For the last two days both Patrick and I have attended a conference on Auckland Transport Infrastructure that was even chaired by the founder of this blog. The agenda included talks on a wide variety of topics related to transport there were a number of quite good ones that I will post about in the future.

Naturally the highlight being the presentation of the Congestion Free Network at the end of day one ;-). The good news is that many of the people in the audience, representing a wide range of the industry are very supportive of it. This included people heavily involved in the design, funding, construction and operation of roads and even heavy users like the freight industry. The general feedback we get from people within the industry when we present the CFN is that people really like it as an idea for fixing Auckland which really highlights to us that the key problem is one of leadership – primarily from a political level but also from senior management.

For this post I’m primarily going to focus on one particular part of Len Browns opening address. The primary theme of his talk was about how infrastructure providers and operators need to improve how they understand and deal with communities, both from a compassion and communication perspective – cue comments about the East-West Link. He cited both the Victoria Park Tunnel and now Waterview as projects that have engaged with the community well during construction.

He also talked about the need to keep an eye on costs and noted that as part of the upcoming review of the Long Term Plan the council would be going through the transport projects on a line by line basis to decide if projects were really needed. That shifted his discussion on to the issue of funding as based on the current wish list of projects which we simply won’t be able to afford everything without raising more money somehow. However this is where things started to take a strange turn as Len started talking quite a bit about PPP’s and how the council will be using a lot of them to help fund that wish list. He even told the attendees that they would need to help in selling the benefits of PPP’s to the wider public.

But just when it couldn’t get worse he then confirmed that the Council/Auckland Transport are planning on fast-tracking Penlink and that they are looking to do so by tying it in with the PPP that the NZTA will use for Puhoi to Warkworth. So with this post I thought I would look at Penlink and explain why it is such a crappy project.

What is Penlink?

Just in case you’re not fully aware of what Penlink is, it’s a new road that would connect the Whangaparaoa Peninsula to SH1 as shown in the map below. All up it includes:

  • a new 6.8 km stretch of road
  • a new 540-metre bridge spanning the Weiti River
  • a new motorway interchange at Redvale which also require some modifications to East Coast Road
  • widening of Whangaparaoa Road between Brightside Road and Arklow Lane. Penlink will intersect with Whangaparaoa Road through a new roundabout
Penlink - a road we don't think is needed
Penlink – a road we don’t think is needed

As you can see it’s a fairly sizeable project and one that has the potential to save a huge amount of time over travelling through the existing route at Silverdale. But as you would expect, the big question is if its really worth it especially as this isn’t going to be cheap. The cost from a few years ago was $175 million however that is almost certainly going to be over $200 million now however it could be significantly higher than that. It’s worth noting that the road has already been consented and the former Rodney District Council had purchased the land needed.

To help pay for the road the plan has always been to toll the road – suggested to be somewhere between $1.50 and $2.50 – yet despite that, the toll was only expected to pay for about 29% of the cost with the rest coming from taxpayers and ratepayers. If the construction cost has increased we can likely expect the percentage covered by tolls has reduced further.

Is Penlink worth it?

This is where things get interesting. As mentioned it is a shorter route off the peninsula and for those to the east of where it joins Whangaparaoa Rd the saving is less than 4.5km with those to the Northwest of the route the saving will less depending on their location. Based on the last census there were roughly 21,500 people living to the west of Penlink that would benefit the most with just over another 9,000 on the peninsula up to where it connects to the Hibiscus Coast Highway. Not everyone on the Peninsula will be trying to get to town either, especially with an increased number of businesses around Silverdale.

However critically there is little growth that is left available on the peninsula. There will be a few sections here and there that are yet to be built on but according to the Unitary Plan then by and large the areas highlighted in red on the map below show the only locations left which are able to be developed. They are generally Mixed Housing Suburban but I would be surprised if there was able to be more than 2,000 dwellings build on here. Further many of the sites may end up being developed as retirement villages which have quite different travel demands to other dwellings. Further as you can see there has been almost no intensification allowed on the Peninsula with only a few pockets of THAB or Mixed housing allowed.

