A few days ago I showed a plan of the proposed alignments of a future Harbour Crossing: including a rail tunnel, a road tunnel and a road bridge alignment. This is included below, to refresh your memories:
The full reports by NZTA are online and can be found here. Further to that, a press release by Transport Minister Steven Joyce gives us an overview of the government’s position:
Report on Auckland harbour crossing to inform planning debate
Transport Minister Steven Joyce says the release today of an evaluation of options for an additional Waitemata Harbour Crossing will help inform debate on the future shape of Auckland.
The evaluation report is the result of a request from the Minister last year for the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to more closely examine the relative costs and benefits of tunnel and bridge crossings.
An additional harbour crossing will be needed within about 20 years to cater for increased growth.
Mr Joyce says the current and future Auckland Harbour crossings are essential transport infrastructure – providing a vital link between north and south, both physically and economically.
“Because of the importance of any new crossing, all stakeholders, including members of the public, must have access to solid information as they form opinions and consider options as to whether a bridge or tunnel is more appropriate, and when it should be built.
“While this report does not make a recommendation it does lay out the facts to date and considerations for both options.”
The report considers:
Cost and funding options (between $3.9 billion for a bridge and $5.3 billion for tunnels in 2010 dollars)
Benefit cost ratios
Constructability, operability and consentabilityMr Joyce says the government has not formed a view on whether a tunnel or a bridge is most appropriate.
“Both the form of a third crossing and the timing of it will be part of the discussion around Auckland’s spatial plan. This will likely be one of the biggest projects for Auckland over the next 20 years and it needs to be planned and sequenced carefully alongside other investments.
“It’s my expectation that the third harbour crossing will increase the number of lanes across the harbour and also allow for public transport corridors and walking and cycling lanes,” says Mr Joyce.
Ouch! Even the supposedly “cheap and cheerful” bridge option looks like it would cost close to four billion dollars. That would be enough to easily build the CBD Tunnel plus rail from Onehunga to Manukau via the Airport: plus you’d still probably have close to half a billion as change. For the $5.3 billion tunnel option, you could definitely build the following:
– CBD Rail Tunnel (approx $2 billion).
– Airport Rail (approx $1.5 billion for full Onehunga to Manukau option)
– North Shore Rail (approx $1.6 billion for Britomart to Takapuna + upgrade of existing busway).
Throw in the billion or so that we would save from the holiday highway if we were simply more sensible about it and you’re starting to see either one of two things. Either we definitely have enough money for all of the fanciest railway schemes imaginable; or we’re proposing to spend an utterly stupid amount of money on the Waitemata Harbour Crossing project. I probably lean more to the latter. The business case for the crossing options confirms that:
So, given that we don’t actually even really need another harbour crossing (because traffic volumes are across the Harbour Bridge falling thanks to the Northern Busway) and given that for the price of the project we could build Auckland a completely amazing, all-encompassing rail system, I think it’s fair to say that another road crossing is a stupid idea.
A really really expensive, stupid idea.
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Apparently there is a FAQ on this saying that the Busway is expected to be adequate for the next 30 years, hence rail not required. If that is the case then why are we even considering another harbour crossing again?
The justification is really really weak. Expectations of traffic increases even though traffic has been steady for the past 15 years during peak times.
One of the reasons for the western ring route is to divert traffic from sh1. Surely when this is completed it will reduce pressure on the bridge. It would actually be a good time to bring in continuous bus lanes accross the bridge.
The plan will go something like this: We can’t afford 4 tunnels and no one likes the bridge so let’s just build 2 tunnels ‘for now’ and build the train ones ‘later’. All after we build the Puhoi to Wellsford motorway, which is more urgent now the Herald ran an article on the front page today more or less saying that it was the way to save lives on that otherwise dangerous stretch of road.
It’s amazing to drive north at the moment. You drive through kilometres of difficult roads, those that will be bypassed by the motorway should it be built, and once passed this point you hit extensive road works- reshaping a reasonably curving and hilly part of the route. These are the sorts of safety improvements not happening to the south due to the ‘motorway is coming’ approach. Even though it is realistically not going to be functioning north of Warkworth for maybe 20 years. How many lives will be lost to this approach?
We NEED trains on the Shore, and we need to be able to cycle/walk to/from the city if need be, I know for us we would most definitely cut down on our car use if these were an option, especially given P works in the city, and has to drive because he cant get home at night. Northern busway is no use to us in the slightest, even the sad excuse for a bus lane down Onewa road doesnt really help because it bottlenecks as you get onto the motorway, not to mention the sad bus service that we get up here anyway 🙁
A walking/cycling option across the harbour bridge would be pretty cheap to implement. Even $50 million is chicken feed compared to the cost of these additional crossing proposals.
If rail was to go to the shore it would probably go up the busway. Unfortunately I can’t ever see a train line to Beach Haven.
