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Virginia Woolf / Stuff
Mayor Rachel Reese said she was concerned that having a state highway that “didn’t work as it should” could push traffic from state highways onto local highways and end up costing Nelson taxpayers.
The draft of the Nelson Future Access proposal to be presented at a recent Nelson council committee meeting has been delayed, misaligning it with Nelson’s upcoming long-term plans.
In lieu of the full draft proposal promised in the last September update, Nelson’s council regional ground transportation committee received a two-page update from the New Zealand Transportation Agency Waka Kotahi (Waka Kotahi) promising that the draft proposal it would arrive early next year.
Deputy Mayor Judene Edgar said she was “looking forward to this meeting a bit longer.”
“It’s not recognized that maybe we should have gotten a little more … clearly there has been a slip.”
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Waka Kotahi received public comment for about a month during June and July this year on three possible long-term solutions to Nelson’s transportation problems, with priority lanes proving to be the most popular and the coastal corridor widening last. .
Despite nearly 2,000 responses, Waka Kotahi lead transportation engineer and Future Access project manager Rhys Palmer told the committee that the agency had taken longer to do the full technical evaluations … and we missed the opportunity to do so and to involve the public. this side of Christmas ”.
NZTA / Supplied
There were nearly 2,000 responses on the three proposals from the Nelson Future Access Project, but ‘technical evaluations’ have delayed the draft of the Waka Kotahi plan.
Edgar noted that the delay means that the Nelson Future Access timeline has been pushed back and is no longer aligned with the upcoming processes of the Nelson City Council’s own long-term plan.
However, regardless of which long-term option was ultimately selected in the Future Access Project, there were short-term improvements that could be worked on, Palmer said.
“We have worked with the officers and we have some placeholder lines that they have developed, and some budgets for that, to allow the local roads component to be included as an order line. [in council plans]Palmer said.
Nelson’s council group infrastructure manager Alec Louverdis said the placeholder budget was about $ 47 million.
An NZTA car / supplied
The Nelson Future Access Project schedule for September, above, with the new schedule presented Monday.
“The rough estimate is $ 47 million, and that will be reflected in the draft RLTP [Regional Land Transport Plan]. There is still some work that Waka Kotahi and his consultants need to do to determine what dollars will be in the first six years. “
Mayor Rachel Reese said she was concerned the delays would push Waka Kotahi’s funding responsibilities onto Nelson’s taxpayers.
“If we have a state highway network that is not working as it should and does not meet the needs of the community, and then we are shifting back to local roads … then essentially we are doing a process of shifting towards the taxpayer,” she said. .
“If the mechanisms [in the future access plan] they’re going to be on the roads that are owned by Nelson City Council and not owned by Waka Kotahi, for a variety of reasons, so I think we need a conversation about that, because it’s really starting to be a situation where we have investments in state highways seen [in other places in New Zealand] And if we are not achieving any of those in our region, then essentially what we are doing is the taxpayer becoming the funder of the state highway deficiencies.
“I don’t think it is a reasonable result. It really becomes a point of being unaffordable for Nelson taxpayers, I don’t see how they could absorb that degree of cost. “
