MANY Hataitai residents are unhappy with Wellington City Council proposals for the Hataitai bus tunnel.
They feel the council is not listening to them, particularly over tunnel safety.
In particular Kent Duston of the Mt Victoria Residents Association says he is not happy with out of service buses continuing to use the tunnel.
“Any claims that residents are happy with this is a continuing process of council staff incorrectly representing the views of residents,” he says.
The proposal received a huge thumbs down when council sought submissions on the issue in August, with only three of 92 submissions in favour of the status quo.
Out of service bus use, and pedestrian and cars using the tunnel illegally were the main objections.
Despite this the council has proposed that out of service buses should continue to use the tunnel.
Although tighter security and cameras are to be installed, there would be no barriers to prevent pedestrian access.
Duston objects: “This proposal will lead to additional congestion and cause further damage to local properties. I feel the proposal fails to address the key problem of tunnel safety. I want to see a solid proposal come from council that will show proper enforcement. I want passenger carrying buses and emergency services to use the tunnel, but not out of service buses. Adding more buses to the traffic flow will in no way help to mitigate the sort of crashes that so badly injured Earl Krauskopf in 2009, nor address the issue of pedestrians using the lane,” he says.
One of only three residents who supports the council’s proposal is K Khot of Woodbridge.
Khot feels increased prosecution of offending cars and pedestrians would help.
“I don’t see the out of service buses as the main problem. The problem is the cars that zoom through it and this delays buses. It needs to be safer.”
Approximately 70 (illegal) cars and 430 buses (including 50 which are passenger free) use the tunnel daily according to the council and there have been five incidents involving pedestrians or cars using the tunnel illegally.
Paul Barker, WCC’s Safe and Sustainable Transport Manager, feels that the report will ease resident’s concerns.
“I believe it will improve the situation. We’ll be beefing up signage and installing cameras. I don’t feel the installation of gates [estimated at $20,000] would be a good use of council funds. The buses that use the tunnel will only be those recognised as registered with Greater Wellington. We feel the tunnel can handle the current flow of buses, and we don’t expect to see more buses using the route,” he says.   
Capital Times contacted five randomly selected people who had filed submissions. All were unhappy with the decision to allow out of service buses to continue to use the route and did not feel their safety concerns for the tunnel were addressed.
The Wellington City Councils Strategy and Policy Committee will discuss the proposed traffic resolution on August 19.