City Streets Unit is big spender

As the biggest spender in the City Council, the City Streets Unit will spend $44.4 million on an immense programme of work around the city under the draft annual plan.

This will range from routine maintenance to initiatives such as the $500,000 to be spent extending The Strip north along Oxford Terrace.

Every year the City Council’s City Streets Unit replaces 20km of the old road dish channels and also resurfaces about 100km of footpaths.

Routine maintenance of the roads will cost $15 million in next year’s financial year.

Big money is needed for the replacement and renewal of kerbs and channels alone. Forty projects are listed and the oldest and those in the worst condition are done first.

Some of this work will include Aikmans Road ($254,000), Browns Road ($234,000), Clarence Street ($336,000), Waiwetu Street ($356,800), Matipo Street ($399,900), Somerfield Street (358,000), and Tennyson Street ($387,600).

Widening of Fendalton Road will cost $1,244,400 and the Woolston-Burwood expressway and cycleway $1,978,800 this financial year. More money will be set aside for both schemes in the 2001-02 financial year.

Improvements to the Carlton Mill Bridge intersection including the bridge will cost $408,000 this financial year, with more to be paid out in the next year.

Nearly a dozen cycleway projects will be funded, with $200,000 being used to complete the Railway section in Fendalton. Another $100,000 will be spent in Shirley.

Upgrading street lighting to enhance safety will take nearly $500,000, and the replacement of street poles and bulbs will cost another $230,000-plus. Putting overhead power lines underground is ongoing work and this will cost about $1.7 million.

Sealing some of the few remaining unsealed roads will cost $100,000 for Coutts Island Road, Farrells Road, and Grassmere Road.

Then more money is needed for inner-city projects. In Cathedral Square $200,000 will be spent on stage five when the buses leave the square for the new Bus Exchange at The Crossing, which in itself is the biggest single item for City Streets in the draft plan.

Design and consultation over swapping around the one-way Lichfield and Tuam streets will cost $60,000 and another $140,000 will be spent in Colombo Street on improvements to ease traffic congestion.

New Brighton mall development will cost $288,000.

Construction of new kerbs and channels and footpaths will cost nearly $2 million, with more than $500,000 to be spent on Yaldhurst Road. Taylors Mistake Road will need $306,000 and a similar amount planned in the 2002-03 financial year.

City Streets is budgeting to spend a total $44,442,221 under the draft plan. Of that $17,497,000 is needed for the Bus Exchange.

About another $600,000 will be spent on passenger transport improvements, such as bus shelters, stops, and seating. The extended Orbiter service will need $100,000.