John MacDonald: What is Christchurch City Council thinking?

Poor old Phil Mauger.

After winning the Christchurch mayoralty on Saturday and saying on Sunday that he wants a transport plan for the city that is good for everyone - including motorists - yesterday, his council released details of its plan to spend $33 million upgrading the streets around the site of the new stadium, Te Kaha.

And in the process, it wants to take away dozens of car parks. There are currently 72, it wants to get rid of 49 and keep 23.

But that’s not all. The council wants to widen footpaths on some streets in the area to nearly six metres, put in more cycleways and lower the speed limit in the area to as low as 10 kilometres per hour.

Not surprisingly, businesses in the area aren’t happy about it. And no wonder, because it’s nuts. And I’m with Phil Mauger on this one. He’s saying the $33 million should be pumped into the stadium itself, not on taking away car parks, widening footpaths, cycleways and slowing down traffic to 10 kilometres per hour.

Phil Mauger is saying the work should only be done - and the money spent - once people start coming to town to go to the stadium and the city starts to reap the financial benefits that will come.

“You’ve got to cut your cloth to suit the budget”. That’s what the mayor is saying - and I fully agree with him.

Can you imagine when the council eventually gets around to what it should have done years ago, and knocks on the door at Waimakariri and Selwyn and asks them to help out with funding the stadium; can you imagine what they’ll say if they know the council is spending more than $30 million upgrading the streets around the stadium site?

If I was them, I’d say ‘come back when you’ve got your priorities sorted, then we’ll talk’.

Because spending $33 million beautifying the area when, at the moment, the stadium site itself is still pretty much a piece of dirt and when the council is still trying to nut out how it’s going to cover the cost blow-out, makes no sense at all.

I see the council’s transport manager is saying that if the council does this work now, it will mean it doesn’t have to spend money on expensive traffic management plans when big events are held at the stadium.

That will be because - if the council gets its way - there’ll be no car parks and traffic will be crawling along at 10 km/h. But let’s remind ourselves how often that’s going to happen.

As it stands, there’s probably going to be about one major event per month. The rest of the time we’ll be having an even harder time trying to find somewhere to park in town and we’ll be crawling around the place at 10 km/h.

I’m not surprised to see that I’m not the only one who thinks what the council wants to do is ridiculous.

Annabel Turley from the Central City Business Association says people still come into town in cars and they need to be catered for. And the businesses in town aren’t impressed with the council wanting to take away dozens of on-street carparks.

She makes a very good point too about the idea of widening the footpath on Lichfield Street to nearly six metres so there can be outdoor dining and all of that - instead of car parks.

Annabel Turley says that would be the last place you’d want to sit outside and eat, because of our old friend the easterly wind which likes to invite itself to pretty much everything here in Christchurch.

Yet again - an idea that looks brilliant on the urban planner’s computer screen, but totally wrong for the area.

Nevertheless, council staff wants to blow $33 million under the guise that it will save money in the long-run. But I don’t buy that for a minute and, like I say, if the Christchurch council thinks it’s going to get money for the stadium from the other local councils, then it needs to pull the plug on this nonsense and spend the money where it’s needed.

Like Phil Mauger says: “Cut your cloth to suit the budget”.

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