Good point Swan. If more traffic takes the Western Ring Route, won’t traffic numbers over the Harbour Bridge drop even further?
John Key said this the other day in response to reporters questioning the wisdom of not delaying some of the road building projects
“If you look at the benefit/ cost ratio and the process we go through in approving those roads, the bar is set quite high”
So if the BCR of this is 0.4-0.6 how have these passed the threshold? Of course they are similar figures to P2W and a few other RoNS. Personally I think we should build the rail tunnels first and use that to get a large chunk of traffic off the existing bridge which should ease the pressure on it. It also means that in the event of something going wrong there is still a connection to the city that people can use while trucks and freight can use the WRR.
I only had time to skim the report, Did it mention anywhere the cost of the rail tunnel / road solutions independently?
The information I’ve seen (buried somewhere) is that the three aspects have the following costs:
Rail Tunnel (between Gaunt Street and Akoranga): $1.6 billion
Road Bridge: $3.9 billion
Road Tunnel: $5.3 billion
Obviously linking the rail to Britomart, and extending it up the busway to Albany, would cost more. But I’m pretty damn sure all up you could get a Britomart to Albany railway line for less than the cost of the road bridge.
It is in Appendix H Confirmed Form Option Cost Estimates
I think that the rapidly increasing cost of repairing the clip ons is the big driving factor for the third crossing. The clip ons are going to need to be replaced at some stage (that date is approaching more rapidly) so there has to be new capacity before the clip ons are un clipped.
Actually the clip-ons are fine indefinitely, they will just need to potentially manage the number of trucks they allow on the clip-ons in the future (NZTA’s Tommy Parker said this at the most recent Transport Committee meeting).
So no biggie.
That’s right, the NZTA have spent $85m on reinforcing the bridge, so it has a life of at least 20 years. Longer if they continue to clamp down on overweight trucks using the bridge.
Holmes Consulting have also proposed “dynamic load sharing” with the central truss bridge, which could be achieved for $10m.
Does the rail tunnel actually run underground all the way to the Esmond interchange, or does it surface by the Onewa interchange then run overground?
Looking at the passenger transport study document they seem to be suggesting running rail underground through most of the North Shore to Albany but costing roughly $11b. I think they might be gold plating it as a way of making it so expensive it gets killed off quickly.
Also notice how their costing has the harbour section of the rail tunnel at three billion? So the two lane electric rail tunnel part of the project is apparently going to cost more than the new motorway bridge/tunnel and all its associated links and mega interchanges?!
Just thinking about the wording of the press release, saying a new crossing will be needed within 20 years and that it is essential transport infrastructure, does anyone else think they might try to build this ahead of the CBD tunnel (which they will just call a nice to have)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10714324
*sigh*
Seriously, this lot are a bunch of complete and utter grade-A douchebags!
So the Herald is not even trying to hide the fact they are shilling for the National Party now huh? Well I guess a cheap as chips, ugly road only bridge is what we will get.
What about the new SH18? They are building a whole motorway and have doubled the Greenhithe bridge in order to take the load off the harbour bridge. If petrol is going to be as expensive as they say, why would you need another 6-8 traffic lanes?
It reads like a report that attempts to justify a bridge but fails to do so and the BCRs for either are pretty pathetic, what was the BCR for a rail only tunnel I wonder – was that mentioned anywhere. However, in the end I honestly don’t see how Joyce will be around long enough to make this get built and the destruction it will cause on both sides of the harbour suggest either option would be pretty difficult to push through. Rail tunnels seem like the only option that wouldn’t result in the complete and utter destruction of the foreshore.
Yes of course, rtc, but they are trying to cut that option off at the pass by claiming that it would cost 11 Billion!: http://www.aucklandtrains.co.nz/2011/03/22/the-argument-against-north-shore-rail/
Transparent tactics and crazy…. clearly there are a lot of vested interests here, and a lot of money; NZTA, Beca, and so on are fighting for Business As Usual.
SH20, SH18, the Busway, and the oil price have put the need for any crossing further out, and other than what all those buses will do to the quality and efficiency of life and business on the streets of AK, probably further out than 20 years. And Joyce will be gone.
We need to holt fast onto our vision for AK and not give in to this clumsy manipulation.
I see the NZ Transport Agency wants Aucklanders to pay the extra $1.4b if we choose the more expensive option of the $5.3b road tunnel over the $3.9b road bridge.
Does this mean that if Aucklanders make the smarter choice of a $1.6b rail tunnel that we get to keep the change of $2.3b?
Not only would we reduce congestion on the existing Auckland Harbour Bridge, along with reduced air pollution, carbon emissions, traffic noise and our dependency on increasingly expensive oil, the $2.3b could fund the CBD rail tunnel and rail to the airport.