Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.
A full-blown fight over one pedestrian crossing on a four-lane state highway in Wellington should serve as a reminder in picking one's battles.
Because if Wellington can't just get on and accept one crossing, I don't know how we can ever hope to build mass rapid transit or asecond Mt Victoria tunnel.
What is adding a small delay to a car journey compared with digging up entire streets?
Let's Get Wellington Moving (LGWM), the city's multi-billion-dollar transport plan, has decided to go ahead with installing an at-grade crossing controlled by traffic lights on Cobham Drive near the airport.
But Wellington Airport is not happy. It's leading the charge against the crossing saying it will make congestion worse for 35,000 daily road users and that the views of the community have been ignored.
It looks like there will be a legal challenge in the form of judicial review proceedings, with the airport considering its options and putting LGWM "on notice".
I personally had little mental capacity for the outrage over this crossing that erupted last week as the protest at Parliament was brought to an end.
Ironically, while we reclaimed our city's streets it was also quintessentially Wellington to launch another battle over transport.
I live in the eastern suburbs and am familiar with the drive along the stretch of road between the Mt Victoria tunnel and the airport.
There are already roundabouts and intersections controlled by traffic lights to navigate, so it's a pretty stop and start experience as it is.
For that reason, I feel like a pedestrian crossing is more of the same rather than some kind of assault on getting where you want to go in a timely manner.
I also really love the work Wellington City Council is doing to build shared paths around our waterfront, and the one along Cobham Drive is beautiful.
It feels like a no brainer to make that shared path as accessible as possible, especially when at the moment there is no safe crossing between the Evans Bay intersection and north Miramar.
If we are going to put state highways through the middle of Cuba St and along our precious waterfront, then we have to accept people walking and cycling are going to want to enjoy those areas too.
An artist's impression of the shared pathway at Cobham Drive. Image / WCC
This crossing was meant to be one of LGWM's "quick wins". Spades in the ground were expected by the end of last year but the final design was only announced this month.
The airport argues an overbridge would be a better option for pedestrians and in fact, safer for them to use.
However, an overbridge is more expensive and time consuming to construct.
I like the idea of being able to build a crossing right away and make an immediate change, rather than waiting forever for anything to happen.
It's a bit like the approach to the city-wide bike network the council is rolling out. Cycle lanes are being constructed quickly with paint and hit sticks.
The council will see what the impact is and make changes in real time before undertaking permanent pavement realignments.
LGWM is putting the crossing in at Cobham Drive now, seeing how it goes, and has left the door open to investigating an overbridge in the meantime.
Let's give the crossing a chance and save our energy for the bigger debates to be had about the transformational changes to our city's transport network.
