Track option for eastern highway

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Ron Urlich says chewing up good housing for the eastern highway is crazy when a designated route already exists beside the railway track into the city.

Especially when it is a new Meadowbank home like Mr Urlich's - built for retirement with that bit of extra space for the grandchildren. The house is not in the direct path of any of the proposed routes, but it is close enough to hear the roar of motorway traffic.

Mr Urlich is one of more than 1500 people who have attended the first three open days at which people can give their views on 11 feasible routes for the 27km highway through Auckland's eastern suburbs.

The highway has been costed at between $1.9 billion and $2.9 billion.

Three more opens days will be held over the next week.

Mr Urlich said it was crazy that the Auckland and Manukau City Councils and Transit were considering taking golf clubs, shopping centres and swathes of houses for the highway when the obvious route was the 1950s designation through Purewa Creek, into Orakei Basin and across Hobson Bay.

Purewa Creek, 5km from downtown Auckland, contains mangroves with a coastal protection order prohibiting their removal.

Panmure resident John Molloy was another who did not want the highway in his backyard.

He was totally opposed to the Farm Cove option, which would come across the Tamaki River just north of his home in Dunkirk Rd.

It would destroy the coastal view he had enjoyed for 50 years, he said, and he was concerned about the effect on three nearby schools.

Like many people at the open days, Mr Molloy said he would be a lot happier when the councils and Transit revealed their preferred route.

That is expected to be in about April next year.

Pakuranga dentist Hilton King said there were too many options, some of them unrealistic, which was causing unnecessary worry.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that one of the options for the "Parnell tunnel corridor" starting at Stanley St in the city would take some of Auckland Domain in the gully behind Parnell Rd.

But engineers are looking at ways of extending a tunnel through the parkland.

An engineer for Opus International Consultants, Ian Clark, said the Parnell tunnel corridor was intended to give motorists more options at the city end.

From Stanley St, they could get on the Southern, Northern and Western Motorways or into the city via Beach Rd or the new Wellesley St overbridge.

Opus has found the alternative highway route into the city, via Quay St, would cause traffic jams and delays.

Have your say

Consultation days still to run:

Saturday, October 11, 9am-4pm: Parnell District School Hall, Gladstone Rd, Parnell.

Tuesday, October 14, 4pm-8pm: Panmure District School, 87 Mt Wellington Highway, Mt Wellington.

Wednesday, October 15, 4pm-8pm: Orakei Community Centre, 156 Kepa Rd, Orakei.