Lake Road Project 2

The $8 million upgrade of Lade Road between Napier Ave and Jutland Road was initiated by the North Shore City Council, which was dissolved last year. The project started in early 2010. It involves undergrounding of power lines and road widening to make room for two traffic lanes and a cycle lane on each direction.

 

However, there was a traffic chaos in Takapuna last Thursday as road closures brought peak hour traffic to standstill. Moreover, business owners are becoming more and more frustrated as the Lake Road upgrade project starts to affect their income. One of the owners said ‘the speed of it is chronically showed and I can’t see the reason why. It’s becoming an absolute joke for everybody. What happened was a huge disappointment and it’s impacting on the local economy. People are extremely upset.’

The transportation network upgrade operates very often around us. However, does it really improve our life? Obviously, the project operating in Takapuna does not work really well. It already affects people’s mental and spiritual wellbeing. In other word, this transportation activity is hurting citizen’s health.

Super City means to us

From Government point of view, the Auckland Super City Plan reduces wasteful duplicated expenditure, and reduces administration numbers. For us, it is making easier for homeowners to understand and deal with their rates, and other government actions. It is hoped that the Super City will also facilitate better ways of aligning central and local government initiatives on improving social wellbeing.

What does Auckland Super City means to us. The most outstanding change should be numbers of facility. Taking Auckland Airport for example, the Airport currently has to intend to make the most of the opportunities that come with being part of a large entity. With a 22% stake in the company, the new council is Auckland Airport’s biggest shareholder by far. Auckland Airport’s Richard Llewellyn says ‘the airport has started working with the incoming councilors and executive team who officially take over on 1 November’. Richard is confident that the airport can help the new mayor and council achieve their goals including better public transport linking to the airport, part of Len Brown’s $10 billion transport plan for Auckland city. ‘We will ensure we have the appropriate infrastructure required to accommodate ambitious growth, deliver outstanding passenger experiences, and provide the best possible first impressions of Auckland,’ says Richard. 

Here’s a hope the Auckland Super City lives up to its promises and turns out to be great news for all Aucklanders!

Super City Advantages ?!

The new Auckland Council will merge the existing council operations of the current eight councils into a single service provider. The advantages of this include:

• One rating system instead of 8 rating authorities.
• One rates bill instead of two per property.
• One IT data system instead of 8 separate council data systems.
• One regional transport authority instead of 8 local transport entities.
• One water and wastewater provider instead of 8 water providers.
• One Long Term Council Community Plan (LTCCP).
• One district plan instead of 7 different district plans.

Overall the advantages in one sentence are that everything becomes one, and everything becomes simple. The 8 rating authorities, 8 council data systems, 8 local transport entities, 8 water and wastewater providers, 8 Long Term Council Community Plan, and 7 district plans are all becomes 1 system. Obviously, it greatly cuts off the labor cost, saves physical and natural resources. Everything would be designed in a ‘big picture’. There is no more arguing, confusing and misunderstanding among different councils.

However, this situation indicates that every plan, activity and strategy taken by the Auckland Super City Council has to be seriously, carefully and considering four well-beings for all Auckland citizens. In other words, the eight times of stress from eight councils are all compressed on one. Each initiative by the new council would affect ever further on both positive and negative sides.