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Warkworth transport advocates say there may be room to hope that Auckland Transport (AT) will see sense over the design of the Hill Street intersection after all.
Roger Williams, Dave Stott and Murray Chapman finally got to meet with AT representatives late last month to talk about a surprise redesign AT labelled ‘a value engineering’ design, which was unveiled late last year. It changed the formally accepted plan by reducing the lanes around the intersection from two to one, removing slip lanes, exiting Kowhai Park onto the roundabout rather than State Highway 1 and dispensing with cycleway/pedestrian paths.
It is understood that the redesign was to accommodate the $18 million budget.
The Warkworth advocates have put forward an alternative design that retains most of the features of the original plan, but still keeps within the budget.
Williams told a Warkworth Liaison Group meeting this month that there was a sense at the meeting with AT that they were taking the alternative plan seriously.
“Our design will be cheaper and easier to construct, and they have agreed to workshop it with us around the end of this month,” Williams said.
“There was enormous political pressure brought to bear to break the deadlock on this.
“It’s likely we will end up with a hybrid design – a little bit of theirs and a little bit of ours.”
Williams says he understands that AT is hoping to start construction later this year, although any land purchase would cause delays.
A member of the audience commented that what Williams and Stott had done for free, AT had employed consultants to work on for 12 months.