Penlink - UP Map

As such there is very little potential growth that will occur in the area so that removes the argument that we need to build the road to cater for future growth. Instead the project is more about moving the existing population. This is also confirmed in the results from the traffic modelling done in 2011 to support tolling which shows that by 2021 without Penlink there is almost no change in traffic west of Whangaparaoa Rd and only small increases in traffic east.

Penlink - Traffic Projections

You might also notice another key point from the numbers above, the toll road is only expected to make a difference of about 7,000 vehicles per day.  Most single lane arterials in the city carry considerably more vehicles than that yet not cost $200 million plus.

Lastly it doesn’t seem to do anything to address where the main future residential and business growth will occur which is in the new greenfields developments around Silverdale including Millwater. Yes it would remove some traffic from the Hibiscus Coast Highway which would free up space for vehicles from these developments but there are other ways we could deal with that.

To me it seems the main aim of the project is to provide a super expensive new road that would only be useful for a very small segment of the population in a part of the city that has almost no growth left. For those people all it does is serves to reinforce driving as the only realistic option yet as it only connects to SH1 southbound its only purpose is to get people to the end of the motorway queue a little bit faster. I don’t know about you but I can certainly think of a better way to spend $200 million. Of course if it’s built as a PPP we won’t have to pay for it upfront but it will end up costing us considerably more than $200 million as we will be paying a company who will be building the project with private financing.

In a separate post I will look at what alternatives there are to Penlink to improve transport in the area.

With the East-West Link, the various motorway projects, Puhoi to Warkworth and now this it really does feel like someone is pushing to double down on road building. Who’s behind it (because I know it’s not the construction industry) and is this all just a part of a last gasp being pushed by the road lobbies who are seeing the writing on the wall that public want change? I also note it’s on the close agenda for today’s Auckland Transport board meeting.07

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88 comments

  1. What are all the yellow ares? I have just talked to a colleague who lives there and they are currently developing one of the yellow areas into houses now

  2. Not the construction industry? The road construction industry, and the trucking industry, surely.

    And Len Brown – I think a lot of people’s opinions of that man have changed recently.

    1. When I say the construction industry I mean not the road construction industry. Some people I talked to in it were surprised to hear it even mentioned.

      1. The accelerated m’way splurge is, we heard, putting huge pressure on local contractors who cannot find qualified staff, especially for critical middle management positions where experience is vital [one insider described this as a lack of ‘middle order batsmen’; they can get graduates, and have plenty at the top, but are struggling for the less glamourous but vital more hands on roles]. This of course makes each new project added to the list more expensive due to capacity constraints.

        Hell of a way to buy economic activity and more truck movements.

    2. Len is a consensus seeker and deal maker. These are his strengths. He has built an impressive and impressively broad coalition in support of his transport plans. He has used this horizontal platform to make the impressive vertical move of pressuring some sort of agreement out of a powerful opponent /rival, but at a huge cost.

      He is unfortunately in a game with bullies who don’t play nice. They have got him to publicly agree to everything and more that they want in exchange for some vague and half-arsed support for one project: The CRL. And they are not only forcing all their concessions to be built first, using not only all present resources but also future ones too [PPPs], but keep inventing new ones and adding them to the list. They are showing bad faith.

      I guess the question is: Is the time approaching when he has to call enough and say that this constant meddling in Auckland and Auckland Council’s plans, in direct opposition of the agreed and stated aims, starving the city’s development of funds for its preferred direction and undermining it by splurging on its opposite? But then what tools has he got?

      I guess he could start with Penlink, saying, as it is, that it is an expensive project with low economic benefits and high environmental cost. And that that money needs to be spent elsewhere of vital transport projects that serve the urgent agenda of re-balancing Auckland’s transport mix [$200m is a lot of interchange stations, bus lanes, and bike lanes]. Instead he is trying to get it paid for on the never-never through NZTA, to appease Rodney pollies who he has got to support CRL in exchange?

