Offset Indulgences – 2: The Wellington Flyover Alternative

As detailed here, I decided to take the money I would have spent on carbon offsets for my trip to Australian and New Zealand, and instead give it to a local Aussie or Kiwi who came up with an idea to use the modest expenditure to promote an incremental change that could make a difference.  Like planting trees in Croydon, Queensland.

Or offering an alternative to Motordom Excess.

Richard Reid, an architect in Auckland, came up with exactly that:

I would like to use the money to pay for the printing and binding of colour drawings to illustrate an alternative design my practice has prepared for a motorway project in Wellington.

Our alternative design avoids the need to build a flyover and will therefore protect the city’s historic urban structure, keeping vehicle movement on the ground and integrated with the city where it belongs.

Our alternative design offers a whole lot of other benefits as well, including enhanced public space, protected heritage features and will save the country NZ$100 million if the flyover is not built.  Hence, your money will not only go towards a good cause, it will help return huge dividends socially, economically and environmentally.

You can see media coverage of the flyover proposal here.

Here’s the location for proposed flyover.  The cricket grounds are to the right.

We have a couple of News features on the project on our website here and here.  (We are keeping the details of our design confidential at this stage.)

This is the fifth nationally important transport infrastructure project we have developed an alternative design for, with the previous four adopted and implemented almost in their entirety by the New Zealand Transport Agency and the former Auckland City Council.  You can see these projects on our website at: www.richardreid.co.nz (look under Projects – Infrastructure).