Russell Brown: Why Meola Rd project is well overdue – and fight over bike lanes, raised crossings is a ‘stupid culture war’

OPINION

The works on Meola Rd took a long time – from 1930 to 1952, in fact. Until then, it was two roads, one from Westmere and one from Point Chevalier, which both terminated in a rubbish dump. But, as the Auckland Star observed six years into the 22-year journey, it would be “a boon” for residents to be able to move easily between their neighbouring suburbs.

In that light, I suppose we should be grateful that the works that began just before Christmas have taken only a decade or so to come to pass. It has been a wearying decade, one which has seen a succession of plans to fix the road, each opposed by people who largely didn’t live in Point Chevalier and who seemed to see it more as a culture war than a road repair.

An example of the 'Swedish raised table' being rolled out in Pt Chevalier. Photo / Russell Brown

It did, let us be clear, begin with a bike lane, that reliable trigger for the change-averse. This wasn’t unreasonable: Point Chevalier’s bike commuting share is the highest in Auckland, but we have not until now, had a single metre of safe cycling infrastructure. That’s why the Point Chevalier to Westmere upgrade will also install bike lanes down Point Chevalier Rd, to connect with paths to the city, the West and the Manukau Harbour.

But a much bigger and more costly task than that was soon incorporated: like Western Springs College, which had to be rebuilt several years ago, the road was sinking into the landfill it was built on. There was no footpath on the north side of the central part of the road and the paths on the other side were sketchy. It was so narrow that when it was parked up – as it frequently was, because it’s a popular recreational area – buses couldn’t pass each other and everything ground to a halt.

It was probably only finally approved by the council and Auckland Transport last year out of sheer embarrassment. The historic rains last summer had caused parts of the road to subside so badly that the asphalt surface shattered and there was foul water from the old landfill seeping across the paths. It was utterly inadequate for what has become an arterial route. You couldn’t not fix it.

The naysayers did not stand aside for long, sadly. Most recently, it’s been about the hysteria du jour: the raised pedestrian crossing. There will be four such crossings on one road and five on the other. Three replace existing zebra crossings, including the sole one on Meola Rd, where a volunteer school crossing monitor was hit by a car and seriously injured two years ago. Another will finally allow Western Springs students to cross more safely to and from their buses instead of just making a run for it in front of speeding traffic (the students actually made their own submission to the council about this). They’ll even have a footpath to cross to.

Road works on Meola Rd in the Auckland suburb of Pt Chevalier. Photo / Nicola Lamb

The crossings are not extreme. They’re “Swedish raised tables”, whose primary feature is a smooth exit for vehicles off the crossing. There’s already one further up Point Chevalier Rd, near the primary school, which has caused no consternation whatsoever. They also, whatever you’ve read or heard, will not cost half a million dollars each. AT’s budget is $31,000 for the large ones and $19,000 for smaller crossings to level the path across the top of the side streets.

Yes, they will oblige drivers to slow down. But we can’t keep designing our neighbourhoods around the imperative of cars travelling through them as fast as possible. People live here and there are three schools, busy sports grounds and a huge retirement village on the two-kilometre route. It should be possible for everyone to cross the road safely, including at the roundabout at the Garnet Rd end, which has long been a nightmare for anyone not in a car.

Meola Rd runs between Pt Chevalier Rd and Garnet Rd.

Yes, there is a range of views being expressed in the local Facebook community groups and some people are exasperated by the detour around Meola while it’s rebuilt from the foundations up. There are a few things to iron out: it would be useful if drivers could enter the large new car park at Motat, which replaces on-street parking, from Meola Rd itself, for example. But I honestly think most people who live here in Point Chevalier see the project as a long-overdue enhancement of the place we live in.

I won’t deny that I’m personally looking forward to a less-frightening ride to the butcher and the supermarkets in Grey Lynn. I’m a confident rider on a fast e-bike – I was briefly a London cycle courier many years ago – but it would sometimes be the case that I couldn’t face the stress of riding to those nearby places on such a dangerous road and just added to the traffic instead. Without the need to do battle, kids will ride to their Saturday football and maybe more people will feel safe getting on a bike.

We’ll come out of this a better-built place, where our diverse and rapidly growing population will be able to move around more easily. I’m looking forward to that. Just as much as I’m looking forward to not being in the middle of a stupid culture war.

Russell Brown is a freelance journalist who has lived in Point Chevalier for 25 years