Frankton Community Association committee member and businessman Bill Falcone said yesterday he thought the agenda of NZTA was not to benefit the community, but to get the project off its books at the cheapest policy option.
Mr Falcone, of Glenda Dr, said the hearing commissioners' hands were tied because the NZTA was able to use the 5-year-old Wakatipu Transportation Strategy to support its position.
Mr Falcone said NZTA ''did some slick spin in their submission when they said if Robertson St goes ahead, Humphrey St may have to close, because it's too close at 174m.
''They said it's a state highway and you can't have intersections that close in an urban area.
''Have you driven down state highways in any other small provincial towns in the South Island?''Sometimes you have intersections every 10m.
''Later in their submission they say because that will have to be closed, the emergency services would have to go an extra 600m.''
Mr Falcone said he thought the NZTA had no obligation to tie it in with the council's road network and do what was right for the community.
NZTA Otago-Southland state highway manager Ian Duncan said yesterday the commissioners' report ''thoroughly considered'' all of the issues raised at the hearing and provided ''thoughtful recommendations''.
Mr Duncan said the option promoted by NZTA achieved the project objective and represented the best value for taxpayers' money.
''NZTA has considered the connection of Robertson St to State Highway 6, but believes the disadvantages, including the cost, outweigh the benefits and therefore is not planning any further investigation,'' he said.
Commissioners Denis Nugent and Jane Taylor recommended in their report to the Queenstown Lakes District Council that it approve the construction, operation and maintenance of a new bridge across the Kawarau River at Kawarau Falls, with conditions.
The commissioners said they were not required to evaluate whether a connection to Robertson St would provide a better traffic network than the connection at Humphrey St, but they were satisfied NZTA gave adequate consideration to alternative options for connecting State Highway 6 to Robertson St.
''That it has chosen to discard those options at this time is its statutory prerogative,'' they said.
Asked why the replacement bridge was taking a long time to be built, Mr Duncan said there were other structurally weaker bridges which were in more urgent need for replacement.
''The Kawarau Falls bridge is structurally sound. Most of the issues are around its traffic capacity at certain times of the year, such as the Christmas-New Year holiday period and during the height of ski season,'' Mr Duncan said.
''We are making improvements to the traffic signals at the bridge which we believe will go some way to resolving this problem.''
NZTA intended to install a larger traffic detector loop at the southern end of the bridge to give more flexibility to easily change signal phase times to meet traffic demand. The $10,000 work was scheduled for today, before the busy Easter holiday next week.
Mr Duncan said construction and use of the replacement bridge would happen ''some time after 2016, depending on when funding for the project is confirmed.''
