A month or so ago I helped present, on behalf of the Campaign for Better Transport, what we considered to be a more cost-effective and safety conscious option for upgrading State Highway 1 between Puhoi and Wellsford than the offline four-lane highway – often called the “holiday highway” – that is NZTA and the government’s current preferred option. The full document is available within the September 2010 agenda of the ARC’s Transport and Urban Development Committee meeting.

At the August meeting of the T&UD committee, the following resolution was passed:
An item in the September committee agenda responds to this request.

The most interesting part of the agenda item is included below:


The letters sent to the Minister of Transport and NZTA are quite clear: that cost-effective staged improvements, along the lines of what is suggested by Operation Lifesaver, should be preferred. Both letters also state that around 45-50 deaths may be prevented by more immediate safety upgrades. It will be very interesting to see what the responses of NZTA and the Minister are.

In response to this particular item in September’s agenda, the ARC made the following resolutions:
It will be particularly interesting to see where Auckland Council and Auckland Transport sit with relation to this project. I have heard John Banks openly support the project “because the government wants it done” at the CBT’s annual meeting. Len Brown hasn’t said much about the project at all – either in support or opposition. If Auckland Council and Auckland Transport end up opposing the project, then it might be quite a challenge for the government to get it built in such a hostile environment.

In the meanwhile, I will be keeping an eye out for the responses to the ARC’s letter, from both NZTA and the Minister. It will also be interesting to see the results of NZTA’s more detailed analysis of the cost-effectiveness of the project – which is due to be released later this year. One hopes that they are undertaking a more robust analysis than what SKM did last year.

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