There was an interesting exchange in parliament yesterday about the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” – and in particular focusing on the issue of whether the Minister was confident the project still represents good value for money. Here’s the video:
Here’s the full discussion. I think of particular interest is the following:
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) to the Minister of Transport: Is he satisfied that the Pūhoi to Wellsford road of national significance represents good value for money and has had its costs and benefits adequately assessed?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister of Transport) : In regard to the Pūhoi to Wellsford road it is too early to confirm exactly what the final cost-benefit ratio will be. The New Zealand Transport Agency remains in the design and investigation phase and this work is ongoing. The most recent published benefit-cost ratio is 1:1, including wider economic benefits, and this can be found on the New Zealand Transport Agency website. Given the nature of the ongoing work, the exact cost—the “c” of the “b-c”—will not be known until the design is complete, and the New Zealand Transport Agency will continue to update me as this work progresses.
It is somewhat strange that this project has been dedicated a significant amount of funding without a final cost-benefit analysis having been prepared. Imagine what the government would think of such a process for an Auckland rail project?
There’s some amusing debate over the phrase “holiday highway”, as it seems Steven Joyce is getting rather annoyed by how much that name has stuck – but I think of most consequence is that it would appear there remain significant uncertainties over the final cost of the project (particularly north of Warkworth). That could have some interesting effects on the project’s final cost-benefit ratio – particularly it it’s very much hovering around 1 at the moment (with wider economic benefits included).
Processing...
Yes, exactly, Joyce’s argument against the CRL recently has been that its benefits are not ‘proven’. Here he is admitting that even the costs of the HH are unknown; if uncertainty is an excuse to not commit funds towards the CRL then surely the same holds for the highway too?
Loath as I am to upset the evidently delicate sensibilities of the honourable minister, I being of a leftish persuasion, I quite agree with him that the name ‘holiday highway’ is quite inappropriate for the stretch of roading he’s proposing. It more accurately should be described as ‘the speculative developers’ highway to untold riches’, but even I have to admit that ‘holiday highway’ has a catchy ring to it and, as Crosby Textor has no doubt told the minister, this is absolutely vital in today’s dumbed down media environment.
The Subdivision Superhighway? Landbank Lane?
Holidays are where strict BCR’s go out the window, much like this holiday highway.
But I agree, subdivision highway doesn’t quite ring, but speculation highway does.
I’ll have to give Joyce some credit that he does seem to know his knitting. Are all the questions precommunicated, giving the ministers minions time to prepare answers for him, or is he really answering off the cuff?
The amount of time he spends looking down at possibly his notes, i’ll presume the former unless anyone else knows better?
I believe the initial question is tabled beforehand, but follow up questions are random. That is why some opposition questions will be very broad (“Does the PM have confidence in the Minister of Transport?”) and then they can follow up with the real question without tipping off the Minister. Even so, I suspect Ministers spend a couple of hours preparing for question time trying to anticipate questions.
“Imagine what the government would think of such a process for an Auckland rail project?”
The government wouldn’t be impressed. But Auckland voters didn’t mind that Brown promised to build three rail projects without a business case for any of them and with only a vague idea of the costs of one of them.
Mr Wan Konobi,
“Auckland voters didn’t mind that Brown promised to build three rail projects without a business case for any of them and with only a vague idea of the costs of one of them.”
Maybe those rail projects are so obviously needed by Auckland they’re non-brainers and the BCR is a paperwork issue for later?
Thing is, National and some of their supporters see the Holiday Highway in the same light. That said, Auckland did go on to produce a business case first before proceeding further.
And what about the 99% of National supporters who don’t know what the feck is going on*?
(and if they did they wouldn’t be National supporters)
*about anything
“Maybe those rail projects are so obviously needed by Auckland they’re non-brainers and the BCR is a paperwork issue for later?”
Admin has made a pretty good case in favour of the Busway being more than adequate as far out in to the future as we can predict, and that a rail tunnel under the harbour and then to Albany is not needed any time soon. He isn’t a public transport sceptic… if it was an unambiguously worthwhile project then I’d guess Josh would be a supporter.
Well my mistake Mr Wan Konobi. I thought the 3 were the Loop, the Morningside Deviation and rail to the airport. May the Force be with you.
No Obi, the Busway is far from adequate for the future; it has two current and deepening problems: space on the bridge, [no privilege] and space in town [overrun with buses], and one sub-optimal issue; poor integration with the rest of the RTN network.
