National released their transport policy yesterday, with the headline proposal being to add in more “Roads of National Significance”. Here’s what the accompanying media release stated:
National has re-committed to its major $9 billion investment unblocking key roading arteries around the country, and will develop the strategy further by examining new routes that need upgrading to improve our economic growth and productivity, says National’s Transport spokesman Steven Joyce.
“Our Roads of National Significance (RONS) programme is progressing well in our quest to reduce congestion and improve safety on our high-use highways around New Zealand.
“With the opening of the completed Victoria Park Tunnel for the first time today, it is timely to look forward and start assessing additional opportunities to upgrade our roading network.
“In anticipation of some RONS projects being completed, in the next three years we will be evaluating work on additional key high-use highways around the country. These include the highway linking the Waikato with Tauranga, SH1 Cambridge to Tirau, the Hawke’s Bay Expressway, and SH1 North and South of Christchurch.”
The newly proposed RoNS are not that surprising, as they were mentioned in the Government Policy Statement for Land Transport Funding released earlier this year. What is interesting is that the Cambridge to Tirau route is a significant cutback from the previously proposed Cambridge to Taupo RoNS. I guess the realisation came through that a 130 kilometre RoNS project along a road that barely carries half the traffic of the current single-lane Kopu Bridge made any sense. So we at least know there’s some limit to Steven Joyce’s motorway obsession!
While I appreciate the RoNS projects are fairly vague, as Joyce is previously on record saying that RoNS must be built to four-lane divided expressway standard, we’re probably looking at many more billions of dollars spent on new motorways if the proposals come to fruition.
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“With the opening of the completed Victoria Park Tunnel for the first time today, it is timely to look forward….
It would be timely to observe that my journey home through the tunnel now takes 25 minutes longer than it did last week.
I hope this is no more than people learning the new road layout or just sightseeing but it is not an impressive start.
Transport planners need to look a few hundred meters south of the Victoria Park, where the two lanes of SH1 merge with SH16 from the port and the west. Four into two don’t go. Even when they open the third lane, I can’t see travel times reducing that much at peak.
The two SH16 on ramps merge into one lane before joining SH1, so eventually it will be three into three. But at the end of the day we’re still looking at seven lanes through Victoria park, plus five more exiting or joining at Fanshawe and the pair at Shelly Beach Rd. Even with the tidal barrier this is still simply going to shift the bottleneck to the Bridge itself, so we’ll probably see queues from the bridge right back through the new tunnel at peak anyway.
What are the RoNS boondoggles up to now – $25 billion plus? Complete madness.
And the Dumb Post thinks it is “madness” that the Greens want to scrap Transmission Gully.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/election-2011/5968915/Greens-want-to-scrap-Wellington-roads
Since it’s a 0.6 BCR for Transmission Gully it’s complete madness not to scrap it immediately before any more money is wasted.
Seems like the only smart MP these days is Gareth Hughes.
I got accosted by a National goon today asking me to vote National. I said “Don’t be daft. Steven Joyce is an idiot” That turned their upside down frown back around.
Does Joyce think he’s Eisenhower?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate
I believe they have an overall goal to eventually have at least a 4 lane road road (motorway or expressway) all the way from Whangarei to Wellington
….running beside every rail line our forbears built with their blood and sweat, oh! so they can be ripped up and used for bike trails for those hardworkin’ hard playin’ executives on gardening leave
Still pushing the “bike trails are an anti-rail conspiracy”? Like to have a few black helicopters with that?
That was an old ACT policy wasn’t it?
At least Eisenhower has good justifications and of course he didn’t have the benefit Of looking back in history.
I thought it might be a good idea to look at how much traffic these new proposed roads currently carry
First up Cambridge to Tauranga and from where SH29 turns off from SH1 through to where SH24 joins south east of Matamata there only about 4,500 vehicles per day. Once SH24 joins that goes up to about 7,500 vehicles per day but overall pretty small numbers.
SH1 from SH29 to Tirau is only slightly better at just over 8,000 vehicles per day.
The Napier to Hastings Expressway is probably the shortest of the proposed routes and currently carries around 12000 vehicles per day
And lastly the extension of the Christchurch northern motorway, the most logical extension would be to Woodend with the nearby new town of Pegasus, south of Woodend the road carries about 14,000 vehicles per day and north of there about 10,000
By comparison P2W carries 17,000 vehicles per day while many single lane arterial roads in Auckland carry 20k+ vehicles per day
The other notable omission of course is a second Auckland Harbour crossing, so it means that project is unlikely to happen. Also in practice the Cambridge to Tirau route will form part of Waikato – Tauranga (although I would like to see it as a southern extension of the Waikato expressway). The orth and South of Christchurch” is interesting as it doesn’t say how far north or south they will go, and could go all the way to Ashburton or even Timaru in the south (the existing RONS calls for the southern motorway to terminate at Templeton with an expressway to Rolleston), but the North will almost certainly include a Woodend bypass (which has been talked about for some time) but unless this will be a real short RONS it will probably extend alot further.
