Unsurprisingly the government’s budget a few weeks ago didn’t offer up much for transport however in the council finance committee meeting earlier that day one part caught my attention.

Despite consultation back in October we still haven’t heard anything from Auckland Transport or the NZTA on the outcome of the East West Link. We also know there’s been quite a bit of discussion about the Reeves Rd Flyover. Back in February AT said they were deferring the project seeing as it would just shift traffic one set of lights down the road and instead using the $170m saved to bring forward spending on the AMETI busway plus bus lanes up Pakuranga Rd. In the months that followed politicians such as Dick Quax became quite upset with this and then in April AT issued another statement saying that the board never agreed to the deferral but that it was just one of the options staff were considering. Note: AT subsequently sent me resolution that was agreed in the closed board session where this was discussed and indeed they only noted the potential change, not agreed to it.

Fast forward to now and Dick Quax is still going on about the flyover. The video below shows AT CEO David Warburton discussing the project with Dick Quax. It starts from about 5:40 in.

Warburton quite matter of factly tells Quax that the flyover won’t solve the problem on its own and that Waipuna and Carbine Rd would also need to be dealt with in order to have any impact – and even then I suspect it would probably just shift traffic to the motorway on-ramp and Gt South Rd intersection. That beeping sound you might be hearing about now is the bill being rung up at the council till.

That is unless the second part of Warburton’s comment is to be believed. He says AT are working with the NZTA to look at an overarching project that links in the East-West link that would see a road from SH20 all the way through to Pakuranga. The map below is just a wild guess but perhaps they’re thinking of something like it. It certainly contains some of the options that they’ve already shown.

East-West + Reeves Rd

Adding to all this is that I’ve heard a few times that East Auckland politicians as well as business groups have been lobbying the government quite hard to make the East West Link a State Highway managed by the NZTA. They know the NZTA has more money to spend than AT does and the government haven’t been afraid to throw more money state highway projects either. Getting the Reeves Rd Flyover and a few other intersections tacked on to the list doesn’t seem like it would be that much more of a stretch.

Of course even if these groups pushing the project are successful that doesn’t make it a good project. Trying to find ways to circumvent the council/AT will most likely mean that money that could have gone to higher value projects elsewhere in the city/country will be pushed back while a likely much lower value project goes ahead. Given Warburton said AT and the NZTA have already held a number of workshops perhaps AT should tell the public what they’re doing on the project as we still haven’t officially heard anything from the options consultation in October last year.

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32 comments

  1. One can only hope there will be a change to a more conservative, prudent and fiscally-responsible government (e.g. the Greens!) before this latest boondoggle goes unconditional.

  2. If you’re scrutinizing every off-hand comment made by Bridges or the PM to try and determine what the Government thinks Auckland’s transport priorities should really be, I think the Prime Minister did mention “Otara to Airport connections” as something the council should be paying more attention to. It would fit the pattern of the government throwing money at every road that carries, our might carry, lots of trucks.

  3. Good news! They need to take the motorway all the way east out towards Beachlands/Maraetai given the development going on out there. East Auckland is the only part of Auckland without convenient access to a motorway, which means through traffic mixes with local traffic to create a never-ending nightmare.

    1. Yes, that certainly sounds like a good way to radically improve the lives of everyone who lives in East Auckland.

      1. They should have done it 40 years ago. It will now be really expensive and disruptive to put it in but it has to be done, in spite of what the anti-car zealots would say. Maybe they could even toll it, if the government gets over its stupid opposition to tolling.

        1. Yep, all them Australian toll motorway projects worked out real awesome… Lets copy them!

        2. 40 years ago, they should’ve built a railway line linking up the eastern line all the way through pakuranga and down through dannemora, botany, down where te irirangi drive is now. This would’ve focused development around public transport and cut all the traffic congestion we now see clogging east auckland.

        3. Portland, a city comparable in size to Auckland, has tried “focusing development around public transport” for decades and it has been a colossal failure.

        4. @ Kleefer
          Portland. . . . . a ‘colossal failure’??? This judgement depends very much on who you listen to.
          From the likes of Demographia this is what you will hear, because their measure of success is basically traffic flowing freely on motorways.
          However Portland is also held up as a ‘poster boy’ for smart growth and Transit-oriented development. By this measure it has been a huge success!

        5. Kleefer it depends on the costs vs the benefits. If the costs outweigh the benefits, then no, it doesnt need to be done.

    2. Whats the BCR on this project and how does it compare to other projects both in the Auckland region and nationally ?

  4. Regardless of value of money, east west link is still needed for people who travel from east to west

    1. Only if there is only one mode or method for making that journey.

      Doing something regardless of value for money is a poor way to build capability for the future and could possibly be why we’re having to prioritise investment more carefully in the present environment.

    2. I assume you are trolling/ being sarcastic. If not – you will be pleased to know that there already exist roads that connect “east to west”. So yes it is all a question of value for money.

  5. Awesome, now Onehunga, with its once lovely shoreline will be fully encased in motorway. I cant imagine this would ever be allowed to happen any further north in Auckland. Not to forget the sewage being allowed to be pumped into the Manukau (even after spending $1b on the Central interceptor). Jeez

  6. A tunnel through Hamlin Hill from the point where it goes under SH1 would probably be cheaper than the route above and just as direct

    1. It’s designed to route people and goods between the eastern suburbs and the industrial south west. Not everyone works in the city in an office.

      I’d estimate at least two thirds of the traffic that enters the south eastern highway at the ti raku / pak highway junction in the morning doesn’t touch SH1

      1. Fair enough, but that doesn’t need a massive new motorway – some better PT for people, as well as intersection upgrades and things like truck lanes (they do exist) for goods could do the same at a fraction of cost. Similar to how we are now proposing to spend billions on a new motorway at Puhoi when a few hundred million would have fixed the safety issues (and 98% of the year’s capacity issues) on the existing route.

        Can’t call these things gold-plated anymore, they’re platinum-plated. From our taxes.

    1. NZTA generally builds pretty nice walk/cycleways next to motorways these days. Yet the downside would be that it would be directly next to a motorway!

  7. If there was anywhere crying out for light rail it is the Eastern suburbs. Any motorway work is just going to dump any extra traffic onto the current motorway system right at the point where it is clogged up now.

      1. The eastern suburbs need a game changing public transport solution. AMETI isn’t going to be it. A bus lane to Botany in 10 years time is going to do nothing for the crippling traffic problems for people in Howick and the peninsula.

        Nothing less than (light or heavy) rail east of the Tamkai river will do.

        1. It ain’t about the vehicle type (unless you have capacity constraints), it’s about the corridor.

        2. Yeah, no buslane has ever represented a quantum shift in public transport anywhere, the Northern Busway only doubled public transport use in peak hour on the shore and several times over off peak.

  8. Wouldn’t it be easier to just construct a mixed use bridge between the two bits of green field between Panama Road and Highbrook just underneath Fisher & Paykel?
    And then once that bridge is considered, consider using existing roads to make it a LRT corridor from Onehunga to Mt Smart Stadium to Sylvia Park, through Panama Road to Highbrook?

    Or an additional clip-on LRT station could be added somewhere along the track of SE highway that sits in the middle of Sylvia Park so that LRT could travel along Church Street, pickup and drop-off passengers directly into Sylvia Park and move along SE highway in both directions?

    And another LRT bridge should seriously be considered further north connecting Taniwha St/West Tamaki Rd/Riddell Road to somwhere along Bucklands Beach Road. This would remove the Bucklands Beach bottleneck as peeps would only need to cross the narrow straight and connect back to Glen Innes train station if needing to get to Britomart?

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