Since the last time I wrote, Auckland Transport did a U turn from the crazy 24-hour bus lanes and returned our car parks to our community and our precinct has returned to some normality.
So, for that, I am grateful and it was a massive sigh of relief for the businesses. Now, it appears we have another battle with Mercury Lane and non existent toilets.
Who in their right mind would close off vehicles entering Mercury Lane but have traffic go in the opposite direction – uphill!
Mercury Lane for as long as I can remember – well, at least for the last 47 years – has always been accessible from Pitt Street and either direction of Karangahape Road. Soon you will not be able to go straight from Pitt Street down Mercury Lane and into the parking building. Instead you will have to loop around K' Road, down Upper Queen Street and right into Cross Street. Deliveries to George Court residents or Ubers for tourists to BK hostel shouldn’t have to do that silly loop I just mentioned. Does AT really believe we will have hundreds of thousands of commuters pouring out of the station so that Mercury Lane needs to be closed off? Particularly when we have another train station just a stone's throw away at the top of the hill on Beresford?
This is another example of AT dictating how our city will function when it was functioning perfectly fine before someone thought they know best from an office desk from goodness knows where. Mayor Brown, as a local resident and straight shooter, can I ask you to step in here and sort this nonsensical desk decision-making out?
Another annoying issue, not entirely AT’s fault, but our precinct has been without a functioning public toilet. One that can actually flush! Since CRL ripped out the one we had on Pitt Street when they started building the train station four years ago we haven’t one! After much pleading from the precinct to reinstate a toilet for our community, AT wants to put a toilet in the middle of Mercury Lane! $100k has been allocated for this ‘beautiful’ toilet that can be accessible only to fully abled people. Another example of money going down the drain.
After meeting with AT and stating the obvious which is to open the CRL toilets that are pretty much finished at the Beresford station without wasting money on the ‘flash’ one on Mercury Lane (which by the way has been opposed by many) has fallen on deaf ears.
I can only plead to City Rail Link, Auckland Transport and Auckland Council. Stop wasting ratepayers' money and do the logical thing and open the toilets on Beresford Station. Enough is enough, our community has suffered so, so much. Please give some goodwill and faith back to us with proper functioning toilets, so that customers visiting our precinct have a proper place stop to relieve themselves instead of the ‘charming’ port-a-loos that we have had to put up with for the last four years.
Please, please, please… don’t prove I am right – that money is going down the drain.
Please, please, please... don’t embarrass us – when tourists visiting us have to use port-a-loos.
Please, please, please... just do the right thing and open the toilets at Beresford Station.
Please, please, please… keep Mercury Lane the way it has always been.
‘MF please please please’ (Sabrina Carpenter)
Concerned business owner on K' Road.
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