      I guess we just don’t know if Len is able, politically or personally, to do rough-and-tumble as well as he is to build consensus. Perhaps with a more supportive Council, a stronger lead from AT, and perhaps one or two other external factors going his way things might be different. And the real problem is that if he were to go down the path of no longer turning the other cheek, no more Mr-Niceguy, there’s probably no return; it’s a one time play, so he’d have to be very confident of his timing.

      So I guess I’m saying; not yet. Next year it might be needed. Interesting.

      1. Nice post Patrick. Am listening to national radio chatter on the new Auckland electorate make-up right now. Due to government meddling, Auckland’s transport issues have now become national issues, if that message can be sold in those key electorates. Also, in Mangere where the challenge is to get people out to vote to protest against the East-West nonsense.

      2. Patrick.. who are the “bullies” and in what sense are motorways seen by them or anyone as “concessions”? Can you provide any evidence?

        Most of the opposition to the CRL that I’ve heard or read about from “the business community” is opposed to it on the basis either that it’s expensive per se, or that it may not represent good value. And they’d rather not see their rates go up through other bigger investments (in motorways or anything). So funding ever more expensive motorways isn’t a counter to either of those points.

        If there is really a conspiracy or other intrigue at play here, then fine, call it and expose it.

        An alternative explanation that may be more likely is simply ignorance. Misguided or pig-headed, whatever. Cock-up theories are generally more prevalent than conspiracies in my experience. People get stuck in their ways. In which case, keep banging away.. conferences, TV, press, blogs and all that as creatively as possible. But with a straight bat.

        1. I think a lot of resistance to the CRL is misunderstanding. I showed that new video to some family members (white bread National voting North Shore types) and they said “wow thats a great plan, way better than that dumb loop thing”.

          I wonder if a lot of the business community is the same?

        2. Nonsense Wheely, business community in Auckland are strongly for it, the bullies are clearly the provincialist in government. The Employers and Manufacturers Association are big supporters- can you get more ‘business community’ than that? Polls run in favour in the 70 and 80%.

          Who said conspiracy? It just an old fashioned arm wrestle with the gov having the bigger guns. I really have no idea what you are reading into my comment. It has very broad support which National’s own polling showed and in turn led the gambler in chief to push his head ideolog Joyce over the line with the lukewarm nod for the project. And hence the rabid m’way build out as compensation.

        3. Plenty of earlier posts (East-West link?) talk about it being the price of business support for the CRL as some kind of trade-off..

          So OK, substitute “Central Government” for “business community”.. same question. How is a bigger investment in motorways or anything else a “concession” to Central Government or the National Party or anyone for their support for the CRL?

        4. I think Penlink is the price Len is having to pay to keep Penny Webster on side but as you would expect there isn’t any proof of that.

        5. Really? A $ 200 m sop for a single council vote? Penny Webster.. where are all the bullies? Are your guys making this up as you go along?

        6. Penlink has been Penny’s baby since she was the Mayor of the Rodney district council. I suspect she has a lot of emotional attachment and would have spent a lot previous political capital in to progress the project as far as it got. As such she isn’t about to just give up on it so I think it’s completely reasonable that she would have pushed for it.

        7. Hey Big Wheel, there is a whole heap of stuff which cannot be categorically proven (yet), but the information flow within in the corridors of power trend toward the conclusion that the stuff that Transport Blog and various posters talk about is credible.

          Nick R’s comment on resistance to the CRL being a misunderstanding of the concept also rings true. There is also a tribal mentality to agree with the default position of the National Party among ‘white bread national voting’ types, and not just on the North Shore 😉 …… That is why Len Brown’s work to build consensus for the CRL within Auckland’s business community has been so important, notwithstanding the very high cost for that support.

  3. Not the trucking industry George – not much need for large trucks to and from a residential area.

    Funnily enough, Penlink follows the alignment of Robbie’s rapid rail line to Whangaparoa. Maybe forget the new road, and build the North Shore rail link from Britomart to Whangaparoa instead. It’s what Perth would do 🙂

  4. PPPs? Sounds like the Mayor has been captured by the Council for Infrastructure Development. The point of big, expensive projects is to provide investment opportunities for private capital, with the returns underwritten by the taxpayer (as has happened with Transmission Gully). Whether or not they are needed is beside the point. This squandering of public resources is not unique to Auckland or even New Zealand – we see similar debates around infrastructure in other developed (and, increasingly, developing) economies. PPPs are not, however, a revenue-raising mechanism, as suggested by the Mayor, they are a debt-funding mechanism. The money to pay from them still has to come from somewhere, as the Mayor and his officials well know.

