Road plan gains supporters

A "Plan B" proposal to reroute parts of State Highway 2 north of Napier into the east coast railway corridor met with surprising acclaim at the last Wairoa Business Week forum.

Preferring anonymity and saying they were merely submitting the idea, and did not want to push it, business and long-time friends Steve Currie and Myles Blampied left immediately after their presentation at the Transport and Telecommunications Think Tank.

The pair didn't want to "push" the idea. They just wanted to "submit" it, they said.

But all three workshops which wrapped up the session soon afterwards gave a preferential thumbs-up to the idea of a highway taking over the rail route if Kiwirail's mothballing of the track becomes a permanent closure.

Finding particular favour was a rerouting of State Highway 2 between the Esk Valley and Tutira, part of a proposal the two men considered was likely to gain little traction before central government had finished with such big-ticket items as Auckland's transport issues, and the Transmission Gully gateway to Wellington, and started to look to new projects in "the provinces".

Central to the idea, however, was that improved road infrastructure is crucial to the economic growth of the Wairoa and Gisborne region, something of which little convincing was needed for the people of Wairoa, with the "jewel" of Lake Waikaremoana just up the road.

Using a Google Earth flyover to bring some reality to the concept, the two visionaries showed how part of the plan would eliminate the Devil's Elbow, and bring travel times down to as little as two hours from Gisborne to Napier, and one hour from Wairoa to Napier.

As part of the concept they asked think tank members to consider Wairoa also as a small industrial town of the future in the German concept, with the highway to Napier and Gisborne alongside as an "autobahn".

The support for a "scoping" study of the concept was so common that session facilitator Dave Todd, was moved to say: "We've probably got a mandate to do that."

Equally important to the workshops was the sealing of the western gateway to the region, SH38, from Rotorua to Wairoa, and one group commented: "Get rid of the rail, spend it (the money) on the road."

It was all with some irony considering the outrage over the mothballing of the railway line, and the previous day's support for a railbike adventure tourism future for the line.

But it did achieve a target goal of getting people to "think outside the square," Business Week organisers said. Or, in Mr Todd's appraisal: "Thought provoking, to say the least."