Cross Valley Link could be a decade away - buses, walking, cycling get priority

Thursday, 18 November 2021

The Hutt City Council’s Cross Valley Connections programme will prioritise cycling, walking and public transport to make road connections more viable in the future.

Lower Hutt could wait more than a decade before the Cross Valley Link road is built to ease congestion between State Highway 2 and one of the region’s largest industrial areas.

A Hutt City Council timeline for the Cross Valley Connections transport programme shows the road is likely to be completed in the 2032/2033 financial year. Designing the link is unlikely to start until 2027, with cycle and walking, and public transport projects to come first.

In September Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency accepted the business case for Connections programme, opening the door to central government funding on top of the $160 million budgeted by the council.

The council’s head of transport, Jon Kingsbury, said public transport and micromobility routes for the likes of bikes and scooters would make the link road viable.

The Cross Valley Link would, in theory, take pressure of the Petone Esplanade where traffic from Wainuiomata, and the Seaview and Gracefield industrial areas is frequently reduced to a crawl.

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The Petone Esplanade is the route used by heavy vehicles from the Seaview and Gracefield industrial zone to access SH2.

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“We need to give people the option of cycling and walking. [These projects] will take pressure off our roads and reduce emissions.”

An expected $26m will be spent on walking and cycling routes, and the public transport for which work has already started. Kingsbury said multiple micromobility projects – like the Eastern Beltway and Eastern Bays Shared Path – were dotted around the city, and needed joining to create a cohesive and integrated transport network.

The council also had a commitment to carbon reduction following its declaration of a climate emergency in 2019.

“We want to reduce the number of private vehicles on the road, and in particular, the amount of single occupancy trips being made.”

The estimated cost of the link road is $114 million, while a further $15m is earmarked for improvements to the Gracefield interchange as part of the Connections programme.

The Cross Valley Link road has been talked about since the 1960s – in theory it would take pressure of the Petone Esplanade where SH2-bound traffic from Wainuiomata, and the Seaview and Gracefield industrial areas is frequently reduced to a crawl.

No route had yet been determined for the road.

Mike Henderson, chairman of the Seaview Business Association, said the Cross Valley link road did look a long way off, but it would be no good to commercial users in the industrial area if it was choked with traffic.

“I’m fully aware of the need for a multi-modal transport approach. The advantage of doing it this way is it will take more people off the road and leave [routes like the Cross Valley Link] open to those who need to use it.”