  5. I heard the district plan for the area prevents parts of Millwater being developed until Penlink is built. I think the restriction was put in place because of the pressure there would be on Hibiscus Coast Highway serving Millwater, Silverdare and Whangaparoa without Penlink.

    1. I think either Penlink has to be built or Whangapaora Rd has to be widened all the way to Whangaparoa. I wouldn’t have thought either would be necessary for a while but Millwater won’t be finished for a while either.

  6. Seems to me that one of the ‘benefits’ to Penlink will be increased land values at Gulf Harbour. So if you own a house or land at the end of the peninsula you will be very excited about Penlink and will be pushing the politicians to get the rest of Auckland/NZ to pay for this road so your propoerty values can go up.

  7. This isn’t my part of town, but isn’t there an existing ferry service for those living at the far end of the service too?

  8. As a long term Whangaparaoa resident and a long term PT user I’m totally against Penlink. But alas the majority of Whangaparaoa residents are for it, and drive, lots. Traffic on Whangaparaoa Road is horrendous.
    The mainstay of most people’s argument is that there’s only one road on and off the peninsula, what if it gets blocked? To which I say, why on earth did you move to a peninsula?
    The Penlink really is a colossal waste of resource, it will only serve the less than 20,000 people east of Stanmore Bay, all of whom chose to live on an isolated outcrop of land. And even then it will only get them to the end of the motorway queue 10min faster. A better, higher speed and more frequent ferry service would serve Gulf Harbour residents much better, at least for those who sit in a CBD office all day. The bus service at peak times is already excellent – I should know, I’ve caught it every day for 9 years.

    @GMC that makes no sense whatsoever, Millwater is geographically unrelated to Whangaparaoa Road and as long as motorway on and off-ramps are built at Wainui will not have any affect on traffic volumes off the peninsula. If that’s in the district plan it’s absurd.

    1. My brother on the peninsula in the bit that theoretically benefits from it – and he hates it too. He blames all the oldies up there the Rodney Council used to pander to – the types who want a set of traffic lights every 50 metres.

    2. “To which I say, why on earth did you move to a peninsula?”

      Excellent point Barry. A very similar point you could make to a business in Highbrook Park wondering why it take a while to get their goods to the airport.

      1. The reason the peninsula was given such a low intensity zoning in the UP is because of the infrastructure limitations – both roads and wastewater. So even with increased road capacity the wastewater problems remain, making significant growth unlikely.

        1. Although there’s still a lot of development going on around Gulf Harbour. There must be a thousand empty sections within a kilometre of the harbour. Lots of streets constructed, ready to be built around.

  9. The two councillors for the Albany Ward which stretches all the way down to Campbells Bay both live on the Whangaparaoa i.e Wayne Walker and John Watson. I arranged for Wayne Walker to speak to our East Coast Bays Rotary Club about 6 weeks ago on the subject of the CRL of which Wayne is a strong proponent. And indeed he spoke very well.
    Wayne assures me that John Watson is of the same mind re the CRL
    Penlink – I have searched their printed election manifestos (they ran a joint campaign) and can find no reference to Penlink so am not sure of their position with regard to this but I do have a memory of John Watson advocating Penlink prior to the election.
    Matt – I agree with your analysis that it is of low priority.

  10. @Cameron Pitches that won’t happen either, the same antagonists for Penlink are vocally against higher densities.
    I tried to subdivide during the disastrous Whangaparaoa Road widening in 2004 only for the Rodney District Council to be unduly influenced by every man and his dog complaining that ‘high intensity’ as a term should be struck off the district plan despite every single property on my street other than my own having already been subdivided. They wanted to fully notify my consent despite me having signatures of every neighbour and the operational district plan zoning me as high intensity.

