Dom Kalasih: Transporting NZ chief executive says Thorndon Quay raised crossings will cause major issues for heavy vehicles

Transport organisations are raising concerns about proposed raised crossings on Wellington's Thorndon Quay. 

Wellington City Council is planning five raised signalised crossings along a 1.7 kilometre stretch of the central city road. 

Freight lobby group Transporting New Zealand has joined forces with Fire and Emergency, the AA, New Zealand Heavy Haulage, and the Bus and Coach Association in calling on the council to rethink those plans. 

The group's chief executive Dom Kalasih told Ryan Bridge the raised crossings will cause major issues for trucks and other heavy vehicles. 

“Dare I say it, we’re just carrying freight. Think about all the people and buses and ambulances – people could be on their way to hospital.” 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Transport Coalition is calling for Wellington Council to rethink
the raised crossings that they're proposing for Thornton Key that
get this, five raised crossings in a one point seven
kilometer stretch of road. The coalition says that the crossings
can cause damage to large passenger vehicles and freight vehicles
and an increased risk for delays and disruptions for your

(00:21):
emergency services that's your ambulances and your fire service. Dom
Klasi is the interim CEO of Transporting New Zealand, they
look after road freight. He's with me this morning, doom.
How slow would a truck have to have to slow
down to to get over one of these things?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
What city council is saying is they want vehicles to
slow down to about thirty kilometers an hour. So they're
actually going to put signs up to.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Say there right, and will trucks have to go even
slower than that? You know, big ones?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, Look, particularly if they've got free job cargo on board.
You know, every time you go over a sharp bump
and you do need to slow down otherwise.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
You can damage the ca So we're talking like five crossings,
five raised crossings you'd be going ten k's over these
crossings or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
If you've got that would make it comfortable. And we're
just carrying freight. Think about all the people and buses
and ambulances and ambulances. You know, people could be on
their way to hospital and they're going over these bumps.
It's not very nice.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
No, And also, I mean foreign emergency is said that
it could add fifty to sixty seconds delayed to their
response time, which may not sound like much, but in
a life or death situation, and you're tak into account
that their target is eight minutes to get to an.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Event absolutely end. I think it might be aware fans
they get involved in providing CPR when ambulance can't, So
you know that's even more critical.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Is this in terms of freight, because that's your area
of expertise. Is this a busy road?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
It is? And look, if I understand the typically the
about eleven thousand vehicles going down there each day, and
I suspect about sixteen percent of those, so it's somewhere
around the eighteen hundred vehicles a day are freight vehicles
that would have to slow down five times, regardless of
whether they've got right of way through the site through

(02:17):
their signal.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Is the counsel listening to you, guys, Do you think
that there's a chance they will change things?

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, we're spoked. Actually, the mayor wrote to our coalition
yesterday acknowledging that there needs to be a balance of
all factors when considering these sorts of thing. So we're
looking forward to that discussion.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Better late than never, i suppose, Dom. Thank you very
much for your time. That's Don Calesi who's with the
Transport Group, sorry, the coalition, i should say, group of
transport representatives who aren't basically saying this is going to
slow us down too much. He's in from CEO of
Transporting News.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
For more from News Talks, there'd be listen live on
air or online and

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Keep our shows with you wherever you go with our
podcasts on iHeartRadio.