The following was submitted by a resident in the Raumati area by sending her writing to the funny looking email address found below and you are encouraged to do the same so it can be posted here too...

Hey everyone,

There is again a whole lot of hassle about the Western Link Road (WLR), and where its southern entrance will be - and when!

Some people want the Raumati Station campaign to take sides in this debate on the WLR entrance - and we have always been clear that we are not going to do that.

At some stage, should either 200MRS or Poplar Avenue ever host a grade separated interchange as a southern entrance to the WLR, either site could accommodate an off ramp to the Station - whose optimal siting is equidistant between those two roading options.

But the fact is that the Station should be built immediately using existing connectivity - ie the carpark that is reserved for this purpose already, and which can also host a bus stop - and an overhead ramp for pedestrians to access the platform, just like there are ramps connecting pedestrians to platforms all the way down the western line eg Paremata, Tawa, Linden, Pukerua Bay etc.

Lucy

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The following was submitted by a resident in the Raumati area by sending his writing to the funny looking email address found below and you are encouraged to do the same so it can be posted here too...

People who use trains get to their station in many ways but when you see these numbers below I think you'll know why there are not many people walking from Raumati to the the train even though the train runs past their community. I used a handy feature on Google maps to start to sort out why. The feature estimates how long it would take an average person to walk between two points selected on a map. So I took the walking times between several sets of stations to show how unfair Raumati has it when it comes to accessing a station if one chooses to walk. When the planners spread out the stops for the stations they placed them at certain distances apart and here are the walking times that resulted. Between Muri Station and Pukerua Bay Station would be about 14 minutes, between Plimmerton Station and Mana Station about 18 minutes, between Linden Station and Tawa Station about 15 minutes, Tawa Station and North Redwood Station about 7 minutes...but for the walking time between a proposed Raumati Station to the nearest station (Paraparaumu) along a populated community that continues to grow? ...30 minutes. Hardly sounds like we're asking for something unreasonable, does it?

Jeremy

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The following was submitted by a resident in the Raumati area by sending his writing to the funny looking email address found below and you are encouraged to do the same so it can be posted here too...

Q: What has to go back to go forward on the Kapiti Coast?

A: A Raumati resident getting a train to Wellington.

Hello, train supporters! Er, train-station-at-Raumati supporters. We are the only area without a station, the only community unable to get on a train easily on the Great Western Rail Line (15 stations) serving the Kapiti Coast or “Nature Coast”, running out of the capital of New Zealand. That’s Wellington, Absolutely Positively "Middle Earth" and “Wild at Heart” just 47 kms south of Raumati. Windy Wellington, a beautiful exciting city, the seat of government, a city that makes big films and has a wonderful museum and a splendid harbour and rolling hills ……right on our doorstep but we have to jump through hoops to get there by train.

It’s almost as if our capital city doesn’t want us Raumati people (7,300 pop.)) to visit. It would be really grand to be able to take a train more easily to our capital city instead of having to take the car 4 - 5 kms in the wrong direction to get to a station to take a train back again. I really don’t like looking at where I’ve just come from 15 minutes before (assuming a parking place at the Park-and-Ride), as I wave to my house from the train. What a silly feeling! Like something from Monty Python - go back to go forward.

Thought: maybe I could cycle to the station, then no problems with parking, but the trip to get the train would be almost as long as the train ride to Middle Earth.

(Graham Bathgate) of www.finelinepress.co.nz

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The following was submitted by a resident in the Raumati area by sending her writing to the funny looking email address found below and you are encouraged to do the same so it can be posted here too...

I would like to see Regional Council honour its commitments to Raumati people over many decades and finally construct a simple platform and shelter for us to use, with a pedestrian overbridge like that at Paremata and Papakowhai, and the use of the carpark with access through the top of Poplar Avenue.

This has all been planned for so loooong now! Plans made and drawn up, funding secured, project work prepared - and then DUMPED because Regional Council wanted to use the money given to make up for shortfalls in their planning on other projects!

Why cant they get it right and provide rail to people who want to use it?

Cheryll

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