Place:Porirua, Wellington, New Zealand

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Porirua, a city in the Wellington Region of the North Island of New Zealand, is one of the four cities that constitute the Wellington metropolitan area. The name 'Porirua' is a corruption of 'Pari-rua', meaning "the tide sweeping up both reaches". It almost completely surrounds Porirua Harbour at the southern end of the Kapiti Coast. As of Porirua had a population of .

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Tradition holds that, prior to habitation, Kupe was the first visitor to the area, and that he bestowed names of significant sites such as Te Mana o Kupe ki Aotearoa (Mana Island). In addition, it is said that Kupe left his anchor stone, Te Punga o Matahouroa at Whitireia, which is now held at Te Papa Tongarewa.

There is evidence of human habitation in Porirua since 1450 at the latest, during the "moa hunter" period of Māori history. The forests, sea, esturies and swamps provided abundant food and materials. The Porirua area came to be occupied by a succession of tribes, including Ngāti Tara and Ngāti Ira.

Ngāti Toa people migrated south from Kawhia, and took control of the Porirua coast in the 1820s. By the 1840s they had established 12 pā, with Takapūwāhia and Hongoeka still occupied by marae today.

From the late 1830s, European settlers began to express interest in the Porirua region, culminating in the controversial sale of most of the region in 1847. In 1839, the New Zealand Company signed an agreement with Ngāti Toa from which it claimed to have acquired the entire southern part of the North Island. Following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, an inquiry by Land Claims Commissioner William Spain found that most of the alleged purchase, including Porirua, was invalid. However, rising tensions with European settlers led to Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha being captured by 200 British troops and police in July 1846. Shortly afterwards, the Hutt Valley campaign led to chief Te Rangihaeata's retreat to Poroutawhao in the Horowhenua. In April 1847, eight remaining chiefs, including Tamihana Te Rauparaha, Matene Te Whiwhi and Rawiri Puaha, signed a deed for the sale of 69,000 acres for £2,000, comprising almost the entire area from Mākara in the south to Paekākāriki in the north. Three reserves totalling 10,000 acres were left aside for Ngāti Toa. Ngāti Toa hold that the deed was coerced by the holding of Te Rauparaha and that the chiefs signing sought his release.

In the 19th century, a small European settlement grew up, partly because of the need for a ferry across the harbour.

The 1880s and 1890s saw the establishment of the Porirua Lunatic Asylum on the hill south-west of Porirua village. Following the Mental Defectives Act of 1911, the Asylum became Porirua Mental Hospital.

In the late 1940s state planning envisaged Porirua becoming a satellite city of Wellington with state housing. This required improved rail and road links with Wellington and rail and road development has contributed much to the growth of the Porirua area by reducing travel times, making it possible to live in the Porirua area and work in Wellington, and by making day-trips from Wellington to the beaches at Paremata, and Plimmerton relatively easy.

Since the 1940s, Porirua has grown to a city population approaching 57,000, with state housing no longer in the majority. Major territorial additions to the city occurred in 1973 and 1988 as part of the reduction and eventual abolition of Hutt County.

On 7 June 1976, New Zealand's first McDonald's restaurant opened in Porirua, on the corner of Cobham Court and Hagley Street. The original restaurant closed on 24 April 2009, and the store relocated to Kenepuru Drive.

Industry

Substantial industrial areas, generally west of the city centre, have evolved. During the 1960s Kodak, UEB Industries and many small businesses opened at Elsdon. During the following decade, Ashley Wallpapers developed the former UEB property and after favourable negotiations with the government, Todd Motors (later Mitsubishi) moved from Petone to Porirua.

Todd Motors was a vehicle assembly company which moved from Petone and opened a large factory in Porirua in 1975. The factory covered 5.2 hectares on a 33 hectare site known as Todd Park. At its peak there were 1500 employees building 22000 vehicles per year. The company was sold to Mitsubishi in 1987 and the factory closed in 1998.

Hills Hats (established in 1875) set up premises in Porirua in the 1950s. By 1996 it employed 80 people at Porirua and was exporting 75% of its production to 23 countries. The company was sold to overseas investors in 1997, then went into receivership and was bought by Wellington investors in 1998. In 2003 the company shifted from Porirua to Petone.

Bonds Hosiery (later Hilton Bonds, then Sara Lee Apparel, part of Pacific Dunlop) was established in Porirua in the 1960s or early 1970s. In 2001 the factory closed with the loss of 55 jobs, the result of declining hosiery sales worldwide.

Whittaker's confectionery manufacturers moved their business from Wellington to Porirua in 1969 and as of 2022 have around 160 employees at the Porirua factory.

Rail

The development of the rail through Porirua, part of the Kapiti Line, has contributed significantly to the development of Porirua as a satellite city of Wellington. The Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company opened a railway line through Johnsonville from Wellington to Porirua in 1885. The railway reached Longburn (south of Palmerston North) in 1886 to connect with the Government's lines to Taranaki and Napier. With the acquisition of the company by the government in 1908, the line to Porirua and northward to Longburn became part of the North Island Main Trunk railway. The railway provided regular passenger services between Wellington and Porirua and linked Porirua to other North Island centres. A shunting service from Wellington delivered goods wagons to sidings at Porirua, Paremata, Plimmerton, and Pukerua Bay and brought timber for the construction of houses in the area.

The Tawa Flat railway deviation providing double-track railway with double line automatic signalling as far as Tawa opened to passenger services on 19 June 1937, reducing travel time for passenger trains from Wellington to Porirua by 15 minutes, to 27 minutes rather than 43 to 48 minutes.