    I’m pretty certain that the ‘Penlink now’ crowd won’t give in to higher density housing to get it.

  11. How about the Penlink crowd pay for the thing fully tolled then? I doubt they’ll be quite so enthusiastic if it costs $25 each way.

    This is yet another road answer looking for a question. It’s unjustifyable to fund it conventionally due to the small number of people who would actually use it, and those same people resist intensification that might bouy the case for more users in the future. But then if you go off to try and fund it through tolls you just drive away some of the few people that would use it anyway, and there is no way you can set a toll high enough to cover even half the cost of building it.

    So, Whangaparaoa is effectively ‘done’, it’s an area of no change. No population growth, no intensification, no development, no new highway links. The residents should be happy with that, although I get the feeling they want to have their cake and eat it too. Auckland has bigger fish to fry than throwing hundreds of millions at a small amount of car commuters who want someone else to buy them an express route into town.

    1. True, but when I was living in Stanmore Bay, I would have happily paid $5 each way when cycling into the Shore.

      The cycle out from Stanmore Bay, back to Silverdale, then back along East Coast Bays just to move a few Km to the West but no closer to the destination, always felt like a waste of energy.

      Agree that along with Penlink, there should be increased density, but believe if all the thinking was joined up then public transport would work well. A bus from Whangaparaoa would have some significant advantages such as passengers not having to pay tolls, and being able to go straight from Whangaparaoa to the (extended) northern busway. I assume it would also open up a huge chunk of land in Stillwater?.

      While Penlink is a road and benefits cars, it will also greatly benefit PT and cycling. So I am actually in favour of it, but would be interested in seeing the cost/benefit analysis.

    2. +2

      Or how about a targeted rate.. that would be about $ 6,000 for each beneficiary. $ 100 a month for 5 years, say?

        1. If you are talking about the rail trails then they are being built for tourism, not transport. If you are talking about painted road lanes then a) it isn’t acycleway, and b) If there were a toll for all vehicles to use the road then it would be reasonable to toll the road, but given that all that is happening is to fix a road that has not been designed for all users, it is hardly fair to make cyclists pay for it alone.

          If you are talking about say Grafton gully, probably the only true cycleway being built for transport then Yes, I am happy to see that tolled, as ong as the motorway is.

  12. Hmmmm, I can tell you now that one thing has been grossly overlooked here. Whangaparoa has quite a few properties that are in the 750 sq metre- 1,000 sq metre range. However, as there is only one way in to Whangaparoa, the minimum council requirement for sub division is 500 (or 550 sq meters, either or as it’s been awhile since I last checked). So, with the Pen link there’s a massive opportunity to lift the minimum requirement for development for this area, let alone improve the accessibilty of this area.

    I live on the other side of Auckland, but It seems odd that such a large amount of Auckland residents are only one road closure away from being estranged from the city they belong to… Yes it’s expensive, but I would think that these residents (of our Auckland City) deserve to have infrastructure that’s reliable.

    It seems far easy to ignore the fact that this is an area that could support more residents in this argument…

    1. And if the locals had supported the UP by making their voices heard for greater intensification then I would support your point. However they didn’t. Most of Whangaparoa is zoned under the UP as ‘large lot’ or ‘single house’.

  13. I’ve actually thought Penlink to be quite good, especially as you currently have alot of people in the Whangaparoa Peninsuila with only one road in and out. What I’ve thought could be done is to extend the Northern express buses once the Northern busway is extended to Albany to Orewa and Whangaparoa, with half the buses going up the northern motorway to Silverdale, a bus station there (from memory i think one is proposed) and then a new bus station in the middle of Orewa. The other half can can use this road to get to a new bus station to be built in Whangaparoa town centre. And if there are to be tolls exempt buses from them, so you get a quick CBD – Whangaparoa bus link (which with the toll removed be not hugely more expensive than the bus fare). I do agree extra intensification and tolls should be a condition of Penlink, and/or a PPP but with extra rates on the residents to cover the costs of the PPP.

