Uni dream: car-free Symonds St

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Concern for the safety of thousands of Auckland University students spilling daily across congested Symonds St has led to a proposal for a 410m vehicle tunnel costing $59 million.

Sending vehicles underground for two blocks from Wellesley St to Anzac Ave, where heavy traffic now bisects the university, would also allow a network of gardens and new buildings to sprout up on the space above.

The proposal, by a team led by senior architecture lecturer Charles Walker and senior engineering tutor Hugh Morris, was the winner among about 130 entries in a university pedestrian safety design competition.

Although Auckland City Council may baulk at the price, both it and the Land Transport Safety Authority shared the costs of running the competition out of concern for students risking their lives when scurrying across Symonds St between lectures.

About 30,000 people are based at the campus and most seem to prefer dodging traffic to using two pedestrian underpasses, even though the death this year of a student killed on his motorcycle by a u-turning vehicle shocked the university community.

Mr Morris, a civil engineer, said yesterday that creating a safe and secure "garden oasis" for pedestrians while freeing up traffic would prove invaluable to the life of the city and not just the university.

But he believed the university, as the main beneficiary, should take up the proposal with the council and consider buying the land above the tunnel to give it a possible $20 million kick-start.

He acknowledged the project could in no way be justified on traditional cost-benefit grounds, but said the aesthetic appeal and human enjoyment of such a vital city precinct would increase immeasurably.

He said the cost should be considered within the overall scheme of Auckland roading projects and university developments on the Grafton side of Symonds St, including the new business school.

One such project is a proposed $19.5 million bus transit corridor up Symonds St and across the Grafton Bridge to Newmarket, which Mr Morris said could fit inside a four-lane tunnel.

Mr Walker said the above-ground space would provide a sanctuary which the general public could share with the university. "We envisage this as a multi-level green garden which will connect parts of the university that are currently separated from shared resources," he said.

"We tried to capture the concept of the university as an idealistic place and came up with a series of gardens which encourage social and cultural interaction between students."

This would help to slow the frenetic pace, creating a more relaxed environment in which ideas had more chance of germinating.

Although fumes would have to be removed from the tunnel, Mr Walker said they could be channelled through vents in symbolic "ivory towers" well above pedestrians.

Competition organiser and psychology senior lecturer Dr Niki Harre said successive safety studies showed it was virtually impossible to change the behaviour of pedestrians short of physically separating them from vehicles.

The majority leader on the new Auckland City Council, Dr Bruce Hucker, said he would need to study details of the proposal before commenting but added that his team intended reviewing elements of the bus transit corridor.