Story: Canterbury region
Page 10 – Transport
City and port
One of the disadvantages of Christchurch’s site was that the Port Hills separated the city from its port. The Sumner Road was completed in 1857, but most goods were still ferried across the Sumner bar to wharves on the Heathcote River. In 1863 the wharf at Ferrymead was linked to Christchurch by the first public steam railway in New Zealand. A year earlier, the first telegraph line in New Zealand linked Lyttelton and Christchurch.
The problem of port access was solved by the Lyttelton rail tunnel. The first in New Zealand, it was completed in 1867. A road tunnel opened in 1964.
Getting about Christchurch
Up to about 1950, most people used trams and bicycles, or walked. Christchurch had New Zealand’s most extensive tram system (87 route-kilometres), but these and trolley buses were replaced by diesel buses in the mid-1950s.
Constant cycle
Cycling peaked in Christchurch in the early 1950s, when 80,000 bikes were in use. But even in 2006 Christchurch was said to have one of the highest proportions of cyclists to car drivers in New Zealand.
A northern motorway and arterial roads, and a one-way inner city system have spared Christchurch severe congestion. But there are high accident rates, partly because of the many intersections.
Railways
The main trunk railway south from Christchurch reached Ashburton in 1874 and Dunedin in 1878. The line north had reached Waipara by 1880, but did not extend to Parnassus until 1912, or to Marlborough until 1945.
The Canterbury provincial government began building railways out from Christchurch in the 1860s. Branch railways carried passengers and freight between rural districts and Christchurch or Ashburton. They were not displaced by road transport until the 1950s.
Connecting east and west
The westward railway finally reached Arthur’s Pass in 1914. The 8.5 kilometre Ōtira tunnel opened in 1923, forging an important link with the West Coast. Timber and coal came east. The Press newspaper went west. Trampers and mountaineers used trains to reach Arthur’s Pass. Today, West Coast coal comes to Lyttelton for export, and the Tranz Alpine Express is popular with tourists.
The far horizon
The single furrows which guided the earliest travellers across the plains were soon replaced by metalled roads. The long, straight, dusty road leading to the horizon became emblematic of Canterbury, as Robin Muir describes: ‘The road stretched ahead, straight and true, pointing at the wall of mountains; the telegraph posts like a lesson in perspective drawing’. 1
In 1864 gold was discovered on the West Coast. The first diggers used a rough track across Harper Pass. In 1865–66 a stock track was built over Browning Pass, but it was high and steep, and Arthur’s Pass was chosen for a new road that opened in March 1866. A track was made over the Lewis Pass in the 1890s and a road, built during the depression, opened in 1937.
Bridging the rivers
Rivers were a major obstacle to roads and railways. Slowly, river ferries were replaced by bridges, many doubling for road and rail. Construction was often difficult because of extremely wide riverbeds with no bedrock near the surface. One bridge across the Rakaia River is still the longest in the South Island, at 1.75 kilometres.
Sea and air links
The overnight ferry service between Lyttelton and Wellington ceased in 1976. It was replaced by the day ferry service between Picton and Wellington, and by air services.
In 1923, the Sockburn field of the Canterbury Aviation Company became Wigram Aerodrome, the birthplace of the New Zealand Air Force. An Air Force Museum, opened in 1987, remained after Wigram closed in 1995.
Ashburton had the first local-body airport in the South Island, from 1930. The Christchurch municipal airport was opened in 1940. In 1950 it was designated New Zealand’s first international airport, and in 1956 became a base for flights to Antarctica.