    1. lake road into Belmont Devonport, te atatu peninsula, and everyone out at Piha only have one road. where is their penlink? what happens when their one road shuts?

      1. The difference between Penlink and those communities is that there really is no logical arrangement to shorten their journeys (unless you want a Devonport – Auckland CBD tunnel).

        1. I’m pretty sure that I could think of a way of making either commute quicker given $200m to play with.

  14. Current minimum vacant lot size for medium density is 600m², so sections need to be 1200m² or more in order to be sub-dividable.
    There was a tract of land through the middle of Stanmore Bay that had been zoned high density for many years and many many sections have either been sub-divided or cross-leased (cheaper) as the minimum vacant lot size for HD is 450m² (lot with dwelling is a paltry 280m²!).
    Ironically, many residents of Gulf Harbour protested to have the term “high density” struck from the district plan, as their perception was that infill housing in Stanmore Bay was the main cause of their traffic hassles. In fact it could be argued that the 3 sets of lights within 500m at Whangaparaoa Shops is a bigger cause, but I digress.
    One could argue the decision to have that large tract of land rezoned to medium density now compromises Penlink, one could equally argue that any effect from infill housing in Stanmore Bay was done in the 80’s and 90’s – that horse bolted long ago. As I said above, my property is one of the only ones in my street that hasn’t been doubled down.
    There’s relatively few sections left over 1200m², if the zoning stays at medium density there’s not a lot of growth that can occur. There is a few large blocks of undeveloped land that could still be built out, but we’re only talking in the single thousands of houses, if that.

  15. I disagree with this. I think this project should have been built a long time ago when they were developing the whangapaoroa peninsula but its still better late than never. It’s relatively cheap compared to the mega projects such as the CRL and it does help a lot of people. $200-250mil to decrease the journey time by a pretty significant chunk for 7000 vehicles is pretty good for transport journeys

    For example the I doubt the busway extension to Albany which costs about the same is going to help 7,000 people (If anyone has ridership projections for this section I’d be curious). I do still support this though.

    Of course this ignores the other benefits such as decreasing traffic on Whangapaoroa road and (shock-horror) helping PT on this route as a greater percentage of the route will be on the busway vs previously.

    BTW, I remember you guys supported this previously for the CFN (and nobody made a fuss). Why the sudden u-turn.

    1. NEX alone has over 2,000,000 trips a year, which is 7000 per day, roughly half of all trips travel along this section, so that is 3,500 per day at ecisiting levels. The busway will improve journey time and reliability, as well as reducing opex costs.

        1. “roughly half of all trips travel along this section, so that is 3,500 per day at e[x]isiting levels”

      1. The busway system carries more like 20,000 trips a day, the NEX is only on of many routes that use it.

        The busway extension bleeds traffic off the motorway from Albany over the bridge to the city, improving the situation for everyone. There are potentially hundreds of thousands of direct beneficiaries. That covers car and bus commuters from Whangaparaoa headed south of Albany too.

        All that pen link does is let those coastie car commuters short cut silverdale and join the motorway one interchange further south. The benefits are localised to the peninsula.

  16. Frank – the more you make it easy for people to live as far out as Whangaparaoa and for them to expect a fast motorway trip into central Auckland the more difficult it is for those living much closer to gain car entry in peak times e.g Tristram Road where cars back up along Forrest Hill Road and entry is slow because outlying commuters have preference. Reality but not logical.
    So lets concentrate on the Congestion Free Network/public transport before greenfield roading development. It is where our resources are first needed.

    1. I don’t think the numbers of new vehicles coming from Whangapaoroa is going to increase a huge amount just because Penlink is built. There might be a small increase in numbers due to some small population growth on the peninsula but it won’t be anything near the numbers of the new developments out in the silverdale area.

      As for congestion on the current motorway, I guess that shows that we need to build some improved infrustructure on the motorway. Maybe some motorway widening or some interchange upgrades in that section might help or on the PT side one of the harbour bridge lanes could be converted to a bus/carpool lane to quicken the journey for buses and maybe attract more users onto them.

