The NZTA ‘information centre’ has recently had a welcome change, with the replacement of the motorway route map, from one showing seven possible interchanges, to one showing only two.
Alliance for a Sustainable Kāpiti spokesman, Nick Fisher, said “We welcome this new example of honesty from the NZTA. We have pointed out for some time that the map used was misleading people to think the motorway could be accessed by locals for local trips. This is not the case; NZTA have all along intended to prohibit local traffic on the motorway. If they allowed local traffic on this route, then they lose their reason for not upgrading the state highway instead.”
ASK has also received a reply from the NZTA regarding local economic benefit. “After several attempts to answer the question ‘what economic benefits will there be for local residents’, NZTA have finally admitted that despite claiming ‘regional economic benefits’ these undefined benefits will not be shared by locals,” Mr Fisher said.
“Again this welcome clarity just underlines what ASK has believed all along, that there is no local benefit from this motorway. Kāpiti residents are paying for this through a huge loss in property values amounting to several hundred million dollars, as well as the environmental, social and cultural costs. The Government may be paying $600M but we are paying the rest.”
