Extricating oneself from a gully trap

"He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career." - George Bernard Shaw.
 
 
I think it was around 1964 when I was invited to join the H. V. Donald Campaign Committee. Haddon Donald was an aspiring National party candidate, hoping to take over from the incumbent Bert Cooksley. I was not the least bit interested in politics back then, but I was flattered to be asked to join the group of astute business and professional men who comprised the committee. A 24-year-old butcher doesn't often get the opportunity to sit round a table with such luminaries.
 
Their interest in me was sparked by my advertising campaigns for the family meat business which they thought were "quirky" and "eye-catching." They hoped that I might be able to devise something similar for their candidate and perhaps encourage younger electors to cast their votes his way.
 
I remember engaging a friend, Brian Bodle, who was, and still is, a brilliant but relatively unrealised artist, to help me put together a pamphlet that featured among other things a cartoon of men labouring with pick and shovel digging a hole at the base of the Rimutakas, signifying the construction of a road tunnel through the hill. One of Haddon Donald's campaign pledges was to convince the government of the day to build the passageway linking the capital city to the hinterland. Haddon had had a distinguished war career and was justifiably elected, serving two terms before being replaced my Labour candidate Jack Williams. Williams and his successors made the same promises, but the tunnel remains a pipe dream to this day.
 
I recall later, in the seventies, being invited to a meeting called to form a committee to approach the government to build the tunnel with the citizens of the Wairarapa offering to pay for its construction by way of a toll. Before the meeting I did a quick calculation, taking the published estimated cost of the project and dividing this figure by the known number of cars using the hill road. I determined that just to pay the interest on the money required to build the edifice would require a toll of $30 per vehicle, each way. The meeting broke up just minutes after I produced this information.
 
It was probably about then that we realised that the tunnel would never be built in our lifetime. Eventually Wyatt Creech formed The Hill Road committee, now chaired by Mayor Francis, of which I am a member, and we sensibly concluded the very best we could expect for the district was to get the Kaitoke deviation built and push for improvements to the hill road itself. We have lobbied for a highway that will eventually allow speeds of 70 kph. Those goals are being progressed as I write.
 
It seems that people in the other reaches of the region are not so pragmatic. Six years ago I attended a meeting in Porirua where wide-eyed, bushy-tailed community leaders had gathered to demand that Transmission Gully be built and to expedite this they showed a willingness to pay a toll to cover the cost. Transit New Zealand, who build the roads on behalf of the government, were there to listen to the proposal, but the CEO at the time, Robin Dunlop, outlined that plans to pay for the road via a toll were overly simplistic. First, he said, you needed to entice half the users of the present scenic coastal highway to come over to the new road which had two very steep gradients that would make it very discouraging to heavy traffic. If you did manage to get half of the vehicular traffic to make the switch, then the toll needed to cover just the interest on the loan required to build the highway, would be around $37 per car, both ways. The meeting should have broken up then and there, and talk of the dream highway out of Wellington ought to have ceased forthwith.
 
But the problem was then, and still is today, that too many politicians had promised their constituents that if they voted for them, then they would ensure the visionary road was constructed. Prominent among these were MP's Peter Dunne and Winnie Laban and Porirua mayor Jenny Brash. Regional Councillors representing the area were also culpable.
 
Dunlop outlined other dissuasions. For instance if Transmission Gully did indeed prove to be popular, the existing coastal highway would then become free-running and those paying a toll on the new road, knowing gridlock had ceased on the old road, would have to ask themselves why were they paying a toll and climbing these steep gradients and would surely re-locate back to the original route.
 
Back then Transmission Gully had an estimated to cost of under $300 million, a more recent and considered study however has put the price at three times that figure, so the $37 per car would have been a major understatement. Also, improving the existing highway can be done piecemeal and the costs spread, whereas the new highway would require massive upfront payments in excess of what is currently spent annually on all the roads in New Zealand combined.
 
Despite this overwhelming evidence the debate still continues, though last week some light was seen at the end of the tunnel when Wellington mayor Kerry Prendergast said the building of Transmission Gully was a "no-brainer." It is clear however that not everyone was listening.
 
Advancing the Gully route and thereby holding up improvements to the existing road has, I believe, contributed to the carnage that has been the hallmark of that section of Highway One. Those blocking this common sense decision should stop bickering and instruct the national road building authority to take the only sensible option.
 
To their credit Wairarapa politicians never did hang their hats entirely on the construction of the Rimutaka Tunnel and were able to sensibly step back when the writing was on the wall. But you can't entirely blame the frustrated motorists on the western side of our region wanting the highway to heaven, and with an approaching election perhaps now is the time for them to keep up the pressure. After all, a fool and his money are soon elected.