This photo of downtown Wellington from the WCC website shows
how design is
dominated by car users and the oil lobby.
Note how the city was rebuilt on North South lines in the last two decades to
fit their demands
rather than East West as a "Sun City" in the Post Cheap Oil-Gas
Age.
This North South alignment also channels the prevailing north-south winds.
The motorway visible slicing through the waterfront is Jervois Quay .
There are no rail services along this corridor. These cease at the edge of the
city
some blocks to the north and right of the photo.
An oil company has been given a 100 year lease on one of
the large new council buildings by the cruise liner.
This photo reveals the barrier formed by Jervois Quay .
It shows how six lanes of fast moving traffic separates Wellington citizens from
their waterfront.
The couple waiting at the lights would be sodden in moments in a howling
Norwester or Southerly rain.
The buildings on the right facing the ocean are barren and devoid of human
activity.
They form a wall of tombstones, offering mute testimony to the
destitution of the Council civic spirit.
The WCC spends many thousands of
dollars annually paying contractors to waste valuable oil and destroy our
beaches.
This is an example of the naturally occurring sand-dunes of the South Coast bays
being bulldozed onto trucks and removed.
Note the bus by the surf club building in the back ground.
This bus contains the first
class of children for new Wellington Marine Education Centre sited at Island
Bay.
The childre are not visible as they are on the other side of the bus getting
their first lesson how to care for the coastal environment.
They are watching the digger ripping up the beach "because it is in the
way" and "so people can use it".
Subsequent photos show the WCC activities created an area of rocks and shingle.
This photo is from the National Library's collection on the web.
It is taken from a sand dune and
shows crowds at Lyall Bay in 1910.
Then the main mode of transport to the bay was a tramline ending at the
buildings shown.
This predates the Cheap Oil Age and the widespread use of bulldozers, trucks and
private cars.
The combination of the tramway and the wonderful sand dunes made the bay the
beach mecca of Wellington.
The trolley bus system now extends to Maranui - the steep hillside at the top
left of the bay.
This photo provides powerful lessons for us as we enter the Post Cheap Oil-Gas
Age.
Wellington is a city of
hills, seas and skies. Many of the most accessible and breathtaking views have
been destroyed by buildings.
This scene is typical of current Wellington City Council's oil sector and
speculator driven policy.
The Council actively promotes the use of its land for cars and garages,
regardless their wider impact. For instance, until recently many thousands of
people from all around the world enjoyed the superb views south to Baring Heads
and the Cook Strait and north across the Wellington isthmus and harbour to the
Tararua Ranges from this unique spot.
Each day tourist buses would stop here at "Kodak Corner" and our
visitors would spend some minutes enjoying and filming the spectacular views.
No more.
Indeed, this street, originally named View Road because of its stunning vistas,
should now be renamed Garage Gulch.
This is typical of the Council’s concept of appropriate development in the
Post Cheap Oil-Gas Age. Often they destroy public access to our landscape and
the solar generating capacity of nearby dwellings.