During 1940, Centralised Train Control (CTC), which allowed direct control of signals and train movements by Train Control in Wellington, was progressively installed on the single line sections of track north of Tawa, replacing tablet working and allowing more efficient, flexible, and rapid control of train movements. CTC between Plimmerton and Paekākāriki applied from 25 February 1940, Paremata to Plimmerton from 30 June, and Tawa to Porirua from 4 December 1940.

On 24 July 1940, the line through Porirua, from Wellington to Paekākāriki, was electrified and double track completed from Plimmerton to South Junction, just north of Muri railway station. Electrification allowed the introduction of electric ED class locomotives, first introduced in 1938 for use on this line, to haul passenger and goods trains. Electric locomotives eliminated the smoke nuisance in the tunnels on the line and allowed longer trains to run. DM/D electric multiple units first ran to Porirua on 5 September 1949 and replaced the majority of locomotive-hauled passenger trains and allowed a more frequent and faster train service.^[1] The duplication of the line from Plimmerton to South Junction allowed a more frequent train service between Porirua and Paekākāriki

Duplication of the track from Tawa to Porirua station opened on 15 December 1957. This completed double line automatic signalling from Wellington distant junction, just south of Kaiwharawhara, to Porirua, and eliminated CTC between Tawa and Porirua. This work, and the provision of additional signals between Kaiwharawhara and Tawa allowed close following of trains and more frequent and faster train services between Wellington and Porirua. During peak periods many multiple unit trains were now terminated at Porirua and returned to Wellington to provide a more frequent service between Wellington and Porirua than was provided for stations north of Porirua.

Extension of the double track and automatic signalling continued with the Porirua to Mana section opened on 7 November 1960. The work involved harbour reclamation to construct straight tack from Porirua to Papakōwhai, just south of Paremata, eliminating the tight curves as the former railway followed the coastline, and creating three lagoons on the eastern side of the harbour. The central lagoon, now known as Aotea Lagoon, remains but is reduced in size. From Paremata to Mana the track was realigned to the West of the original track and a new double-track bridge was built across the entrance to the Pauatahanui Inlet. The original single-track railway bridge, built in 1885, was removed allowing room for the construction of a second road bridge in 2004. The railway stations at Porirua, Paremata, and Dolly Varden were replaced with new stations with Dolly Varden station renamed Mana.

Mana to Plimmerton double track and automatic signalling were completed on 16 October 1961, completing the double track and automatic signalling from Wellington to South Junction, and allowing more frequent train services north of Porirua station. Crossovers at Plimmerton allowed some trains to terminate at Plimmerton and return to Wellington during peak periods.

By 2016, the introduction of electric multiple units with more rapid acceleration, EM/ET class from 1982 and Matangi FP class from 2010, had reduced rail travel time for stopping trains between Wellington and Porirua by another 6 minutes to 21 minutes, despite extra stops at Redwood, Linden, and Kenepuru which each add 48 seconds to the travel time. For non-stopping trains, the time had reduced to 17 minutes. Off-peak passenger services between Wellington and Porirua stations ran every thirty minutes with more frequent services during peak periods and a less frequent during the night. From 15 July 2018, off-peak day services were increased to one every twenty minutes.

Road

Wellington and Porirua are linked by the Johnsonville–Porirua Motorway, part of State Highway 59 within Porirua and State Highway 1 beyond Porirua. Road improvements have progressively reduced travel times between Wellington and Porirua and increased the demand for housing development in Porirua. In 1940, the Centennial Highway developments saw the opening of a four-lane high-speed highway in Ngauranga Gorge bypassing the slower routes through Ngaio and Khandallah. During the 1950s, the high-speed Johnsonville–Porirua Motorway was built through Tawa on the eastern side of the valley. The first section from Johnsonville to the Tawa turnoff at Takapu Road at the southern entrance to Tawa opened on 15 December 1951, broadly following the line of the old North Island Main Trunk railway. It reduced road travel times and considerably improved access between Wellington and Porirua by eliminating the need to use the narrow winding road through the bottom of the Tawa valley in the Glenside area. The second section, from Takapu Road to Porirua, opened about 1956 and allowed through traffic to bypass the lower speed road through Tawa. The Johnsonville bypass connecting the south end of the motorway to the top of Ngauranga Gorge opened about 1958 completing the four-lane road link between Wellington and Porirua.

On 3 October 1936, a road bridge was opened across the entrance to the Pauatahanui Inlet connecting Paremata to Dolly Varden, known as Mana from 1960, eliminating a 22-kilometre journey around Pauatahanui Inlet to Plimmerton. The bridge became part of SH 1 when centennial highway developments saw the completion of a highway from Pukerua Bay to Paekākāriki. A second bridge was built in 2004 allowing two lanes of traffic in each direction.^[2]

In the late 1960s, reclamation work began to the east of the 1960 rail reclamation from Porirua to Paremata allowing the construction of a four-lane expressway alongside the railway. The expressway opened in the early 1970s with room allowed for a future interchange at Whitford Brown Avenue. The reclamation work largely eliminated the north and south lagoons created by the rail reclamation on the east side of the harbour and reduced the size of the central lagoon, known as Aotea Lagoon. An intersection between SH 1 and Mungavin Avenue remained at Porirua until 1989 when the intersection was replaced with a grade-separated roundabout interchange with State Highway 1 passing under the interchange.

The Transmission Gully Motorway was constructed between 2014 and 2021, providing an eastern bypass of Porirua. On 7 December 2021, shortly before its opening, SH 1 was shifted to the Transmission Gully Motorway and the former SH 1 route through Porirua was renumbered SH 59.

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