The Path of the Ancients

Mike Bodnar sets off an a short odyssey to try out the newly-opened Te Ara Tupua - a shared walking/cycling path along the western coast of Wellington Harbour...

The Walking Man

Wellington's harbour (wake up at the back there; we're in New Zealand...) was unexpectedly gifted some land in 1855, which made quite a few things possible that hadn't been before. This surprise donation didn't come daintily wrapped, or with a bow tied round it; it was an earthquake, of serious magnitude - 8.2 to be precise.

I'm not here to give you a lesson in tectonics though; just know that the quake uplifted certain parts of the Wellington coastline between 1.5 and 2.0 metres, especially along the western shore. Over to the south-east it rose as much as 6.4 metres. I know, right?

There's a certain irony in useful land being created not long after British colonials had bought (or 'stolen', some would argue) whatever useful land they could from local Māori, because the uplift of the terrain along the western edge of the harbour - and especially around the nascent city of Wellington - enabled much reclamation and development where there had been little or no opportunity before.

It also allowed a road and rail link to be established from the city to the north. Prior to the uplift, there had been no useful shoreline on which to build what we now call a 'transit corridor.'.

So here I was today strolling along the newly-opened Te Ara Tupua, the Pathway of the Ancients, which follows those same shoreline contours and serves all sorts of useful purposes - until the next major earthquake returns it to the sea. But let's not think about that right now (although I will return to it shortly. There's no escape. No, literally: there is no escape. You'll see.)

The northern end of Te Ara Tupua

This new pathway is a shared cycling/walking facility, running alongside the aforementioned transit corridor which carries a railway line and a major road - State Highway 2. In short, what they've done is build a rocky seawall/defence in the shallows, and on the inside of that have created a flash new dual-purpose pathway, safe from the railway and traffic on one side, and from the crashing waves that bless our harbour on occasion on the other. Having only just opened (at time of writing), it has yet to weather its first major storm, so we'll have to wait and see just how robust it is.

Today though the harbour was calm, with just an amateur northerly blowing. Wind? Pfft. I chose to do the trek from north to south so that the breeze and sun would be behind me. Wasn't born yesterday.

An infrastructure minister (left) and son
Image: RNZ

Pathways like this don't come cheap, and as soon as I'd set off after leaving the train at Petone station, a media story replayed in my head from the previous weekend. A man named Chris Bishop, (a minister of infrastructure, m'lud) officially opened it on 15 May, taking the opportunity to criticise the overall NZ$348.7 million cost of the project.

Which made me realise that even after just my first ten metres, I had walked along a section costing almost NZ$775,000. Ka-ching! (No, I didn't do the maths in my head - I cheated)

But hey, I'm not here to be churlish about it. Don't get me wrong; I believe in investing in car-free alternatives, and I'm sure those who now zoom along the new pathway on their bikes thoroughly enjoy passing the traffic in its rush-hour clog evenings and mornings. I do worry, however, that projects of this nature cost so, so much.

The arguments for this particular pathway are many and sound though. It's not just a pathway; it's a 'resilience project' - a buzz-phrase which actually has some merit in this case. In 2013, a major storm washed out portions of this coastline, undermining the railway line and causing fairly major disruption. Given the effects of climate change, it seems sensible to build a robust seawall to counter future such incursions, and within it place an alternative transit corridor.

In the event of an apocalypse...

I haven't read this anywhere else yet, but it seems obvious to me that if the western hillside were to slip onto and block the state highway (as it does on occasion), then the new Te Ara Tupua is actually wide enough for, say, emergency vehicles to use it. Or, in the event of an apocalyptic event, zombies would be able to shuffle from Wellington to Pito-One at a horrifyingly leisurely pace. In perfect safety.

But I digress. The pathway is split unevenly: two-thirds of it is given over to a cycling lane, while the remaining third is for those of a more perambulatory nature. This distinction hadn't made it into some people's brains though; I had covered no more than fifteen metres before a cyclist pulled over and stopped literally in front of me, blocking the whole walking lane. She hadn't even seen me. What am I? The Invisible Man? I gave her a full-on EXCUSE ME and pushed past, listening to her and her partner, and the man they'd stopped to chat to, guffawing in laughter. Sorry cyclists, but behaviour like that does nothing to endear you to the rest of us.

