High Street remodeling prompts controversy over beauty versus efficiency

April 30th, 2010
by David Armstrong

Take a look at these photos - it may be the last time you see those three trees as they have stood for a decade on High Street opposite the entrance to Tudor Street. For the road workers have arrived and any hour now the way will be cleared for a wider, treeless section of High Street.

Some Motuekans are pleased about that, others are deeply unhappy. Motueka Online has spoken with people in both camps - from those who are tired of waiting to get into High Street from Tudor Street, to those afraid that the town will be a less attractive place to live and visit, all for the sake of moving the traffic on a bit faster.

Also of concern to some has been the insufficiency of consultation on the matter. Community Board chairman David Ogilvie says he did not see the news item in The Guardian paper and on this site a month ago, so he was surprised when he suddenly realised last week that the trees were to go along with the widened footpath area and seating outside the premises around The Moorings cafe.

Tasman District Council transportation manager Gary Clark says the work was signalled about 6 months ago at a meeting on site in Motueka with David, Howie Timms and engineers. Local councillors knew about it also, he says.

David's recollection and subsequent communication on the meeting is that the work discussed was all about the kerbing on the east side of High Street, and that any work on the major parts of the actual street, including pedestrian crossings and protruding seating areas, was to be part of the wider transportation plan and therefore still under consultation.

Freda Gerslov, who with the Arts Council was a leader in the 2000 Millennium project to shape High Street, expected also to be consulted on any major changes, but told Motueka Online that she had heard about the on-site meeting last year but had not been consulted on the plans, and did not know the trees and seating area would be removed until she saw it in the newspaper article.

Freda has accepted that this is now going to happen, but is concerned about the future of the seats and bins, which are customised and symbolic artworks specially commissioned for the purpose as part of the 2000 project. She is talking with council engineers about how they will be relocated and maintained.

Gary Clark says they will likely be used further south on High Street, because the roading project is "looking at softening the streetscape" down to the Whakarewa Street corner, "so there will be more trees planted, not less."

Gary believes that the newspaper article was sufficient notice for Motueka people that the changes were imminent, given that the issue had been discussed with David and Howie last year. That said, it gave no chance that the work could have been stopped.

Gary explains that the road is owned and operated by NZ Transportation Agency (NZTA), which tries to balance looks versus safety and efficiency. They believe the corner is a safety hazard and a point of significant congestion as cars trying to turn right into Tudor Street wait for through traffic travelling south along High Street.

David Ogilvie believe anything that allows the traffic to move faster through town will decrease safety, not increase it. "What NZTA is interested in is moving traffic along as quickly as it can," he says. "They don't want things like traffic lights and pedestrian crossings that slow up traffic." And Motueka people who complain about waiting to enter High Street at busy times should show a little more patience. "It's rarely more than a few minutes you have to wait."

One Motueka resident, John Hutton, commented on this website: "Motueka's main street is not exactly the prettiest road in NZ and removing the trees certainly won't help improve its looks any.

"On the contrary, if Motueka wanted to look better (and attract more tourists, as well, perhaps), it could be well served by the planting of more trees - many, many more trees (and shrubs, and grass).

"Far better to lobby the governments to put in the by-pass and new bridge which would dramatically reduce the volume of traffic going through town. Wouldn't it be nice if Motueka had a nicer, more 'human' feel to it, like Takaka does? Oh well, such is 'progress'."

Almost all people spoken to say that a town bypass would solve this growing problem of traffic versus people-friendly streetscaping, but this is many, many years off yet. So it looks like we're set to argue about the boundary between green/slow and industrial/fast for some time yet.

In the meantime, Council's Transportation Plan for Motueka is due out soon, so some interim ideas and answers may become apparent then.

Comment by William Cleaver:
[Posted 3 May 2010]
Once again the TDC and related groups dont appear to communicate with one another. This is a on-going problem and the community is losing faith in our council. I don't believe that works cannot be stoped in the eleventh hour. And a proper consultation be done. Maybe it was, but reading between the lines of the recent article this does not appear to be the case. Widening roads, removal of trees or whatever may solve the problem but the main issue for traffic in this town is the pedestrians. Below is my recent article published in another section.

It appears to me that the traffic problem up the Main St of Motueka has little to do with the cars. If you removed the pedestrian crossings the traffic would flow at a steady pace except for courteous drivers letting other drivers in and out of car parks, wouldn't it.

So the problem is the pedestrian crossings. No it's not, it's the people using them. I have been stuck on a crossing waiting for a person or persons to get off the crossing and to find the moment their foot hits the footpath somebody else walks on to the crossing and the whole process steps into motion again. This went on for at least 5 minutes one day and in the end I thought bugger it and drove off anyway leaving a pedestrian flapping his arms and shouting abuse about how inconsiderate I was. Go figure.

Christchurch had the same issue on Papanui Rd Merivale, so they installed lights for the pedestrians. This has worked to a degree but when you are dealing with over 100,000 cars a day on the same stretch of road there will always be a problem. So you see it's not the cars, it's the people.

>> , to be added to the page. [If this link doesn't work, use this form instead]

[ Return ]