All of these are best fixed by keeping the effective part of the network; ie north of Akoranga and directly addressing the three issues with a new route to the south. A road crossing with dedicated buslanes would solve the crossing issue but not the other two [ie where do the buses go?] But a rail crossing to Akoranga would solve all three issues with only the minor cost of requiring transfers at Akoranga, here: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/tag/north-shore-line/
Matt the Morningside Deviation is more or less the old (1920s) proposed route of what is now the CRL proposal.
“No Obi, the Busway is far from adequate for the future”
No doubt it can be improved and the harbour crossing is the bottleneck, but Josh gave a good argument a few months ago that the current infrastructure is good till 2040 (? from memory) or so. He convinced me that it shouldn’t be a priority, even if you want to think about possible future improvements conceptually. I’d be interested if his thinking has changed… Admin, can you comment?
As far as I know, the busway was fine on Friday. I haven’t heard of any reports otherwise, although it is possible that any issues were drowned out by the collapse of the train system. If so, that is a pointer to it being a system with good resiliance and an ability to surge to handle peak loads.
I don’t think we need any additional crossing for another 20 years. Beyond that, I think a rail link should happen before any additional road link.
Oh I agree, but we have to argue this now as the powers in Wellington are arranging their plans for us already…. and the bus issue in downtown is going to get horrid pretty soon in my view. But then unlike the gov and the MoT I can about quality of life issues at street level.
“The Road to Nowhere”?
“Yellow Brick Road”?
“Route 666”?
Sounds suspiciously like Joyce has seen a recent unpublished report with a BCR less than 1. Why else would he be so specific, when he hasnt previously.
Yes he is being strangely un-bullish about his pet project isn’t he? While I’m sure he is trying hard to come across as less arrogant [they do spend a lot on consultants] even so I do find this answer intriguing…. well we expect the geotech to be an expensive nightmare up there…. no sane engineer would choose this route: why do you think the rail line takes a much more westerly direction?… those guys had to dug it by hand so they were very clear in following the lead of the topography. This route was always hubristic.
From Wikipedia: “Hubris means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one’s own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power.” That describes Steven Joyce’s attitude perfectly!
Does anyone here actually use the piece of road between Warkworth and Wellsford on a regular basis? I would think not given the responses so far.
That’s one of the issues with this road Bryce. It’s not a road with high traffic volumes- around 10k vehicle movements a day. The real issue with the current road is not the volume of traffic but the fact that no work has been done on making it safer for years given the ‘impending’ motorway.
Bryce our argument is that the current road desperately needs fixing- remember it will still be there even if there is a gold plated and tolled duplicate nearby, and it will still be killing its users. Spend the smaller sum of money to achieve the quicker and more than sufficient result for a better outcome. And yes I do use this road.
Exactly Patrick. The Mountain Road realignment and passing lanes to the north of Wellsford is an example of the sort of safety orientated project that isn’t happening on this stretch of road because of the motorway plans
Yes. A resident of the area. The road is a nightmare and Arnie 03 is correct that nothing has been spent on the road for a long time. That’s the problem. While the spectre of the “Holiday Highway” hangs over it, nothing will be done and people will continue to lose their lives. 4/5 per year at the current rate. Given that (even if they are able to build it at all) NZTA have admitted that the road all the way to Wellsford will not be completed until 2032, that means another 80/100 condemned to death over the next 21 years. That’s a hell of a price to pay for a bit of political idealology. Operation Lifesaver could fix 90% of the problem for 20% of the cost and more importantly, could start to fix it now!
I don’t really know how you would fix Dome Valley without a major re-alignment. This, and the need to properly by-pass Warkworth and Wellsford.
I think you’ll find general agreement here on that. However you don’t need a motorway from Puhoi *to* (not through) Wellsford to do that. Search for Operation Lifesaver to see an outline of a proposal to do just that (along with other improvements to the road) in a timely fashion for a whole lot less money than the Holiday Highway proposal.
Hi Arnie. I have had a fairly brief read of that and, in my mind, it doesn’t go far enough. Just putting median barriers along Dome Valley is like putting the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Band aids on a bad road won’t stop accidents.
Are there any proposals out there for a more ‘major’ rework of the existing SH1 from Warkworth to Wellsford? It would still be expensive but, presumably, cheaper than the proposed toll road.
But it would save lives and could be built next year rather than in 20 or 30 years from now…
But then it would still be ‘patched up’ and still need an alternative over the next 10 or so years (much like the current state of rail in Auckland really).
