A few days ago the Herald published an op-ed from Michael Barnett, the CEO of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. I found it an odd article as it was never quite clear about what Barnett’s key point was, seemingly jumping between two of them with liberal amounts of anecdata, logic leaps and outright incorrect data sprinkled in. So I thought I’d take a look at some of these.

After kicking things off with a “some people say their traffic is getting worse” statement, he dived headfirst into his first false fact and what first had me groaning internally at how bad the rest of the article might be.

the 400,000-plus North Shore residents are not getting back a fair share of the rates and taxes they pay towards fixing Auckland’s big transport issues.

Population figures are often able to be easily gerrymandered but even with some creative massaging it’s hard to see how he gets this figure. A look at Statistics NZ latest population estimates suggests that even including the Hibiscus Coast and the eastern half of Rodney all the way up past Wellsford only yields 336k people, well short of the 400k+ claimed.

As for the share of transport spending, we have a system with multiple parties involved. Auckland’s transport challenges are such that some areas need high levels of council spending (e.g. AMETI) while other areas the majority of funding will be from the NZTA due to projects more centred on upgrades to state highways. Even so, Auckland Transport have just completed a $40 million upgrade to the northern end of Albany Highway and looking forward, within the next few years the NZTA will be starting a $500 million-plus upgrade of SH18 and SH1 which also includes the extension of the Northern Busway to Albany.

Northern Corridor - June-16 Design

All this is before even considering that if the Additional Waitemata Harbour Crossing is ever built, it would be the largest single transport project in NZ history by a significant margin. Speaking of harbour crossings, he says:

About 200,000 vehicles cross the Harbour Bridge each day, and the commute for many is up to two hours – well above the city average of 30 minutes.

I’m not sure if Barnett is aware of how averages work but by their very nature mean some results will be higher and others lower than what most people experience. Generally if you live a long way from where you work or study you’ll have a longer commute and if driving, have a greater chance of being a part of congestion.

As for the 200k vehicles across the bridge, I’ll let that one slide. The NZTA’s published information suggests about 168k per day but daily data they once provided us shows that on weekdays that can be around 200k. Of course as users of the bridge will know, despite being one of the busiest stretches of road in the country, it’s not the bridge that’s the bottleneck.

He then finally kicks in with I think may have been his main point, that he wants Penlink built. It is also where he makes the first part of his biggest leap of logic. Traffic he says, is backed up down the peninsula every morning and so Penlink will free up give an easier journey to the motorway freeing up local roads. That is followed by this statement.

The only excuse officials seem to have is that building Penlink would shift the congestion from Silverdale and the Peninsula on to State Highway 1. That’s unacceptable.

Unless he’s claiming that the northern motorway is free flowing at peak times, it’s not going to matter if they use Penlink or go through Silverdale, they’re still going to be sitting in traffic on their trip down the North Shore. There may be some net gain from using Penlink, but not likely a lot.

But it’s the next part of the piece, and the part that’s referenced in the headline, that helps to confuse the article and complete that large leap of logic.

Imagine the uproar then, and implications for the state highway north of the Harbour Bridge, if any serious effort was made to relocate the Ports of Auckland vehicle import trade to NorthPort near Whangarei.

Currently Auckland imports around 21,000 vehicles every month, or 252,000 a year. Eighty percent of the imported vehicles are for customers in South Auckland.

The car-carrying trucks on average take about eight vehicles. The industry advises that over a 24-hour cycle there would be a heavy truck on the road to and from Auckland-Northport every 2-3 minutes.

The pressure on the bridge and state highway between Northland and South Auckland wouldn’t cope. The freight sector is already under notice that trucks will be restricted to centre lanes of the Harbour Bridge from around 2020 due to stress on the clip-on lanes.

Having a state highway clogged with freight trucks would be untenable for Northland tourism, those who live along the State Highway and other traffic through Spaghetti Junction or the Waterview Tunnels.

First let’s just do a little bit of basic maths. There are 252,000 vehicles delivered a year (the ports themselves say 244k but close enough) and 80% of them are going to South Auckland, although I’ll ignore that part for now. That’s 690 vehicles arriving per day and if a car carrying truck can carry an average of 8 vehicles, that’s 86 return trips that are needed. With operations 24 hours a day it equates to 1,440 minutes. Dividing 1,440 minutes by 86 trips tells us there’d be a vehicle carrying truck in each direction every 17 minutes. That’s a lot but nowhere near the truck every 2-3 minutes.

Next, the trucks are heading to South Auckland so if they’re coming from the north they’d be bypassing the city centre. Isn’t that kind of trip exactly the reason we’ve been spending billions on building the Western Ring Route? And if the motorway can’t cope with this traffic, how is dealing with the traffic from Penlink?

Let’s not forget, one of the core reasons the government has pushed their RoNS projects like Puhoi to Wellsford is that they call them ‘lead infrastructure’, because they think building a bigger road will magically create economic growth. In short, the government want more trucks on the road to Northland.

rons-nzta-text
From the NZTA

Other options for moving vehicles, such as by rail, which based on his figures would only require 11 return trips per day, are claimed not to work because first a gold plated, $1.5 billion solution would be needed. I don’t disagree that upgrades are probably needed but whether they’re needed to that extent and before any changes is debatable. I also imagine the amount of land freed up from not needing so much space for parking would probably exceed that figure.

