Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

So the latest plan to fix central Wellington traffic has been released for consultation, and it’s a monster.  There’s a couple of tunnels. A new one at the Terrace end of the motorway and another new tunnel through Mount Victoria. Land and houses will be taken out of the town belt at Mount Victoria and parkland at the Terrace  There will be a major redesign of the Basin Reserve roundabout and a bridge near the airport.  And the price tag?  3 billion dollars. Ironically the same sort of cost for two ports and two ferries to cross Cook Strait, that was thought to be wildly expensive at the time.  So the immediate reaction is that this plan is wildly expensive. Which it is. Wildly expensive and totally predictable. The Rongotai Airport was opened in 1959 and from day one it was dependent on the Mount Vic tunnel, which opened in 1931.  It should have been expanded then. It’s Wellington’s Auckland Harbour Bridge moment - a piece of insufficient infrastructure that only got worse. You