Not necessarily Bryce. Traffic growth rates across the whole country have been pretty static for the past 5 years. With petrol continuing to get more expensive in the future it seems reasonable to anticipate that the constant traffic growth rates of the past may not return.
@Bryce “But then it would still be ‘patched up’ and still need an alternative over the next 10 or so years”
You’re missing the point that the proposed motorway is not going to be built for at least 20 years so is going to be of absolutely no benefit to whatever is needed in 10 years’ time as you suggest. The CBT’s proposal to improve SH1 could start saving lives next year if Mr Joyce really cared about safety on the route.
Did the CBT ever calculate rough cost/benefit on the lifesaver proposal?
As a fairly regular comuter to Northland (not even including holidays),I’m not disagreeing that the road needs safety improvements but what is being suggested doesn’t go far enough in my mind and something more major needs to be planned, whether it be the proposed highway or major improvements to the existing sh1.
Given the motorway is not likely to be built for 20 years what would you do in the interim? The Dome Valley certainly poses major issues for any interim or permanent solution. Would a new alignment starting south of Warkworth liking to SH16 be a better route? Would be interested to hear you POV.
I think everyone here is missing the point. The road has to go to the east of the railway route as it’s primary purpose is to service the development which will take place on the eastern beaches (Mangawhai, Omaha, Snells etc.). This area is scheduled to take another 92,000 residents over the next 25 years and they all haveto get to Auckland somehow. Very little commercial development is planned, so it will all be residential/commuter and holiday traffic.
The people who think that the road was intended to open up links to Northland have been sold down the river as there never was a plan to go any further than Wellsford/Te Hana. The term “Holiday Highway” is very apt as is the term “Speculators Freeway”. Moving the route further west would be no good at all as it would defeat the whole object of the road.
If the intention was to open up the north, then the road would never have been built to it’s existing terminal at Puhoi. It would currently be finishing in a paddock somewhere near Kaukapakapa.
Good points Bob. Also an inland route was looked at, but found to be much more expensive.
Much more expensive? I didn’t think the costings were in on the Dome Valley section yet, hence the cost-benefit ratio of this section of the road is not yet known. So how can it be more expensive?
You might find some useful answers to that question here: http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2010/07/07/holiday-highway-the-2008-study/
I believe it was only more expensive because we had already committed to building the road to Puhoi, if we hadn’t of built that part and were now looking to do the whole thing then branching off Northwest from Silverdale would probably have been the better option. The biggest problem with that one though is the whole thing has to be done in one go so can’t be broken down like has happened/will happen
Hi Arnie. It has taken a while and a bit of thought but, my priorities for the piece of SH1 between Puhoi and Wellsford would be:
1. Keep the current route (mostly). This alleviates the requirement to maintain 2 separate roads.
2. Use wire median barriers as a temporary safety measure until the roads can be rebuilt properly.
3. Using bridges / cuttings / tunnels – keep Dome Valley but make it safe for motorists.
4. Bypass Warkworth (this doesn’t need to be a 100km/h. How about grade separation through Warkworth? Would keep traffic close to Warkworth but separate SH1 form the coast traffic).
5. 3 or 4 lanes where it is cost effective to do so. (ie. mostly straight, flat road)
6. Baypass Wellsford.
7. Re-align the road before Warkworth where there are current bottlenecks (I don’t know the name but the passing lane past the Mahurangi turnoff). Tunnel / Cuttings / Bridges?
I don’t think the Pohuehue Viaduct needs duplicating at this time. Given the corner at the top of the hill is dangerous, maybe a better solution is required long term?
Feedback appreciated.
All good thoughts Bryce. Basically the key choice is whether we have 2 billion or more to spend on a ‘perfect’ (duplicate as you point out) road that will not be complete for several years or make these cheaper incremental changes to the existing road to make it safer and more free flowing straight away.
I note most of your suggestions relate to the northern (cheaper to build) part of the road in the main. It’s the southern section of Puhoi to Warkworth RoNS that will cost the most in stage 1.
I actually think the road between Puhoi and the Mahurangi turnoff is easily up to standard as a state highway and even on a holiday weekend do not seem to have any problems coping with traffic flows – unless of course the passing lanes are left open and people have problems merging again. Only a 4 lane road will fix that. Funny that closing passing lanes on busy weekends speeds up traffic flows and reduces tensions among those who keep to the left.
Re: Baypassing Warkworth.
I just found this
http://greaterakl.wpengine.com/2010/01/07/sorting-out-warkworth/
The bypass suggested here would work pretty well.