End of transmission?

File under: sustainability, rants, Wellington

The supporters of Transmission Gully are starting to vent their frustration at the fact that the Greater Wellington regional council land transport committee has voted against it. Some of their arguments are quite revealing about the writer's priorities in life. Here's the reply I've just sent off to one of them:

C B Clayton (September 1) claims that only regional mayors should have been allowed a vote in the land transport committee decision on Transmission Gully, and writes that if the votes representing "cultural interests, access and mobility, environmental sustainability and public health" were removed, then Transmission Gully would have been selected.

Doesn't this suggest that the gully route would be detrimental on those grounds? Or do some consider that such trivial matters as culture, the environment and public health shouldn't get in the way of our god-given right to drive wherever and whenever we want?

See Transport 2000+ for a page of arguments against Transmission Gully.