Welcome to a windy Tuesday in Wellington. It’s Bridie Witton, taking over from Bill Hickman, with everything you need to know in the capital.
5pm: The Mt Victoria tunnel will be closed overnight from 9pm to 5.30am for maintenance works. Commuters should take another route.
Planning ahead for tomorrow, commuters should also know bus routes 2, 3, 12, 14, 18E, 20, 21, 22, 30X, 31X, 81, 83 and 84 will be cancelled on Wednesday, June 23 between the hours of 9am and 3pm because of a stopwork meeting. Drivers will decide whether to accept a revised offer to settle a dispute with their employer NZBus.
2pm: Plan ahead for tomorrow: Poet Harry Ricketts will be at Unity Books
Harry Ricketts will be reading selected poems in Unity Books on Wednesday evening. David Eggleton from the New Zealand Review of Books said “Ricketts brings out into the sunlight the lumber stored in the attic of his mind. He clocks both the psychological distance between people here and the paradoxical sense of closeness in a lonely land.”
Unity Books, Willis St from 6pm June 23.
Wellington poet Harry Ricketts
12.20pm SH53 Waihenga Bridge into Martinborough opens
Waka Kotahi has announced that the main access route into Martinborough is now clear, with the Ruamahanga River level low enough to reopen the Waihenga Bridge on SH53. The bridge was closed on Monday afternoon after the river level reached the 4.5 metre cutoff point.
Alex Beijen/Supplied
The Waihenga Bridge on State Highway 53 west of Martinborough is now open.
12.15pm: Wellington Airport rated as ‘stable’ on back of strong Covid controls
Wellington International Airport has received a financial tick of approval from a major credit agency. S&P Global Ratings made the call based on “strong Covid controls in New Zealand, a steady and strong return of domestic traffic, and some resumption in international travel”.
The ratings agency predicted the trans-Tasman bubble would see “international passenger numbers ramp up over the next two to three years, particularly from Australia and Fiji”.
International flights in May 2021 were a quarter of those before Covid, despite the trans-Tasman bubble, while domestic travel was up to 90 per cent of pre-pandemic figures.
Read the full article by Rob Mitchell here.
Mark Tantrum/Getty Images
The welcome mat is out but international passenger numbers are still a quarter of what they were before the pandemic.
11am: The Marriage of Figaro on at The Opera House
“Lust, revenge, deception and a wedding. It’s amazing what you can pack into a day.” New Zealand Opera’s production of The Marriage of Figaro arrives in the capital this week.
Director Lindy Hume brings the classic story into 2021 with a production that explores the feminist ideas in one of the most enduring operas ever written.
Tickets are available here.
supplied
John Moore and Emma Pearson as the Count and Countess Almaviva in NZ Opera’s Marriage of Figaro.
10am: Why on earth is Wellington so windy?
On Monday, strong southeasterly winds reached speeds of 130kph, further adding to the evidence Wellington is the windiest city in the country – and maybe even the world. What is it about Wellington that makes it perfect for that hair-knotting, umbrella-flipping wind?
NIWA forecaster Tristan Meyers talks about the factors that contribute to Wellington’s windy reputation. Read Brittany Deguara’s full story here.
9am: Work on Hataitai roundabout starts today
The Wellington City Council is installing a roundabout at a busy four-way intersection in Hataitai after safety concerns from the local community.
The intersection at Moxham Ave, Hataitai Rd and Waitoa Rd has been the site of a number of accidents, and consultation with the community opposed traffic lights with a roundabout being the preferred option.
There will be a road closure on part of Waitoa Rd during construction with alternative routes in place. Work is expected to take up to three months.
More information can be found here.
7.15am: Bus and train cancellations
Metlink posted six bus cancellations ahead of 7.10am this morning. Buses will replace some evening services on the Kāpiti line until tomorrow. Buses will replace some daytime services on the Hutt Valley line between Trentham and Upper Hutt until Thursday. Buses will replace all daytime services, excluding peak services, on the Wairarapa line until further notice.
Follow the link to check your route for Metlink cancellations and alerts.
6.45am: Waihenga Bridge, near Martinborough closed due flooding
Waihenga Bridge on State Highway 53 near Martinborough, in the Wairarapa, is closed due to rising water levels. Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency advises motorists to use an alternative route and allow extra time for journeys.
6.30am: Wellington weather
Mostly cloudy. Showers, growing more frequent in the early afternoon. Strong southerlies gradually easing. The high will be 11 degrees Celsius and the low will be 7C.
From the pages of today’s Dominion Post
KEVIN STENT/Stuff
Ben Pettit recently became the NZ open men’s tenpin bowling champion at the age of 13.
Porirua’s Ben Pettit becomes New Zealand Open Men’s Tenpin bowling champion at 13
Ben Pettit has had a bowling ball in his hands since he was 3, and 10 years later he’s on a roll – bowling adults over. Ben is the youngest person to win the New Zealand open men’s tenpin bowling championships, a tournament he initially entered just to gain experience – bowling against people with more training and who were nearly twice his age.
“[There was] a lot of pressure there, but I was kind of in my own game, so I didn’t really think about it that much,” Ben said. “I was just bowling.”
Read the full story by Mandy Te here.
Teens could be vaccinated before end of the year
Teenagers should be vaccinated against coronavirus before the end of the year, while children as young as six months old could soon be vaccinated safely, experts said after the Pfizer vaccine was yesterday provisionally approved for use on Kiwi kids as young as 12.
Expanding the age range promises to help New Zealand reach herd immunity, with children aged under 18 equating to about a quarter of the population, said University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker. Vaccinating children also reduced the impact of vaccine-hesitant adults on herd immunity by increasing the total proportion of the populated that has been inoculated against the coronavirus.
“Herd immunity is a numbers game. If you want to achieve 60 to 70 per cent coverage, you ideally want to include children,” he said.
Ross Giblin/Stuff
Paid-parking hours could be extended in Wellington.
Council proposes to extend metered parking hours
Wellington City Council is proposing to extend paid parking hours in the CBD by two to four hours every night, as it continues its push to reduce the number of private vehicles on the capital’s streets.
The change would apply to about 3300 central city parking spaces, and is another clear message to motorists to leave their cars at home as the council looks to free up road space and manage increasing demand.
If approved by councillors next week on June 30, as part of the council’s 10-year plan, paid parking hours would be extended from 6pm to 8pm from Sunday to Thursday, and from 8pm to 10pm on Friday and Saturday.
Read the full story by Damian George here.
And in the arts …
PIERS FULLER/Stuff
Greytown crooner Steve Carlin is about to release a new album titled ‘All you need is me’
Greytown singer captures the soul of the big band swing sound
A karaoke version of Mack the Knife at a Courtenay Place bar may well have set Steve Carlin on a path to becoming one of New Zealand’s leading crooners.
The Greytown singer’s been a part of the Wellington music scene for many years, but in the past decade or so he has charted his own course with a classic 1950s jazz sound.
The 49-year-old is about to release an album of big band swing tracks that pays homage to its Rat Pack roots, while simultaneously being infused with a host of Kiwi contributions.
Read the full story by Piers Fuller here.
