Thrift, practicality, consulting useful

A Dunedin harbourside/city link is desirable, writes  Russell Lund, but not at any cost.

The Dunedin City Council has breathlessly unveiled a concept bridge design linking, at last, the city (via  Queens Gardens) to the harbourside. Hurrah, and a good thing too, do I hear you say? It sounds too good to be true — and it is.

Inexplicably,  the DCC  has repeated  the mistakes made in the first proposed plan change for the harbourside area which was made public in August 2005. At that time,  the DCC decided  consultation with the actual occupants of the area was an overrated redundancy, and  promoted a plan that was orders of magnitude beyond practical.

The latest bridge design has also been conceived in splendid isolation from the occupants of the area, and no input has been sought from people or groups who are actually doing something to progress and develop the area.  I am one of those people.I  have been  provided  with a preview of the new  concept. The impetus for the proposal has come from Damien van Brandenburg, of Architecture Van Brandenburg. Commendably, Mr van Brandenburg wants a public connection to the waterfront so Dunedin can catch up with long-standing urban planning concepts  embraced by every other city with a waterfront  in New Zealand.

Architecture Van Brandenburg  has prepared a scheme entirely with  its own resources.  The DCC has  had to pay nothing towards the design. While Damien van Brandenburg is to be admired for this commitment to better the city, predictably, without the  grounding effects of budgetary constraints, competing priorities, and needs of existing and proposed users, the project is not the means-tested efficient structure it needs to be,  but a corpulent fantasy of a bridge.

The design continues Architecture Van Brandenburg’s organic design ethos, but  is  lacking in context. It is a massively overscaled temple to the bicycle. Never on this bridge shall a pedestrian sully the exclusive domain of the cycle path.

Pedestrians have to walk up a 75m-80m-long ramp  just to get to the start of the bridge, or climb  about 40 steps, cross the bridge, and do it all in reverse. If city workers wished to enjoy their lunch on the Steamer Basin wharf, they would have to walk the best part of 700m  just to get there from Queens Gardens. No lift is provided. Lifts were not considered instead of ramps because it would "break up the cycle journey".

There is a failure of logic here.  Why pay millions extra to have an unbroken bridge cycle journey when cyclists have had to stop or get off their bikes to cross Fryatt St at the start of the bridge ramp?  While the 80m ramps are provided at the required 1:12 "accessible" slope, the sheer scale is simply too much for many elderly, infirm and disabled residents. While no lift is provided for pedestrians, cyclists, on the other hand, have twin ramps either side of the bride, so  bicycle traffic can be separated in each direction. The bridge is up to 9m wide, wider than many Dunedin streets.

The party pieces of the bridge are  8m-high "leaves" that are of solid steel. They are mounted on hydraulic arms powered by solar panels that move the leaves by following the path of the sun. The idea of the leaves is that they provide shelter from the northerly wind, but any windsurfer can tell you  the prevailing inner harbour wind is northeast, so the leaves are an expensive and limited benefit. These leaves push the overall height of the bridge structure  to more than 14m high — higher than the adjacent Loan & Mercantile building  located just a footpath width from this behemoth.

It is acknowledged that the initial budget cost of the bridge — a cycleway and pedestrian bridge only —  is in excess of $15million. It is suspected that this does not include any ground improvement to increase the bearing capacity of the reclaimed ground when thousands of tonnes of bulk fill are deposited to form the massive 6m-high mounds that form the ramps and bridge entrances. My own view is that this will be a $20million  project.

While some councillors may see the bridge as an opportunity to provide a half-price landmark to the city (Transit NZ will contribute 50% of the cost of the bridge), the city still has to find $8million to $10million for its share; this is assuming Transit will pay for 50% of a landmark, as opposed to 50% of a bridge, which is far from certain.

A modest but elegant bridge that is a respectful neighbour to the surrounding heritage buildings could be achieved for  about  $4million, and this would include lifts at both ends. Others, including developer Stephen MacKnight,  have suggested an underpass that has an open top, which could be quite dramatic,  with exposed railway lines overhead. An underpass would require far less ramp distance as it would only need a depth of  about 3m, half the bridge height. 

There are many more deserving cycleway or pedestrian projects that would benefit the city to a far greater degree than paying a  $6million to $8million  premium for an inappropriate overhead crossing. Projects like the West Harbour cycleway tunnel, the Caversham rail tunnel conversion, and building on the tremendous work  the Otago Mountain Bike Club has done in creating a series of bike and walking trails around the city, are top of mind. I fully support a link to the waterfront, but the solution should be modest, respectful of the surrounding heritage, and budgetary rectitude  must prevail. The best way to do this would be to hold a design competition with a clear design brief and budget.

- Russell Lund is a Dunedin developer and is associated with the trust that owns the Loan & Mercantile Building in Thomas Burns St.