By BERNARD ORSMAN
The Automobile Association is calling for the protection of scenic Tamaki Drive from the impact of the proposed four-lane eastern motorway.
It has come up with an environmentally sensitive plan for the pohutukawa-lined esplanade to counter opponents who predict a bottleneck on the already hectic route into
the city.
The proposed motorway would come across Hobson Bay and end on Tamaki Drive at the Lilliputt mini-golf course.
AA Auckland regional manager Stephen Selwood said the motorway would return Tamaki Drive to a coastal scenic driveway because it would reduce congestion on local roads, as the airport/motorway link had done at Mangere.
The AA favours a four-lane expressway, two bus lanes and a cycle path at the point where city-bound cars come off the motorway on Tamaki Drive.
An AA spokesman, Mark Scott, said the upgraded 1km stretch of Tamaki Drive into the city would be "chocker" at peak hours but the bus lanes would provide a safety valve for thousands of people using public transport.
Terry Gould, a spokesman for action group Stop the Eastern Motorway, said the AA had a vested interest in more roads for more cars, and nothing justified carving a motorway through Auckland's last inner-city wetland.
He said the AA had finally acknowledged that the traffic connection between the proposed motorway and Auckland's prized waterfront was fraught with serious traffic, engineering and environmental problems.
Auckland City councillor Jon Olsen, whose home overlooks the motorway route across Orakei Basin, said the AA's plan was the product of muddled thinking that would create a spaghetti junction on Tamaki Drive and a major bottleneck into Quay St.
Mr Olsen said the AA had not dared to mention the effects of the motorway at Purewa Creek in the upper reaches of Hobson Bay, which the Auckland Regional Council had classified as a vulnerable coastal environment needing protection.
The AA is a member of the influential Auckland Business Association seeking to fast-track work on completing the Auckland motorway network.
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