        1. Agree with more PT and I use it myself from Sunnynook but I am strongly opposed to widening the motorway further as it becomes a visual blot like North Sydney. My point is that the orderly development of the CRL must come first, even at what may seem for one key project, a high cost. This will enable better and extended value from the motorway system we already have.
          Furthermore, these smaller peripheral projects soon add up to being bigger in dollar terms than the keystone CRL project. And we will soon have the trains so please National come on board and make it happen.

  17. My point Frank was that but having another road to access Whagaparoa with you would then be able to decrease the size of a section to built a property with, as 600sq is far too big in this day in age… My point is that it’s easy to juyst say this costs too much and not look at the implications that would result in it actually being built..

    I actually don’t live there, but it plainly obvious that intensification could occur once (if) this link is completed…

    1. 600 square metres is a small property. That’s only 24m x 25m. Our property in Taupo was 1000 square metres, and it didn’t feel large at all. I’m currently on a 500 square metre property, and I would describe it as fairly cramped. Only two of us though – for a family, 1000 square metres is about right.

      1. 600m is huge for some people, just because you consider it small doesn’t mean it is the same for everyone. I could imagine nothing worse than needing to maintain a large section.

        1. Precisely, each to their own. Statements like “600sq is far too big in this day in age” are only applicable to those whose viewpoint lines up with it. It’s not an accurate assessment of whether or not 600sq actually is too big or too small. Urban areas should be designed with a range of section sizes to suit all needs. Say 300sq for some streets, up to 1500sq in others. Beyond that probably best left for the town belt and beyond.

        2. Rightm oh, fair play, I think smaller than 300 is necessary too. I don’t need something that big.

  18. Whats frustrating about this is that they can magically allocated funding for roading projects but when it comes to public transport project it takes years and years, even though it has been planned for longer.

  19. I have checked the map and it appear only the 500m between Glenelg rd and Macllenan Drive is there actually only one road that could be cut off. Elehere there is always an alternative to Whangaporoa road.

  20. For half that cost you could electrify the rail to Pukekohe, a area which is going to have a major growth over the years so would really help future prove Auckands Transport. Not to mention that AT could get rid of all the diesal trains and just run electric which has to be a major operational savings

  21. The only one way out argument is nonsense: how long has Devonport existed with one road in and out? Quick build a bridge…. isn’t the appeal of these peninsula communities their relative separation? I know that’s what the No! brigade in the republic of Devpo love.

  22. I live on the peninsula and work in Albany, used to work in town. The traffic – which the buses get caught in as well – has been getting steadily worse as Orewa/Silverdale get more developed and the huge amount of building going on around Gulf Harbour is making it worse by the day. My preferred solution would be to stop developing in these areas and stop making the problem worse but if you ignore the cost the penlink would be a pretty good solution to one part of the problem and remember it can be used by buses as well. The next part of the problem of course is that you run into traffic again at Albany, if someone got their act together and fixed the mickey mouse northern end of the busway I’m sure you would see bus use rocket.

  23. Yes we are all for it, for different reasons, at present only one way in and out, this also creates more of a nightmare for emergency services, some suggest there is only few areas left on the peninsula but also there is lots of future sub dividing that isn’t mentioned so as Auckland grows we are talking about many thousands of homes in the next 10 yrs not to mention stillwaters future growth. We know lots of people who would not hesitate paying the toll to save the time and distance, we are sick of people moaning about the progress the area needs and it needs yesterday, if people didn’t moan and complain Auckland may not by now be wasting everyones time and petrol all the time…. other cities build tunnels and huge road projects fast e.g check out Brisbane’s progress in last 5 yrs. Next time you sit in traffic think harder about the real cost of that and times it by 100 000 each time!

    1. Other cities build tunnels and huge road projects fast e.g check out Brisbane’s progress in last 5 yrs.
      Unlike here? VPT? Western Ring Route?

      Next time you sit in traffic think harder about the real cost of that and times it by 100 000 each time!
      Is the answer to build more roads or to move people in different ways? What is the best value for money?

