There’s been quite a bit of discussion in the last week about roads in Northland following storm damage that saw part of State Highway 1 closed due to large washout. The severity of the slip saw traffic diverted on lengthy detours on roads clearly not designed to handle more than a handful of cars per day. Another series of slips have happened in the last few days, this time closing SH1 over the Brynderwyn Hills.
Understandably it’s led to people in Northland saying that their roads simply aren’t up to the same quality as roads in other regions. Oddly though it also led to Labour’s Kelvin Davis saying he supported the the Puhoi to Wellsford Road of National Significance.
“They want a safe and solid highway that’s going to get our people and goods in and out and that’s not at the whim of Mother Nature.
“This weather event has shown how vulnerable and susceptible the North is and it’s really important that we have a road where emergency services and whatever can get through, but also we’ve got to have a road that’s going to be able to export our produce outside of Northland and one that’s not going to be washed away in the next storm or flood.”
If the statement above was to be a blanket statement and not referring to P2W then I would be in complete agreement however I say it’s odd for him to bring up P2W as doesn’t even leave Auckland and would not have done anything to help with the slips that have occurred. In fact in many ways P2W is actually likely to be working against Northland as it will suck up funding that could be being used for widespread upgrades to address issues that exist in the roading network.
All up P2W is said to cost ~$1.6 billion with the first section to Warkworth estimated at $760 million. If the goal is truly about helping the Northland economy as the government love to claim then we need to be asking what else we could do with the money. What if we spent ~$300m on operation lifesaver to address the key issues with the existing road. We could then spend about $500 million on actual roads in Northland while still leaving up to $800 million which could be used for other projects – like part of the governments share of the City Rail Link.
But how would $500 million compare to what’s currently spent in the region and is it a significant enough amount of money?
Data from the NZTA can help to answer that question. Unfortunately the 2013/14 data isn’t available yet but this is for the 10 years to 30 June 2013.
| Transport Spending in Northland 2003/04 to 2012/13 | NZTA | Local Authorities | Total |
| State Highways – New and Improved | $163,617,783 | $163,617,783 | |
| State Highways – Maintenance, Operations & Renewals | $249,305,778 | $249,305,778 | |
| Local Roads – New and Improved | $174,917,159 | $56,850,123 | $231,767,282 |
| Local Roads – Maintenance, Operations & Renewals | $312,908,053 | $226,434,207 | $539,342,260 |
| Public Transport | $9,481,230 | $8,440,738 | $17,921,968 |
| Walking & cycling | $342,494 | $90,300 | $432,794 |
| Other | $24,816,399 | $2,661,551 | $27,477,950 |
| Total | $935,388,896 | $294,476,919 | $1,229,865,815 |
And here’s the new and improved road spending over that 10 year period
So spending $500 million (on top of what would normally be spent) would be more than all the money that was spent on new and improved state highways and local roads for over a decade.
That seems like it could deliver more game changing outcomes for transport in Northland than a motorway to Warkworth/Wellsford ever would. As an example of what might be able to be delivered, the governments Accelerated Regional Roading Package named two projects that would see road realignments happen. One was on State Highway 73 near Arthurs Pass and the other was just south where the large slip occurred the other week with the project known as the Akerama Curves Realignment and Passing Lane. The latter is a 3km section of road that will be upgraded and have an additional passing lane added for a cost of $10-13.5 million. Comparing the costs for each project it suggests that for $500 million we could probably get 100-150km of upgraded state highway which is a substantial amount.
I guess the big problem with this suggestion is that small scale projects like road realignment and passing lanes aren’t the types of projects that get politicians in the national media cutting turning a first sod or cutting a ribbon.
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Can Northland borrow “Alice” for a Brynderwyns tunnel at some point? That’d be very handy.
It’s being driven into a siding in the Waterview tunnel and left to rot IIRC. I think the cost to extract is more than it’s worth?
No it’s not and if that happened how would they finish the tunnel?
They could always dump the used TBM in the middle of this waste space as a nice artistic sculpture: http://goo.gl/maps/PbNWp
Alice would be overkill for a road that carries less than 10k vehicles per day. Anyway it’s designed for the specific geology of Waterview and has been sold back to the company that built it once or finishes. One of the problems up that way is the geology is really bad for building which is why the NZTA have yet to find a route for the Warkworth to Wellsford section.
My understanding is the plan for the Brenderwyns is to go around them.