The full policy statement talks about development starting after the completion of Waterview and the Tauramga Eastern link, which should be around 2016, so construction could start in 2017/18, or into Nationals 3rd/4th terms. The other point to note is that after 2016 there will be no major motorway or transport project in Auckland (aside from the Puhoi-Wellsford which is outside the urban area) so if theres still congestion they’ll be cries of Canterbury, Hawkes Bay and Bay of plenty getting lots of money but not Auckland. Wellington misses out too in that regard, although Transmission Gully will still be under construction this time, and duplicating the Terrace tunnel will be scheduled to come after
I think we may be getting close to our first sub 0.1 BCR
We should give Joyce a certificate. Quite an achievement really.
How about a reference when he’s job hunting come November 27?
Steven was New Zealand’s Transport Minister from 2008 to 2011. Steven was not very good at his job, and he hasn’t yet learnt his numbers. Put him in the corner with some toy trucks and he shouldn’t bother you too much. Can be a bit of a bully. Do not let him play with your train set. He tried to sell it to the Chinese kid for an icecream.
OK it’s more like a kindergarten report card than a reference.
And Steven if you are job hunting come November 27 I’ll volunteer to be your telephone referee. For Nix.
Maybe this blog should get together and organise some form of recognition for Stephen Joyce. Perhaps an award ceremony for him were he gets a Auckland Transport blog ‘certificate’ for the worst transport minister in the NZ history. Or maybe a tropy, ‘Colossus of Roads’ award.
Get John Campbell to cover it… I’m getting carried away.
But seriously, I would pay $10 to get that guy some recognition he deserves.
We should give Joyce a certificate. Quite an achievement really.
I have long subscribed to the view that Steven Joyce should be regarded as certifiable. He has absolutely no interest in restoring the SOL (Stratford – Okahukura Line) to a usable state, but is more than happy to spend billions of dollars on motorways and divided carriageways whose construction can’t be justified.
I wouldn’t regard him as even being fit to manage a lemonade stand.
It is a bit concerning that National does not have a plan for cycling. The whole policy does not make a mention of bikes. Walking and cycling projects tend to be some of the most popular projects on offer, especially urban routes which are scenic and practical. While national have invested in national cycleways, that money comes from the tourism budget and has little to do with transport.
I am sure this will be a big concern to cycling lobby groups which have a fair amount of power.
Powerful cycling lobbies?!?! If only…
@Brent C – I think you’ve muddled this forum up with another one, this post is about NZ where the cycling lobby have about as much influence over Steve Joyce or transport policy as I do, and I have none.
Me and my humble little cycleways blog over the last two years has had an impact of exactly didly squat.
The biggest highlight was slagging off the then Wellington Mayor’s record on cycling which she thought was wonderful, but she had really achieved nothing, then she took exception and said how wonderful she was, and I sat back and watched people tell her nup she had done nothing, and was absolutely bloody hopeless, and then she deservedly lost the mayoral election. (Now she’s the head of the EPA board, with no experience, appointed by John Key as part of the old boy’s network, as a sop for being National’s girl as Wellington Mayor – and there is an appointment the new government should reverse come November 27)
And Wellington is still a shit place to be a cyclist. And some of the suburbs suffer from really bad winter wood smoke. And still nothing is getting done about cycling or air quality, but all they’re getting instead is some lousy waste of money motorway projects that will destroy Te Aro, and lock us in to more mandatory motoring.
Why does it have to be that way? Why is nothing good getting done? And why is rubbish expensive things getting done, which precludes the good things from ever getting done? I blame the lack of historic education funding, a dumbed-down media, and an electorate that was bought cheaply. There are some really mediocre people at the top.
I wish we were powerful – as it is, in Auckland at least, cycling advocates could consider ourselves as punching above our weight. Which helps with Council, but does nothing changing the funding calls made in Wellington.
Matt, no offense, but a blog can’t compare to personal meetings with people making the decisions. I may be patting myself / ourself (Cycle Action Auckland) a bit on the back with this, but for us, the key was writing in tons of submissions (I personally did about 40 or so in the last 3 years), and then asking for (and progressively getting more) meetings with the relevant people. If one is constructive there, that eventually leads to increased access and a bit of influence. These days, in many cases, we are asked about our input without having to ask first.
