I must say sometimes I really struggle to understand the logic behind many of central government’s transport decisions in recent times. Cutting back funding for public transport infrastructure improvements when PT patronage is booming, pushing for massively more state highway spending when traffic flows are declining, sometimes it’s just really difficult to make sense out of what thinking’s going on behind the scenes.
A media release by the “Auckland Business Forum” today perhaps provides a bit of insight into the pressures that the roading lobby is putting on central government. A lot of what is said in the media release is completely crazy – thinking stuck back in the middle of last decade when traffic growth was high and petrol was cheap. However, I think perhaps what the media release shows is a severe worry that while the government’s road spending spree over the next 10-20 years is utterly massive, a decreasing proportion of that spend is likely to be in Auckland. This is particularly the case once the Waterview Connection project is completed.
The Business Forum outlines a number of very high priorities – projects they think are essential for completion by 2015-2020:
Auckland Transport with NZTA (and Auckland Council and Government support) to form a Special Project Group to design, finance and build the South Eastern Corridor by 2015-20.
This requires:
– Design and build of a high quality strategic transport link between SH1 Mt Wellington/ East Tamaki and SH20 Onehunga/ Gloucester Park I/C and a reconfigured Eastern Corridor (AMETI) project.
– Various investigations from the 1960’s have reconfirmed the need for the SH1-20 East-West corridor link, the latest showing that if not completed by 2020, traffic in the area will be reduced to a crawl throughout most working days. Freight traffic volumes on local roads along the route are higher than on most state highways across New Zealand.
– Multi-billion dollar economic benefits have been shown for the Eastern Corridor or AMETI project. Currently the project is being built in small stages that stretch its completion out to the 2030’s. This approach is totally unacceptable given current high congestion levels and the continuing fast growing business and residential suburbs in this area of Auckland.
While this project is likely to be led locally rather than by central government, because it’s not a state highway, it would require a significant contribution from NZTA. With the government effectively capping available funding for new local roads in their latest GPS, finding the money for projects like this is going to be very very difficult. Personally, while I don’t really know enough about the merits of the east-west connection to provide a full opinion, I think it’s fairly likely that such a project would make a bigger difference to improving the movement of freight than a Cambridge to Taupo expressway.
In terms of AMETI, having that project focus on improving public transport is also likely to free up existing roadspace for freight vehicles. There’s also nothing stopping us looking at allocating dedicated lanes for freight vehicles if that was seen as creating genuine benefits. One would think that in constrained economic times it would be necessary to focus on what small improvements might make a big difference, or what measures could be taken to use existing infrastructure more efficiently. Perhaps those tests only apply to new public transport projects?
The media release then looks at other projects considered necessary for completion in the short-term future:
Action is required immediately to complete by 2015/16 a group of small and medium-sized projects on the motorway network where a lot of Auckland’s daily girdlock occurs and that have been on NZTA’s plans for many years but there is currently no confirmed construction scheduled. They are:
– SH1 Mt Wellington overbridge near Sylvia Park where the southern motorway narrows from 3 to 2 lanes in each direction: This part of the southern motorway is gridlocked for large periods of the working day – widening the bridge to at least 3 lanes in each direction is arguably as urgent as current projects to widen SH1 at the Newmarket and Victoria Park viaducts.
– SH20A George Bolt Drive intersection with Kirkbride Rd on the main route to Auckland Airport: Around 80,000 vehicles use the intersection every day. The project involves eliminating the intersection with an overbridge and/or short tunnel.
– SH 16 Grafton Gully (Stage 3) where it meets Stanley Street and The Strand: 3000 freight vehicles heading to-from the Ports of Auckland each day converge with commuter traffic travelling between inner and eastern suburbs heading to the CBD. A long-planned project exists to separate port freight and other traffic.
– SH18 Upper Harbour Highway connection with SH1 Northern Motorway upgrade between Constellation Drive and Greville Rd at Albany. An upgrade of this section of the northern motorway, including bus shoulder lanes (and/or busway extension) is needed for when the Western Ring Route is completed in a few years otherwise the already bad daily gridlock in this part of the network will become much worse.
– SH20B Puhinui Corridor from SH20 Manukau Extension to Auckland Airport: An upgrade from 2-lane to 4-lane expressway including bus shoulder lanes and priority facilities at intersections is needed for the increasing commuter, business and tourism traffic travelling between the Airport area, Manukau, eastern suburbs and south of Auckland.
