This piece originally appeared on stuff.co.nz on Tuesday April 15, 2014.
Ohariu MP Peter Dunne wants NZ Transport Agency to withdraw Takapu Valley and Tawa motorway expansion plans until proper consultation has been held with affected communities and organisations.
He outlined his hopes at a packed public meeting at the Tawa Community Centre last Wednesday evening.
Dunne said he was in favour of the link road from Petone to Grenada, but wanted the transport agency to go back to the drawing board on options C and D - the options of the road veering through Takapu Valley, where it will connect with Transmission Gully, or the widening of State Highway One at Tawa.
The meeting was called so residents could consider the agency's link road proposals.
Dunne said that as a measure of good faith, the agency should formally withdraw options C and D.
"NZTA needs to engage with councils, the [Tawa] community board and the wider community about whether there is a problem and, if there is, what the best way is of resolving it," he said.
He said people affected by both propositions did not have a clear sense of what the agency was trying to achieve.
"When the Government was discussing Transmission Gully, the issue of the [Tawa] motorway widening was never raised. Why at the 11th hour raise issues if they are that critical and drop them on people?"
Dunne said the agency had created a "worst of all worlds situation".
He said it appeared the agency was trying to "play [communities] off against each other and then say it is just a scoping exercise. It's appalling."
He said the link road and the widening propositions were raised at the end of 2013.
"There has been no clear justification yet as to why."
The agency's Wellington state highway manager, Rod James, said the link road would be a critical part of the region's transport system.
The meeting was a quiet one because organisers had given James an assurance he would not be heckled.
James said the link road, which had been mooted for years, would cut travel time between the Hutt Valley and Porirua, take traffic off the dangerous Haywards Hill road and provide an alternative route if Ngauranga Gorge was blocked in a disaster.
It is estimated peak-time travel between the regions would be 10 minutes quicker, with 7 kilometres sliced from the trip.
James said decisions about the link road would be taken by Wellington City Council, Wellington Regional Council, Hutt City Council and the transport agency.
"If the decision of those councils is that we do not believe there is going to be a problem north of Tawa once we build Transmission Gully, then that may be where we end up.
We have worked with the regional council over the last few months and do think we will have a problem north of Tawa if we do not plan for some kind of increased capacity.
"These are the options potentially to mitigate that problem and we have taken the view that we need to share that immediately with those affected."
James assured people their views would be taken seriously.
"We have shared information with the communities potentially affected by some of these options at an early stage so we can hear your views."
Original URL: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/local-papers/kapi-mana-news/9942220/MP-slams-transport-agencys-road-plan