Submission from Living Streets Aotearoa

on the Porirua City Centre Revitalisation Plan

 

Organisation:               Living Streets Aotearoa

Contact person:           Mike Mellor

Address:                       PO Box 25-424

                                    Wellington

Email:                          mike.mellor at livingstreets.org.nz

Phone:                          027 684 1213

Date:                            16^th November 2007

 

About Living Streets Aotearoa

 

Living Streets Aotearoa (LSA) is a national organisation with a vision of “More people choosing to walk more often and enjoying public places – young and old, fast and slow, walking, sitting and standing, commuting, shopping, between appointments, for exercise, for leisure and for pleasure.”

 

The objectives of LSA are:

·        to promote walking as a healthy, environmentally-friendly and universal means of transport and recreation

·        to promote the social and economic benefits of pedestrian-friendly communities

·        to work for improved access and conditions for walkers, pedestrians and runners e.g. walking surfaces, traffic flows, speed and safety

·        to advocate for greater representation of pedestrian concerns in national, regional and urban land use and transport planning.

 

For more information, please see: www.livingstreets.org.nz  

 

Submission

Living Streets Aotearoa is very pleased to see the emphasis put on these aspects in this interesting and comprehensive plan. It is good that the plan includes recognition of the problems that we are aware of with the present CBD, and that the proposed solutions generally recognise the importance of:

 

• pedestrian movement,
• permeability;
• good pedestrian links with public transport facilities;
• legibility;
• transit-oriented development.

 

We support the overall objectives, particularly 1, 3 and 4, but in the body of the plan we do not believe that walking, cycling and public transport routes to and from the CBD get the attention that they deserve. For instance, the maps of both the existing and proposed movement frameworks (figs. 2-26 and 5-10 respectively) do not show these routes, and they are not mentioned in section 2.9 and only briefly in section 5.7. Given that one of the “City Centre Question Marks” is “Lack of penetration into core area” (page 13), and that Objective 1’s Means section says “All modes are equitably represented with shared and dedicated movement options. These options allow a range of convenient and safe routes around and through the City Centre”, this omission seems surprising.

 

Two particular issues that seem not to be addressed are:

 

• SH1 and the railway present a significant barrier to pedestrians and cyclists trying to reach the CBD from the east;
• bus routes through the CBD and to/from the railway station are circuitous and slow.

 

We submit that section 2.9 and fig.2.26 should be amended to include other modes, and that section 5.7, fig. 5-10 and the key projects be amended to address these issues.

 

As a final point, we note that one of the broad measures associated with Objective 1 is that “Visitors find it easy to navigate the Centre and find destinations within it”. This is not currently the case for visitors arriving by train, and we suggest that installing directional signage from and to the railway station would be a quick, easy and effective way of helping improve this situation.

 

We look forward to seeing how this plan develops.