaches of the Pourewa Creek roughly level with 64 JRP (I’m referring here to the main path, not the possible link to it) represents the western limit for construction vehicles accessing from St Johns: up to that point, it’s all concrete and diggers, trucks etc can drive along the route. They can’t cross the bridge, which is of course a suitably lightweight construction.
3. There were no visuals of the bridge, only the “map” plan views but it looks good from those, curving slightly, on a slight incline, and at treetop height. It should be awesome!
4. The western end of the bridge becomes another concrete path for a short distance, then a boardwalk stretching some 700 m (roughly the length of the cemetery) to the rail over-bridge at Tahapa Reserve East. The boardwalk will be pretty much identical to the new Orakei Basin Boardwalk, but with wooden handrails. I believe these will be 1.2 m not 1.4 m, but this needs to be checked as again it wasn’t shown in the plans. Along much of this, the ground is sloping below the path from south to north and the path is elevated above the ground, especially on the northern side.
5. The project team said they will clear privet and exotic weeds and will plant appropriate native species. I encouraged them to do as much of this as possible.
6. Part way along the length of the cemetery, the path becomes elevated above the level of the tracks (which head downhill somewhat from the tunnel down to Meadowbank Train Station) then ramps up to 7 m above the tracks to clear the overhead wires and down again, but only slightly into Tahapa Reserve East, joining the grassy area to the north of the northernmost clump of trees. This bridge should afford particularly awesome views across the Purewa Creek to the city. As as the other bridge, there are vantage points built out from the path.
7. At this stage, there is no access planned off the path at the eastern end of the rail over-bridge. I asked if they could allow for a gate in the fence, and steps down to the bush, because people will want to create paths and clear non-native vegetation and plant natives, like the volunteer groups do in Kepa Bush, Pourewa Bush and Selwyn Bush on the northern side of the creek. The guys were sympathetic to this and even if this is out of scope, I suspect may be happy to coordinate with whoever wants to plan this to make sure it could be done, either during or after the project. It’s a big area over there: we need to think about our members might what to do about it, and who to coordinate with (e.g. Friends of Pourewa Valley, Ngati Whatua o Orakei, Eastern Songbirds Project).
8. The path heads through Tahapa Reserve East as a concrete path and along to Tahapa Reserve West a few metres away from the property boundaries as a boardwalk over the steeply sloping ground, basically clearing a path through where the trees are, rather than along the existing grass path. This keeps the path and streetlights a little away from and below the garden fences. The path is closer to the fences behind Mamaku St and along to Tahapa Reserve West. The PR team reported little or no push back from those residents.
9. Further along, I was happy to see that the path now heads up the existing Kiwirail construction access track at Meadowbank Train Station, rather than staying in the rail corridor all the way to the Boardwalk. This makes the route to the train station much shorter, as was originally planned. To facilitate this, a new Kiwirail construction access track is planned right at the start of the Boardwalk, opposite the Watercare pumping station. That part of the path will have removable bollards and flashing lights to be used when Kiwirail or Watercare (or other) vehicles need to access it. I think that’s a good idea: keep all the potential vehicle conflicts in one place, where the path is very wide, and there is great visibility and space on either side.

Other comments

The team seemed nervous of residents’ concerns. They are offering new back fences and gates for those who want them and providing reassurance about lighting. I agreed lighting would be a reasonable concern, but I also suggested that anyone on Whytehead Cres or JRP who were lucky enough to find themselves backing onto the path would land a windfall of $ 50k on their property value, because they will have a 5-10 min bike ride or 10-15 min walk to Meadowbank Train Station and an 8 min train ride to Britomart (and 10 mins to Aotea Station in 2024) which was much better than 45+ mins on a bus along Kohi / Kepa / Ngapipi / Tamaki Drive (none of which has any transit lanes). So, the PR team could be bullish about this project and not at all defensive.

I invited the team to contact MBSJRA and present the whole set of design drawings to us (we’d need the conference room). I said we’d love them to present the drawings to us before they started digging, which they agreed to. In the end they were quite keen and agreed to try to find a date before construction.