Near-majorities of Wellington\u2019s city and regional councils are calling for ditching light rail for the city with one calling it the \u201ctransport equivalent of a unicorn\u201d.<\/p>\n
Light rail is one of the big ticket items \u2013 alongside two new tunnels through Mount Victoria \u2013 in the $7.4 billion Let\u2019s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) transport overhaul, which has gone up in price for $6.4b to $7.4b with some fearing that the cost will only climb from there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe price was ludicrous, now it is irresponsible,\u201d said regional councillor David Lee, who pointed out the cost was now six times that of the new\u00a027-kilometre-long, $1.25b\u00a0Transmission Gully stretch of State Highway 1 north of Wellington.<\/p>\n
He is one of at least five confirmed regional councillors now opposing light rail based on cost and advocating for better buses instead, with at least three others still yet to make a call. Seven would be needed for a majority in the 13-member council. Meanwhile, across at the Wellington City Council, seven members of the 16-member council are openly opposed to light rail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Near-majorities of Wellington\u2019s city and regional councils are calling for ditching light rail for the city with one calling it the \u201ctransport equivalent of a u<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":890,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions\/890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}