      1. Sounds fine to me if they run a frequent rail link to hamilton as well as warkworth in the north, add a bridge across to the peninsula where penlink is planned instead of a road somehow through the northern beaches which I imagine would be very costly, Along with City to Airport not to mention out west, or even add more ferries from gulf harbour more frequently which have a few stops along the way e.g browns and caster bays (only examples) with connecting buses. This is normal in other cities as well as well established tolled ring roading, tunnels and bridges that can cope. The only other solution for Auckland is entice and somehow discount or fund rail or transport costs instead of spending on the constant growth of roads in the auckland area for businesses to relocate out to rural areas where the towns have cheap empty housing and are screaming out for more business and decentralize. Auckland has been way behind for a long time, that ring road should have been done 10 yrs ago along with another option to the north shore, instead of out of date clip ons. Living in Brisbane the new gateway just happened without much of a fuss, that tunnel boring machine should be lined up to start the north shore tunnel followed by maybe even extending the manakau route to pukekohe somehow as an alternate to the southern motorway. Redirect some of the benefit money to building the nation projects to give a percentage of the unemployed better paid roading and infrastructure experience.

  24. Private developers (not just the government are paying for PenLink) so yes other communities you get PRIVATE PARTIES to help the government with your ROADING costs and you might get support.With the PRIVATE help the government is getting a REALLY INEXPENSIVE solution to a huge roading problem.Oh ,By the way THOSE IN GOVERNMENT you turned the AMERICANS offer to build the Wieti Bridge for free during WW2, dont make same mistake again!!!!

  25. Thanks for your informative update on Penn Link Matt, I am due to speak at the Hibiscus Bays Local Board hearing on Wednesday 26 March at the Auckland Council Orewa Service Centre to oppose Penn link. Your blog has been very useful for me to get up to speed on the cost benefit analysis on what is an exceptionally costly project for very little benefit. Is there a chance I could network with any other people who are opposed to this ridiculous project prior to March 26?? I would be very keen to talk with you. Many thanks Brett Stansfield

  26. Penlink was needed 10 years ago, the council and government are embarassing. A medium size bridge and they are still talking about it 30 years later. JUST DO IT!!

  27. Moved up to the Peninsula from Albany about a year ago and love it up here.Our family now coordinates trips carefully and we drop family members to either the Silverdale or Albany bus stops if City trips are required. (or the Gulf Harbour Ferry).
    Watching 85-90% of the cars on the motorway with single occupant drivers on their daily drive over the bridge like mindless lemmings makes me shake my head. Sure they can listen to Si and Gary or that absolute t$%%er Mike Hosking without having to listen to the happenings in Beijing,Seoul or Mumbai on the bus journey but they are missing out on the changing demographics of this City.

    In 30 years Albany/Rosedale area could and should challenge the Auckland CBD as a work/life destination if planners got their act together.
    The same with Manukau in the South and Newmarket and possibly Botany in the East. As for the west it should be the location of a second International airport and this would stimulate growth around Whenuapai and Westgate.

    Too many people are preoccupied with the CBD which in my view has become a missed opportunity to ween Auckland off its car addiction and build the satellite cities served by better transport links. (buses,trains and planes).

  28. Part 2 – The Penlink land was purchased by the Rodney council to improve the horrific congestion on the Peninsula in the morning and evening. If Rodney wasn’t part of the super city it would have been given the go-ahead by now. Look at the carbon calculation of the reduction in miles to Albany alone from the thousands of reduced kilometers traveled. Oil is cheap at the moment but in 15 years time it will be $7 plus a litre as people truly realise the effect our fossil fuel addiction is having on the planet. Renewed Penlink campaigning has started. Or you can keep building up Pokeno and turn the queue from Drury to a 2hour 30 minute one!
    1) Make the park and ride areas in Albany and Silverdale 3-4 times bigger.
    2) Build a second International airport in the West
    3) Give the Penlink the go ahead. Land is bought. It is relatively cheap.
    4) Reward 2 and 3 occupant drivers on the motorways at peak hours. Penalise the selfish single drivers.
    5) Look to satellite towns like Albany , Botany , Manukau and Newmarket to take away flows from the City.
    Go the Whanga!

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