A huge swathe of homes in Mangere and Otahuhu are under threat from council plans for yet another motorway Auckland doesn’t need.
The road is part of the AMETI (Auckland Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative) highway from Onehunga to Manukau. (see map)
Two months ago the Minister of Tarseal Transport Gerry Brownlee asked planners to fast-track AMETI so it could get ahead of the Auckland Central Rail Loop in the funding queue.
Council planners have come up with four options with their preferred option being the destruction of hundreds of homes in Mangere and Otahuhu while taking the road in a tunnel under Kings College to avoid tarsealing the school cricket pitch.
This $1.5 billion road itself is an outrage Auckland doesn’t need but the proposal to destroy hundreds of homes for families on low incomes while saving Kings College with a hugely expensive tunnel is sickening. It’s a typical case of double standards – one for the rich well-connected mates of the Prime Minister – another for low-income families.
We don’t need the road or the government’s double standards.
Auckland Mayor Len Brown has been silent on the issue despite his (undeserved) reputation as champion of South Auckland while the local city councilors, Ex National MP Arthur Anae and Alf Filipaina, are asleep at the wheel.
The local board is opposed to the road but Auckland Transport sees it as the best option. Bulldozing state homes in a low-income community makes perfect economic sense because no compensation needs to be paid. In their minds they see South Auckland as full of lazy, brown, good-for-nothings anyway.
But Kings College is a different matter. The sons and daughters of the ruling elites don’t want acres of tarseal across their playing fields so the most expensive part of the road will be a tunnel to avoid the disruption, noise and pollution which the rest of South Auckland will be forced to suffer.
The community will be “consulted” next year but we all know what that means. If the road is to be stopped NOW is the time to do it.
Mana will not let the tarseal addicts get away with this. Our Mana Mangere team will announce plans to fight the new road at a local body election campaign launch this Saturday 2pm at East Mangere Hall (Metro Theatre) on Massey Road. Feel free to come along and help.
In the meantime I hope all readers of this blog will know by now that Mana is proposing an alternative to big roads this election. We want to put the big roading projects on the back burner and gridlock free the city within 12 months with fare-free public transport.
The benefits are these:
1. EVERY Aucklander will get an extra hour at home EVERY work day. Even those who never use a bus or train will be able to travel a gridlock-free roading network.
2. It’s cheaper than tarseal addiction – saving hundreds of millions every year.
3. No extra charges for anyone – no rates increases, no extra fuel taxes, no congestion charges, no network charges, no toll roads, no PPPs. Those are Len Brown’s policies – not Mana’s.
4. Improved productivity – as I mentioned a government-commissioned report released in March this year estimated lost productivity at $1.25 billion every year from clogged Auckland roads. This policy will release that lost productivity and enable better pay for workers. Note here that Business New Zealand tells us we need higher productivity to get higher wage increases. Here’s a golden opportunity to pass on these big productivity increases to workers in wages.
5. Faster bus travel on unclogged roads and no time wasted collecting fares.
6. Revitalisation of Auckland’s inner city as more people travel to enjoy Queen Street and the Auckland waterfront – some kids for the first time in their lives.
7. Cleaner and greener – this will be the single greenest policy in the history of New Zealand! – less pollution, smaller carbon footprint – big ups to the environment.
8. Savings for workers – the Mayor of Tallinn calls it the “13th monthly salary” because of estimates the policy saves a month’s pay for workers using the free transport service.
9. Economic stimulation as workers have significantly more to spend in the real economy.
10. Tourism boost as tourists use the system to see all parts of Auckland as we sell the city as an eco-friendly city – released from the grip of dull ideas from the middle of last century.
I’m going to the metro theatre in Mangere East at 2pm Saturday- like hell Gerry Brownlee is going to bulldoze down my house so privileged Teenage boys can drive the Bentley to King’s College on a motorway built over the top of our community.
John, there has been a huge project undertaken to “create a beach” accessing Manukau, and to deliver a bridge over motorway, to Eastern Highway. The real recipients have been Fulton Hogan and the trucking companies.
$billions of free money handed out to failed finance and insurance companies, and $billions more in tax cuts for rich people, while smashing into working people while scapegoating beneficiaries.
And now this…..
A gold plated tunnel so rich kids cricket practice is not disturbed. While working peoples homes are paved under. Has there ever been a clearer example of the Key government’s vileness.
Free buses everywhere – yohoo!
So, it’s no longer enough for Gerry the Hutt to have us living in cold, damp, uninsulated homes, paying exhorbitant rents. He now wants us turfed out of those homes so we can all end up huddled around a flaming barrel under a motorway overpass, like vagrants and hobos.
“Building a brighter future!” my arse.
You are dreaming John, free public transport or not people like myself will not use it. ever.
Thank god for that! Glad I never have to endure being on the same bus as you.
Does the ‘buses for all’ move include lots of little easy-access ‘hopper buses to go round the suburban backstreets so mums with no car and several kids can do the daily/weekly shopping easily? You know – lots of bags and the pram and the toddler/s.
And for grannies of either sex to get to events safely before and after dark, as well as do their shopping with their trundlers without being dumped on their rears in the aisle as the bus driver cuts in the rocket launcher to get back into the traffic?
It has to be affordable. Very, very affordable. Based around community services such as schools, medical centres, libraries, shopping hubs. Local trips, not long-haul across the city. For people who aren’t commuters to places of work.
Worth a think?
[…] As John Minto’s devastating blog on this issue highlighted last week, the Council have decided Option 4 for the AMETRI roadway which will see a dirty filthy motorway demolishing hundreds of homes right through the middle of Mangere. Adding insult to injury, they will go under Kings College, but demolish the homes of the poor. […]
its quite amazing how people are willing to live in the past, get stuck in some shitty shack earning fuck all and complain about a new road benefitting those who are striving for more…. move to the country, there’s plenty of shacks, shitty paying jobs and cows to complain to. get off your old arse and look to the future MANA MANGERE.
fuck kings college put their fields underground theres no need for tunnels just build over the top or better yet, get their parents to pay for the damn tunnel. Rid this suburb of its rat infested nests we call state houses.
and for Len Brown, i knew he was full of shit just like every other politician. bring back John Banks, we need scrooge as a mayor not a dick whos telling everyone what they want to hear and then hiding behind his desk hoping everyone forgets.
[…] to John Minto and others who earlier blogged here about the Mangere Motorway and organised some fantastic public […]
Comments are closed.