It sounds like a circus doesn’t it? Roll up! Roll up! To the motorway building bonanza! I do generally find myself losing count when I try to put together all the motorway building projects that are going on around Auckland at the moment. Well, let’s give it a go anyway:
- ALPURT B2: This is the final stage of a motorway that’s been under construction in stages for about the past 13 years. In my opinion it’s probably the most justified motorway project in Auckland at the moment, as it should help relieve (or at least, shift) one of the nastiest holiday traffic bottlenecks in the country, from Orewa to Puhoi. It’s a pretty spectacular road with viaducts and tunnels, and I think should be finished and open in just a few months.
- Mt Roksill SH20 extension: This motorway extension will probably end up being fairly useful for me, as it will bring SH20 much much closer to me, which is good if I want to get to the airport or to the south. However, it is still a motorway to nowhere in that instead of dumping all its traffic onto Hillsborough Road, it’ll dump all its traffic onto Sandringham, Maioro and Dominion roads. Plus it’s along a route that is totally un-useful for public transport so will play its part in continuing the dominance of private vehicle transport in Auckland. To open in February or April next year I think.
- Manukau Harbour Crossing Project: This is essentially the widening of SH20 from Queenstown Road to Walmsley Road. The most critical aspect of the project is the duplication of the Mangere Bridge. For some reason this project became ‘essential’ to complete before the Rugby World Cup in 2011 so the contractors are going balls out to get it done in time. Another ‘widening of the belt to allow yourself to get fatter’ project that (I know for a fact) is designed to induce private vehicle travel. Due for opening some time in early 2011 I think.
- SH20-SH1 Manukau Link. This is a relatively short extension of motorway that will link up the southern end of SH20 with the Southern Motorway. I can see a pretty good logic in this project, in that it will get the through traffic off Wiri Station Road and hopefully allow Manukau City Centre to prosper more as a result of far fewer trucks chugging through it all the time. This is a pretty expensive project for its length, as there are an enormous number of bridges and other spans to be built. All this money for the motorway but nothing to ensure the Manukau Rail Spur is built properly…. typical. I think this project is due for completion in 2010 some time.
- SH18 Hobsonville Deviation. This project has just started in the last few months, and will be a continuation of the Upper Harbour Motorway that was recently built bypassing Greenhithe. It will allow through traffic to bypass Hobsonville Road – which is one heck of an annoying arterial route. However, once again this is a project that hasn’t seemed to consider public transport at all. Perhaps a future busway from Albany to Westage could benefit from it, but I doubt the foresight is there to actually provide for this. Another auto-focused project designed to encourage car-use.
Add to this list projects that are due to be started in the near(ish) future:
- Newmarket Viaduct Replacement. This is a pretty expensive project to replace the (not particularly old) Newmarket Viaduct, a pretty damn crucial link in Auckland’s roading network. Apparently when the viaduct was built, the technology was pretty new and as a result it’s fairly sub-optimal by international standards. The replacement will add one lane for southbound traffic, but (oddly) nothing for northbound traffic. Considering how sub-standard the rail network is, this project does seem to be just another example of how easy it is to get money for motorway projects in Auckland.
- Victoria Park Tunnel. Now if there is one motorway project I do whole-heartedly support in Auckland it is this one. When the Central Motorway Junction Improvements were completed a couple of years they didn’t really fix any bottlenecks, but only shifted them – most particularly onto the 4 lane Victoria Park viaduct. The tunnel will provide three completely new lanes for northbound traffic, while all four lanes of the existing viaduct will be used for southbound vehicles. While there isn’t an immediately obvious benefit to public transport from this project, the mess the current situation creates for traffic on the Harbour Bridge does probably hold up buses to some extent. Furthermore, in the long run the Victoria Park Viaduct will eventually be completely replaced by a tunnel, and the park will finally be returned to its former glory by not having a bloody motorway cut across the middle of it.
- Waterview Connection. Ha! Now here’s the biggie. All the other projects probably have a total cost of around $2 billion. This pretty much equals the cost of the Waterview Connection by itself. While it’s great that the only option left on the table for this link is a tunnel, the cost is simply astronomical for a roading project. I will leave my analysis of what that kind of money could do for Auckland’s train network to another post, but needless to say the scale and cost of the Waterview Connection – the last link in the western ring route hooking up the end of the Mt Roskill extension with SH16 – is unprecedented for this country.
So yes, as we can see there is a motorway building bonanza going on in Auckland at the moment. In fact, there has been one going on for the past few years now. However, the only time when congestion actually decreased was when petrol prices increased. It makes one think that instead of spending billions on more motorways, perhaps the government should just tax petrol more to solve congestion.
Now there’s an interesting thought to ponder.
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