So, while I'm on a rant, let me just point out two other niggles. One is that there are no toilets, either at the ends or in the middle. Secondly, not a single rubbish bin in sight. 

On my stroll today - a normal Wednesday late morning - the vast majority of those using the

Searching for a toilet?

 Path of the Ancients were, well, ancient. It was definitely Te Ara Senior, and although I'm sure not every one was incontinent or suffering prostate issues, if one were to be, shall we say, "caught short" in transit, then to nip behind a coastal rock would be to take your life in your hands, among other things.

Oh wait, a third niggle. To prevent us from straying from the path onto the railway line and causing inconvenient bus replacements for the next day or so, there is a chain-link fence along the entirety. From a health and safety point of view, that's good, until the next 1855 earthquake causes a large tsunami. In which case we'd have a hard job 'getting to higher ground' - as we are advised to do by the emergency management services. See, I warned you: literally no escape.

Oh, and I just remembered a fourth niggle, but let's just call it an 'observation': There are three 'AED' cabinets (AED = automated external defibrillator), one at each end and one in the middle, so plan your heart attack carefully, or be prepared to run approximately two kilometres to the nearest paddles. Clear? Clear!

Drainspotters have it easy...

On the plus side, Te Ara Tupua is flat along its length apart from the overbridge at Ngauganga, but even that's a gentle gradient. There are many attractive Māori motifs built in to stonework, and on pou (poles) at various places, as well as Māori-influenced patterning on pathway signage. Even the manhole covers have Māori 'location finder' paintwork across the entire path so that they're easy to spot (for those who like manhole covers, i.e. Drainspotters).

Information boards telling of local wildlife or history are plentiful, and there are multiple rest areas - or ūranga - along the way, with seating, so that you can watch the whales and dolphins frolicking in the harbour. Or, as an ancient, check your heart rate or work out how long it's been since you last had a wee.

Trees, grasses and other plants have been planted, particularly at the laybys, so if you want to know which varieties grow well in a harsh coastal environment, bring a notebook. It'll be nice to have some fully grown trees eventually, you know - to nip behind in the event you need to.

I noticed there's lighting as well, which suggests evening or night-time strolls are doable. Personally, and this really is just me, I would love to ride my motorbike along Te Ara Tupua around three o'clock in the morning; there's nothing stopping a motorcycle accessing the path either end. (But shhh, don't tell anyone).

Just before I reached the overbridge at Ngauranga I was treated to a brief but obvious whiff of eau de sewage, which was a shame. And no, despite the lack of conveniences, it wasn't me.

But let's not end on that. During my stroll I admired the harbour a lot, looking in the hope of seeing the aforementioned whales or dolphins, but sadly I saw only a few shags, who seemed to appreciate the 'islands' that have been created specifically for them just off-shore. I did see one of the interisland ferries coming in, and saw at least four fisher-folk who had obviously taken advantage of the path giving them access to previously unreachable fishing spots. 

All-in-all, the distance from Pito-One to Ngauranga is just under five kilometres, but you could walk another five and you'd find yourself in Wellington city. I didn't, and chose to catch the bus at the Ngauranga flyover instead. I mean, I didn't want to end up a zombie.

(Author rating of Te Ara Tupua: 7 out of 10)

Putting Ability into Accountability

On the back of the Marble Arch Hill disaster, Mike Bodnar wants to see those in charge of huge infrastructure and vanity projects held to account…

London is hopeless. Not the city itself or its lovely notable bits – give me an ancient alleyway, historic pub or the Tower of London any day – no, I’m talking about bureaucratic London, the one that looks to spend taxpayer money on public works. Because very few of them work as planned, or open on time, and some don’t even reach completion.

The value of the mound has dropped. Image: The Guardian

The latest debacle is the Marble Arch ‘hill’, a frivolous folly rooted in good intentions that has suddenly closed after three days due to its universal unpopularity. Online memes suggest the Teletubbies’ mound was better executed, while even the media has called it ‘crap.’ One woman who paid her £8 to climb to the top said it was the worst London attraction she’d ever experienced.

It was supposed to give unparalleled views of inner central London; instead it has given us a clear panorama of wasted taxpayers’ money - all £6 million of it - stretching to the horizon.