– SH1: Victoria Park Viaduct replacement by two 3-lane tunnels – South bound tunnel, no confirmed programme.
First off I must say I’m surprised that they want the four-lane southbound viaduct into a three lane tunnel. I couldn’t agree more, but unfortunately we missed the opportunity to do that cheaply a year or so ago when the project was just starting to be implemented. I also find the reference to the projects as “small to medium” quite amusing. All up they would come to at least a couple of billion dollars. The SH20A intersection project probably makes the most sense out of the lot, and one would hope that it could be designed in such a way to enable the easier completion of Airport Rail at some point in the future.
Later on, the media release starts talking about some really batty projects:
– Completion of the Waikato Expressway (2 lanes each direction) by 2015/16
– Re-configure the SH1: Puhoi – Wellsford RONS into a priority SH1: Puhoi – Whangarei Expressway by 2021.
Puhoi to Whangarei! Ahahahahahahahaha – I wonder how many billion dollars that would cost, and how unbelievably low its cost-benefit ratio would be?
I suppose on the bright side the media release eventually talks about the need for the CBD Rail Tunnel by 2015/2020 – but only on the condition that a special funding scheme be established for it (presumably so it doesn’t steal any money away from giant motorway projects).
Reading stuff like this media release should just make me laugh at how utterly nonsensical many of the projects are. However, the lack of logic behind transport policy and funding priorities means that I can never rule out anything as being too wacky these days.
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And I’m sure they are all lining up to volunteer to pay extra taxes to fund this madness.
I think the east-west connection they are referring to is the $billion+ ‘middle rung’ from Onehunga to Highbury. Overall it is just a massive roadfest with no sense and a bit of PT washing. I also note how they say that PT projects should only be encouraged if they demonstrate that they are affordable and will generate economic benefits.
“The Auckland Business Forum was formed in 1999 to advocate urgent action to complete the region’s long-agreed motorway network by 2014/15 including affordable public transport improvements and set a medium-term objective to progressively enhance the network to meet future demand.”
Why are they pretending to be a Buiness forum when there sole purpose is to lobby for more motorways/ “affordable PT improvements”. Members are an impressive list but definitely have finical incentive to lobby for more taxpayer funded roads.
“SH1 Mt Wellington overbridge near Sylvia Park … widening the bridge to at least 3 lanes” isn’t this a strategic bottleneck to stop the motorway from grid locking with the pressure of the traffic from the east?
I hope The Auckland Business Forum understands the cost of what they are proposing. Billions and billions of dollars. Perhaps with a steep increase (double?) to Petrol tax / RUC’s we could afford them. That would put our petrol prices up near what most of the OECD are paying.
This all reminds me a bit of an old Joni Mitchell song. *sigh*
Just think how much worse this could be if we were in the US. During the election campaign, we would be having multi-million dollar advertising spots on TV: “Vote National – for a sensible, balanced roading investment program. Paid for by Citizens for Infrastructure Investment” [I.e. funded by these guys].
At least at the moment, they have to go through channels like this, rather than bribing their way in directlty.
some sort of East – West link is a good idea, but this should be a series of local-road projects, not one big motorway. The Kiwirail site of Neilson St is the third biggest container handling point in the country after the Ports of Auckland and Tauranga. So thats why I support an East – West link, but thats probably the only major road project in Auckland I do support.
However once you get down to the details of what exactly needs to be done it becomes very complicated.
So some investigation should be done, however should stay away from NZTA as they just want to build a big motorway from SH1 to SH20 to have an extra rung for no real purpose. But this is not what is required.
This is a big issue with NZTA being flush with cash, but AT being strapped for cash it seems.
That’s not entirely NZTA’s fault. Joyce has effectively forbidden them from spending any of their money on public transport capital projects. So if you’ve got a heap of money being thrust at you, and more money to which you are entitled, but you can only spend it on one form of project, of course your project lists are going to look unbalanced.
Others have read some of NZTA’s recent releases and suggest that there’s an undertone within them of disquiet at what’s being forced upon them by the Minister of Roads and his Roads of Dubious Significance. And these are people who are not known to be ardent defenders of NZTA’s spending habits.
As someone that travels in from South Auckland every morning, i would say that the Mt Wellington junction is a major priority…..it took 2 and half hours to get in this morning. Once you get past MT Wellington, it manages to free itself.