NZ Politics @lemmy.nz Ilovethebomb @lemmy.nz 8mo ago

Government investigates 4km tunnel under Wellington

www.rnz.co.nz Government investigates 4km tunnel under Wellington

The tunnel would run from north of the Terrace to Wellington Road.

This would be amazing for anyone heading out to the bays or Wellington Airport, no intersections or lights to worry about, and it would make life so much easier for the CBD as well, not having so much through traffic in the CBD.

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Title makes it sound like they just found an unknown tunnel and are investigating what it's doing there.
- It was undermining constitutional foundation
- That's what I thought at first. I watched too much Wellington Paranormal.
Maybe it'd be good, but this just feels like the Boris Johnson method of:

announce some fantastical massive project that'll never get built but will pull some headlines for a bit

funnel some public money to cronies for contracting services to do a business case

quietly shelve it until it's time to pull out something else for the same effect.

If they want to reduce traffic congestion, expand public transport and make it more reliable and cheaper.
- This is being explored as an alternative to a second Terrace and Mt Vic tunnels, and sounds like just an idea for now.
  
  We desperately need to improve access to that area though, getting out to Miramar, Seatoun and Titahi Bay is a nightmare at times, including on weekends.
  
  And public transport can only do so much, it's not an option for everyone.
  
  It's not an option because we neglect it to the point it's not usable for a lot of trips.
  
  That doesn't mean improvements aren't possible, and they would help free up capacity on the existing road network. Roads are such a poor investment at this point, especially ones like these
A tunnel that long would tale a similar amount of time and money as an underground metro... And have significantly less utility and economic benefits...
- Also it will make traffic worse, not better, as it will result in more people driving...
  
  Definitely should dig a second one for rail as well.
Lol From the sound of the headline, I thought someone had dug an unauthorized 4km tunnel and it had just been discovered. Was thinking WTF
It's an amazing idea, but the seismic implications are enough to discourage it, I'd have thought.

How the heck does one build it with a straight face when we have so many quakes and have been expecting something major for decades?
- I mean, we've got no shortage of tunnels in Wellington, many of which have been around for over a hundred years, and withstood many earthquakes already. Building a quake resilient tunnel can definitely be done.
  
  So there's 3 tunnels that we run vehicles through, day to day (that im aware of). Terrace tunnel, mt Vic and the bus tunnel. The city would struggle with either of them collapsing, and I understand the ones under mt Vic are already in dire straits, going by some of the points hopeful mayors that they were campaigning on. I'm no expert but your claim feels like a huge stretch.
  
  As for earthquakes, there's one that was readily found via a search in 1855 and that "considerably reshaped the geography", so, respectfully, I completely disagree. https://www.wcl.govt.nz/heritage/earthquakes.html
  
  edit sorry, I should have clarified earlier, it's the major quakes I'm concerned about. Not the frequent little ones
- Earthquakes tend to go around voids, interestingly enough.
Let's pretend this government is going to stay in power for thirty years.

I predict this project wouldn't be completed in their tenure if they approved it tomorrow. Look at how long it took them to bypass Cambridge on SH1 FFS.
Listening to The Kaka this morning, Bernard Hickey has a nice take, one primary reason is that this will save politicians approx 15min between the airport and parliament...the cynicism made me LOL
- It would save me fifteen minutes every day too, to be fair.

53 comments