But that shouldn’t be a surprise since none of the other recent proposed taxpayer-funded attractions or infrastructure projects have resulted in overwhelming approval, or completion.

The dream: the Garden Bridge. Image: Heathwick

Four years ago former London mayor Boris Johnson’s proposed garden bridge over the River Thames was abandoned after five years of hype with not a single bucket of concrete poured. The total cost? A staggering £53.5 million, of which about £43 million was from the public purse, according to an inquiry by Transport for London (TfL). Worse, it is now costing a further unbelievable £5.5 million as part of a ‘cancellation agreement,’ so the bridge spans the gulf of incredulity from one side to the other if nothing else.

By now, July 2021, I should, in principle be able to travel in some luxury and great convenience across London and out to Heathrow in under an hour via the Crossrail Elizabeth Line. I should have been able to do this for the past two years, but I haven’t because it’s still – after ten years since its inception – not finished.

Crossrail. Or not. Image: The Guardian

It could be argued that when it does finally open it can at least begin to recoup some of its cost (unlike the Bridge of Nothing to Nowhere), except that to date that cost is over £18 billion, which in itself is about £2.5 billion over budget. Yes billion, that’s not a typo. Okay, it’s apparently Europe’s largest infrastructure project, but that doesn’t excuse the ineptitude of those responsible for it, including Mayor Sadiq Khan who has been accused of taking too much of a ‘hands-off’ approach to it.

Should I mention HS2, the much-hyped fast rail connection between the north and south? Should I note the original proposed cost of £32 billion then became £55.7 billion which then further escalated to £88 billion in 2015? It now currently stands at an estimated £107bn, a figure not unreasonably suggested by Lord Berkeley, former deputy chairman of the government's independent review into the project.

We may as well just do some Swedish rounding right now and call it £200 billion by the time it’s finished (yeah, sure) in the 2030s.

High Speed 2 (HS2). Image: City A.M.

The problem we have here is unaccountability. Those in public office at the time of origin of such fantasies tend not to be in power later, and therefore escape the net of inquiry. There are few checks and balances, and public inquiries after the event are toothless in apportioning blame and – especially – recovering wasted money.

Imagine for a moment that you or I – normal everyday individuals – wanted to take out an extension on our mortgage. Do you think for a moment that the bank will agree to it without first going into extreme detail about our income plus the value of the property plus our equity in it? And, even if they agree to the extension, they will also draw up a contract that puts them first in the queue should we default on our payments and the property has to be sold. In short, they want a guarantee that they will get their money back plus interest in the event the deal falls through.

So why then are people in public office like Boris Johnson able to dream up fantastic schemes, invest millions of public funds, and not be held accountable? If they had to sign a personal guarantee that they would refund lost taxpayer funds in the event of a project’s collapse, the project would then never go ahead. But it’s not their money that’s involved.

Image: Free Enterprise

I know, you’re saying, ‘But then nothing would ever get done.’ Well, in the case of the garden bridge it didn’t anyway, yet it still cost over £50 million. But yes, there has to be a compromise between pie-in-the-sky or much-needed projects, their costs and their over-runs, and appropriate accountability in the event of significant delays or no-shows. 

Independent reviews after the event are too late – the money has gone. What we need is accountability at the top level on a weekly scale, independent fully-armed, locked-and-loaded reviews that have the ammunition to call a halt to a project in the public interest at a time before the damage is done. Whoever heads these accountability crack squads should also have the ability to fire at will (in the sense of ‘You’re fired,’ rather than actually putting the culprit in the cross-hairs and pulling the trigger. Although…)

Darfield Earthquake 2010, NZ.
Image: Mike Bodnar

And there should be some insurance to safeguard the public’s funds from misappropriation. Because in the end that’s what is happening: taxpayer money is being thrown away. I’m no expert in high finance or international economies, but if entire countries can take out international insurance against devastating earthquakes (viz. New Zealand and others) then surely we can do it on the basis of our own domestic home-engineered disasters.

Further, while I’m on a roll, let’s see those in charge of huge infrastructure and vanity projects are held to account by having contracts that stipulate no bonuses where targets are not met, no pension pay-outs in the event they lose their positions, and no golden handshakes either whether they are fired or resign in disgrace. It’s exactly what the rest of us humble individuals would be up against in the workplace. 

And public office is just that: a workplace. Let’s make it work.