Makes sense… I think we’ll quickly see Marsden / Bream Bay boom to the point that Whangarei becomes a city comparable to Tauranga and Hamilton (Auckland’s other “moons”). That’ll need a road link better than anything that climbing the Bryderwyns can provide. The key *first steps* will be rail-to-port at Marsden, upgraded rail trunk capacity via NAL (I believe a lot of tunnel work), and movement of Whangarei airport from Onerahi to Mata.
What economic forces do you see driving a Marsden boom?
The same as basically drive growth in any “secondary centre” in close proximity to the “main centre”… growth driven by Auckland but cheaper to accommodate outside Auckland. As Auckland moves up the value chain, it becomes uneconomic to conduct many lower value-add industries within the area and secondary cities pick up the slack. Similarly, people move out of the expensive centre to achieve lower housing costs once jobs move too.
Which way around have you heard?
In not 100% but think the plan is to go to the west. Quick guesstimate is it might add 2km to the journey but time probably made up by a flatter route with less sharp curves.
Makes sense to me. Keep the current road, downgraded, as a tourist road if necessary as that view as you come over the top is spectacular.
> My understanding is the plan for the Brenderwyns is to go around them.
How far away would ‘around’ be? And if the highway is planned to go around the Brynderwyns, what’s the point of building the motorway to Warkworth? Wouldn’t that road now be in totally the wrong place to link into the highway going north?
A quick look at the Brynderwyns on Google Earth suggests a way through about 4km to the west of the current route where the height of the terrain above sea level only reaches 180m rather than 300m. Makes me wonder why they didn’t go that way when the current route was first built.
It’s a pity these arguments always tend to be phrased in terms of “how much should we spend to connect a place”.
Asking the plumbing question, last would have the benefit of making the work required, in plumbing terms, about solutions instead of problems.
What are our ambitions for Northland?
Does this ambition make sense, is it ambitious enough?
Is it worth investing in anything beyond bare bones plumbing. to Northland, if we cannot or will not make it economically viable and ideally, booming?
What about the weather? Generally it is said, this improves the closer you can get to the equator and the further you move away from The Southern Ocean .
1. Re : Patrick “What economic forces do you see driving a Marsden boom?”
Moving the port from Auckland seems a no brainer, which is why we’re building a nice silo for concrete there. Will it cost? Yes. Will the benefits outweigh these costs? Absolutely.
The last time I checked, there were no problems selling housing by the sea.
Continuing to invest in infrastructure for the current port in Auckland is money down the drain, as eventually, it will move or that CBD will have to.
Why not merge the Ports of Auckland with whatever the port operation will be called in Northland, everyone puts in their equity, everyone benefits from the new port operation.
The plumbing required for this to happen efficiently, which would definitely involve rail, would enable all manner of viable development to occur further North.
Commute from Whangarei to Auckland via high speed rail?
Take the train to The Bay of Islands?
Fly in tourists for the price of the rail ticket through New Northland?
No reason these things couldn’t be done, and in an economically viable manner.
3. Re Geography
I’m all for protecting the environment in the sense of not pushing sewerage into the Waitemata, but would it make more sense to engage in appropriate levels of terraforming, instead of plugging tunnels through hills, building vast bridges and spending money in an inefficient way, generally?
There are plenty of global examples of land which was initially “destroyed” becoming “subjectively beautiful” again – The Eden Project springs to mind.
4. Population
Much like Browns Bay, the best way to make a place viable is people doing something useful, locally. With 6 Billion odd people on the planet, we seem to have a ready source of bodies.
Start a competition to design a “new city” of the North. Open is up to the best and the brightest, recruit a workforce locally and globally, special residency conditional on making it shine. Make it a tax friendly zone, make it a city entirely designed for PT, cars park at the edge. People may like the idea of not spending five figures on a metal tub with an engine attached to get around.
As a more practical aside, I’m personally in favour of granting citizenship to anyone who sails here.
5. New Zealand? Just add people.
Lovely piece of analysis Matt. Shows exactly why Northlanders should fight for the P2W money to be spent on infrastructure inside Northland rather than on the peripheries. Also shows up yet another soundbite politician. Well done. Keep it coming!
Hang on, I almost missed this. Over ten years, all three local authorities in Northland put together spent $90,300 on walking and cycling? $9,300 per year? That’s… kind of staggering.
May I introduce a personal story: I had a very nasty journey from Rawene to and from Whangarei Hospital during the recent road problems, going via Mangakahia Road and returning through the Waipoua Forest, which was most unpleasant with a constant stream of heavy vehicles in the other direction. As a result I have made a website at http://hokianga.com/roads which you may like to visit and perhaps leave a comment. Thanks.