The unexciting but essential meetings for running of the city continued this week.

This is the reality of Council that most people would be unaware of. For example at the Transportation Taskforce we were updated by 'The Agency” (formerly Transit) and Fulton Hogan on progress up at the Hairini interchange.
It now actually won't be finished by Christmas due to Transpower being unable to shift the two power pylons to coordinate with the roadworks. It would only take a weekend but Transpower's systems don't allow for quick fixes. Pretty much like anything involving monopolies and governments. They have to give six weeks notice of power cuts and then there's all the other red tape.

They've only had a couple of years warning so I suppose it's understandable. They knew when the pylons went there they would have to shift them one day as they are on road reserve.

So at Christmas the interchange will only be working at around 80% efficiency. And then the naysayers will no doubt gleefully demonstrate that 'the lights don't work” etc.

There will be night works so that traffic flows can be managed but expect delays. The Welcome Bay roundabout is being moved north towards Maungatapu in this process.