So my suggestions remains: Submit on everything even remotely related to cycling and then push for personal contact. “Blogs with an opinion” (no matter how valid that opinion) have limited reach in a world where everyone can chose what media he/she consumes.
Hope these roads are all investigated until we get a change of government and then thrown out, by the time National gets back in Joyce and Key should be long gone and hopefully someone with a bit more sense is in charge of transport, meaning they hopefully won’t simply ressurect these old white elephants.
That’s a lot of hopefullys.
Gladly no more major mototways are proposed for Auckland in this batch of RoNS.
I have heard that, although Stephen Joyce is credited with being the mastermind behind the colossus of RONS, in fact he is the front man and the real culprit is Bill English. Being a list MP Joyce can continue to carry on regardless of popularity or poor decision-making whereas English could get voted out. I guess if MMP were changed so that unsuccessful electorate candidates were not permitted to come in as list MPs you’d have a true two tier system – popularity candidates standing for electorates and the set of hitmen like SJ on the list. Just a thought.
Many comments on this blog, its nice to know that there are many people like me on here who pay attention to what is happen to this country and where the majority of our hard earned cash is being spent on. I doubt the new Victoria Park Tunnel will have a significant impact on reducing traffic congestion as traffic is still bad and backed up quite a way even when you cross over the harbour bridge to the North Shore on the other side to join onto the northern motorway.
As for the Cambridge to Tirau route I don’t think this route gets busy enough to justify a 4-lane expressway and yes its correct to say that they have backed away from a Cambridge to Taupo route after considering and seeing common sense about the traffic levels on this section of highway but the worrying sign is that they still intend to add more roading projects ahead of any public transport improvements even after having the nerve to say that there is no more money left to fund new projects like this which I find totally observed.
It would seem that they do have money to do this but is more of a case of not wanting to do it. The main traffic that travels between Cambridge and Tirau is probably more Milk and agrilcultural products not so much to do with heavy frieght like shipping containers, etc as there isn’t much of a population base in these areas mainly dairy farms and sheep farms.
Cambridge-Tirau actually carries quite alot of traffic, all Hamilton – Tauranga, Auckland (and Hamilton)- Rotorua, Hawkes Bay – Auckland (and Hamilton), Auckland (and Hamilton again) – Taupo, Palmerston North, Wellington and other lower North Island destinations.
I think this is probably the one new RONS (with the possible exception of the Hawkes Bay expressway) which may be worth doing, and infact don’t know why it wasn’t included in the original Waikato Expressway. Regarding the other ones, Hamilton – Tauranga has reasonably low traffic volummes, but that may change as Tauranga and Hamilton grows, but probably take a very long time before a four lane motorways needed.
A two lane bypass of Woodend and Ashburton might make sense, but the Christchurch north and south areas are vaguely defined and until they clarify the individual projects in this area it will be hard to judge
See my comment above on traffic volumes, the numbers aren’t that high.
Cambridge – SH29 carries about 12,000 vehicles per day at which point about 4000 turn off toward Tauranga leaving about 8000 heading on towards Tirau
Matt L, where you get your numbers from?
I have at home Batemans Contemporary Atlas: Shapes of Our Nation (2nd ed.). The traffic data is 2003, so a bit old, but I guessed it would have gone up, not down since then.
It gives 13,820 just south of Cambridge, 9110 Tirau – Putararu (SH29 turnof to Tirau number not given, but from width of map looks atleast 8000), and 8,660 over the kaimai summit.
I suspect your datas probably more accurate being latter, but I’d like to see the source. Also the numbers could change dramatically if the Waikato Expressway makes it with SH29 the fastest Auckland – Tauranga route replacing the SH2 route for alot of traffic.
The other thing I really don’t know is what daily traffic vollumes need to be to justify a motorway/expressway, but given Puhoi-Wellsford is marginal at best one might go for around 17,000 (I think thats the amount that road carries)
Its all on the NZTA website
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/state-highway-traffic-volumes/
What you’ve got in Joyce’s statement is his modus operandum laid bare: he always starts with his biggest lie as a leaping off point. A good technique for wrong footing the whole debate. Here he is saying:
1. ‘our high-use highways’ This is a simple untruth, there are many local roads with way more traffic than these.
and
2. This will ‘improve our economic growth and productivity’ We know this cannot possibly be the case, as the current routes are not anywhere near capacity or in anyway restricted or without alternatives, especially for freight
He will stare any camera in the eye and repeat these lies over and over and over, on the basis that they will then become considered to be axiomatic truths. He wants the argument to be elsewhere, and the rights favorite place for the argument to be is how to pay for it, not about what they want to build, or what services they want to fund. National are the nutty spending party and get there by refusing to really discuss their priorities.
He must be called on this directly and as often as possible. And mocked.