Street-widening may cause company to move

Press, 24 June 1983, Page 5

Street-widening may cause company to move

A big Christchurch engineering company said last evening that it might have to shift its factory from the inner city if it lost a 5m frontage for street-widen-ing.

Mr Grant Bailey, legal officer of Andrews and Beaven, Ltd, told a Christchurch City Council planning hearing that it wanted years of warning to be given if it had to shift. Andrews and Beaven was objecting to plans by the Ministry of Works and Development to widen Barbadoes Street and Madras Street between Bealey Avenue and Moorhouse Avenue.

The hearing panel comprises Cr Kathleen Lowe and Crs A. G. James and D. J. Rowlands.

Mr Bailey said that the present plan for Madras Street would mean that the building would lose a corner, involving the removal of the costing and drawing offices.

What the company feared more was that since the designation for a flyover across the railway lines from Gasson Street to connect with Madras Street had not been lifted, this option could be revived in the future, necessitating the slicing of 5m off the Madras Street frontage of the factory.

If the company had to move, it would take years of planning; and the cost of redeveloping on a new site would be greater than revenue from the sale of the old site, Mr Bailey said. Mr P. N. Dyhrberg, for the North-East Inner City Neighbourhood Group, said that social factors should be given high priority in planning decisions affecting the area. The group felt that the need for a State highway would be better satisfied by routing it along the four main avenues — Bealey, Fitzgerald, Moorhouse, and Deans avenues. If that meant that median strips would have to be narrowed and trees lost, the group felt that this was preferable to the impact on social life which would take place under the present plan, Mr Dyhrberg said. Mr Robert Buchanan, on behalf of Te Whanau Trust and 12 other objectors, said that a count of traffic on June 17 at the intersection of Barbadoes Street and Kilmore Street showed , that only for two periods were there peak flows of traffic. — 7.45 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 8.15 a.m. to 8.30 a.m. One then had to ask whether it was worth the cost to widen the roads when the benefit would be confined to only two 15minute periods each day and to avoid a few seconds delay for rush-hour motorists.

Instead of spending a lot of money on demolishing buildings and widening roads, the money would be better spent promoting public transport and cycling, and staggering work hours, Mr Buchanan said.

Mr Nicholas Gatony, bar manager of the King

George Hotel, at the corner of Madras Street and St Asaph Street, said that he and Mr W. E. Radford had bought the business in December, 1980, and had spent $40,000 improving it. They had an option to buy it freehold, but if the plans to widen Madras Street went ahead the hotel would have to be demolished.

Mr D. B. Whelan, musical director of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Barbadoes Street, submitted evidence from several leading Christchurch musicians, expressing alarm at the possibility that more traffic noise would affect what Mr Whelan said were the “magnificent acoustic properties” for which the cathedral was "internationally renowned.” He asked that ways be found to reduce the impact of traffic on the area.

Dr R. E. Nixon, on behalf of eight residents of Cambridge Terrace, said that the existing configuration of Madras Street and Barbadoes Street was adequate. “Ninety-degree turns round latimer Square on Madras Street are a boon for pedestrians. Were those to be smoothed out, as per the various proposed options, we would have one more dangerous raceway,” he said.

Dr Nixon questioned “the simple morality” of spending a lot of public money on “unnecessary” roadworks “when we are surrounded by examples of unmet human need, some of them virtually life-threatening.” Mr A. C. Peters, of 346 Madras Street, said that between February, 1982, and February, 1983, there had been a decrease of 7500 vehicles using Madras Street at the corner of Salisbury Street, according to City Council monitoring. He said that with care there was no need to widen the roads and create “motorway refugees.” Sister Zoe, of the Community of the Sacred Name, at 181 Barbadoes Street, asked that heavy traffic be rerouted on alternative roads because of the problem of vibrations.

Mr J. H. Pugh, of 342 Madras Street, said that the needs of more traffic could be met just by adopting a clearway on the eastern side of Madras Street between Peterborough Street and Salisbury Street between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. When the hearing began on Wednesday evening evidence was given by the Christchurch City Council’s traffic engineer, Mr M. L. Gadd, that widening and intersection work were justified within the next few years, on planning grounds. Area control, through phased traffic signals, failed to handle peak traffic flows, especially in the mornings. “’Under the worst conditions, traffic can only move forwards a block at a time on each change of signals,” Mr Gadd said.

It was “wise to plan for likely growth — not to the extent of over-encouraging private motor-vehicle use, but certainly sufficiently to

avoid congestion of the city, with its attendant pollution, noise and frustration,” he said.

There was no doubt that significant traffic growth could and would occur, he said. Such growth and its associated parking requirements should be directed to places, where they could best be handled.

The eastern traffic corridor could become even more important if northern arterial plans were abandoned.

Most vehicle trips diverted by such changes as a Victoria Square closing and the remodelling of High Street near the City Mall would have to go into the one-way street system. Mr Gadd said that the present widening proposals minimised the effect on land, and were the absolute minimum needed to achieve any traffic flow and city centre attraction improvement.

The proposed widening at Latimer Square was very minimal to do the job it was designed to do. The “do-nothing option” could lead to more traffic on other streets in the city centre and elsewhere.

“This tends to spread both accidents and noise further afield, resulting in a greater total problem,” Mr Gadd said.

“The only alterantive open to the civic authorities would be to halt or reverse central growth, or physically restrain the entry of motor-vehicles into the city,” he said. “Based on considerable experience, neither of these alternatives would work in a city the size of Christchurch, even assuming the community had the resources.” Social effects of such street-widening designations had to be considered in the long term, said Mr B. N. Alexander, a senior City Council planner.

“There is no doubt that any road-widening proposal brings about some degree of disruption to a community; not only those people directly alongside the route, but those in the vicinity, can be affected,” he said. Such consequences were inevitable in planning terms if loss to the private individual was small when compared with wider gains for the community at large.

Mr Alexander said there was an opportunity to use Government-owned land in the old central motorway corridor, between Barbadoes Street and Madras Street, for such improvements as car-parking and landscaping.

Short-term economic savings in the reduction of land required for widening might cause more adverse longterm enrivonmental and social effects on adjoining properties because the opportunity to plan buffer improvements was reduced. Mr Alexander said there was still scope for providing additional open space, offstreet parking, and planting in association with the proposed widening, with general neighbourhood improvements.