The Copeland plan to cut airport-city congestion

Wellington-based United Future New Zealand MP, Gordon Copeland, has come up with a plan for a temporary solution to the problem of morning traffic congestion between the capital’s airport and downtown Wellington.

Mr Copeland has written to Wellington Mayor, Kerry Prendergast, suggesting that, on weekdays between 7am and 10am, Wellington Rd become a one-way two-lane highway right through Mt Victoria tunnel down to the Basin Reserve for traffic coming in from the airport and Miramar.

Traffic heading out of the city towards the airport and the eastern suburbs would be routed, on a one-way one-lane basis, through the bus tunnel down to Cobham Drive.

Mr Copeland said, “I have lived in Miramar since 1993 and the traffic congestion coming into the city has increased steadily over that time. Typically, it now takes me no less than 35 minutes to make the journey from Miramar to Parliament …. a long way from the ‘five minutes from the city’ publicity the city uses.

“Of course a long-term solution is a new Mt Victoria Tunnel, and perhaps that will become a reality under the public-private partnerships that United Future is helping to bring into law next year,” he said.

In the meantime, Mr Copeland has asked the Wellington City Council, on a formal basis, to evaluate his suggestion as an interim solution to the problem.

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