Of course all of that assumes imported cars would go to Northland, although according to Barnett, apparently the same issues apply to Tauranga. Yet the rail line to Tauranga is already the busiest rail freight route in New Zealand. Its capacity was recently doubled to four trains an hour (two each direction) by spending only around $15 million on additional passing loops. The cost of more of more of them to further increase capacity and the completion of the third main in Auckland would cost less than the average motorway interchange and have other benefits, especially in Auckland.

The Chamber’s suggestion to all of this is to build a large multi-storey carpark on the waterfront to store the cars but knowing such a building wouldn’t be possible, suggest putting a ‘green space’ on the roof will somehow hide it.

And with one last jarring lurch the piece ends on this:

Meanwhile, let’s get real. Fixing the acute “here and now” roading issues on the North Shore should be our shared priority. The Penlink Project is “ready to go”. There are no excuses or credible reasons for the new Council not giving the project the green light immediately.

With the project expected to exceed $350 million, I can think of quite a few reasons why it shouldn’t get an immediate green light. For many years, business groups like the Chamber and local politicians have claimed there are private investors lined up and ready to go with funding this project. If the Chamber wants it to happen now, perhaps it’s time they convinced these investors to start opening their wallets and get building.

Until that happens, it’s probably best we focus our limited transport investment in the areas that will have the most overall impact, which was the exact purpose of the Auckland Transport Alignment Project that suggested Penlink wasn’t needed any time soon.

atap-major-transport-projects-by-decade-map

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41 comments

  1. I thought George Wood retired at the last Auckland council elections!
    Or is it that old politicians never die, they just smell that way?

    Did Barnett consider for a moment where those boat loads of cars are ending up?
    Yeah, I know, South Auckland, but South Auckland, thats just a temporary transit point.
    The bulk of these will end up on Aucklands Roads, in short order.

    But its not a like for like [or old for new] replacement, of existing cars.
    They’ll displace off the roads, nowhere like the number of cars that are added.
    So the total car population of Auckland increases faster than the the population.

    And in a nutshell, “Thats your problem right there!”.

    As Goff reiterated recently, you can’t build your way out of congestion by adding more roads.
    We can import and add cars way more quickly to Auckland roads, than we can build roads to hold them.

    So we need a better solution than little greenwash down that at the port.

    As for his use of ropey statistics, well, everyone knows that 1/3rd of all statistics are simply made up on the spot, and another third are plain wrong, and the rest are lies.

  2. Good analysis Matt L.

    KiwiRail just a couple of years ago scrapped a whole fleet of car carrying wagons. To be fair they were probably at the end of their operating life, but it does highlight that there is a car wagon designs out there ready to go, and that a new batch could be ordered tomorrow if the business case can be made to stack up. Probably easier via Mt Maunganui at this stage but not discounting Marsden Point in future. The transport of imported cars is not exactly time sensitive so I cannot see too many capacity constraints even without the third main through south Auckland.

  3. Setting aside some of Barnett’s numbers, he is not alone in thinking that North Shore residents are not getting back a fair share of the rates and taxes they pay towards fixing Auckland’s big transport issues, but to me he misses the point. What the Shore needs (everyone in Auckland really) is a fair share of public transport investment, not more of the same road-building that has got us to this point.

    Does Barnett’s claim that the North Shore is being short-changed by in transport funding stack up? It certainly does if you look at public transport investment – it is only commuters on the Shore that are locked out of integrated fares, and AT still charges ferry users nearly triple the amount they charge bus/train users. Yes, I know that to fix this requires a conversation with government, but it surely isn’t a six-year conversation? And it’s not just ferries – the money spent on separated cycle lanes was nearly all claimed by central Auckland, the frequent bus network misses out over two-thirds of the North Shore population (no such problem for isthmus bus users), and now LRT plans are confined to the isthmus despite the Shore being the only region in Auckland without a train network.

    I think that the claim that ATAP focuses our limited transport investment in the areas that will have the most overall impact is somewhat generous. All it really did was combine AT’s isthmus bias with NZTA’s roads bias, and rank their favourite projects by decade, so we ended up (of course) with public transport plans limited to the isthmus and a lavish road-building programme everywhere else. These biases are damaging and expensive, and if ATAP isn’t tossed out soon we could all be living in a very high carbon high traffic-fatality city. And these biases mean that promising solutions such as an LRT tunnel to link up new stations at fast-growing places like Glenfield, Birkenhead, Belmont and Northcote don’t even get considered.

    I’m optimistic though. We have two very capable North Shore councillors who have vowed to reduce fares and improve public transport access on the Shore, and a bright new mayor who seems to understand the need to fix AT, so we might soon see big changes to ATAP. I’d hope that within the next few months North Shore residents will start to gain access to public transport on the same footing as residents on the isthmus.

    1. Yes one thing which surprised me about the New Network is how poor it is on the North Shore. Even basic and obvious things, like connecting Glenfield to the busway or connecting Birkenhead and Northcote to Takapuna are left out. Northcote doesn’t get any frequent connection at all, despite the proposed upzoning. If you move to the Shore and you like good PT connections, your choice of places to move will be limited, and as a consequence quite expensive.

      In their defence, the street grid is not exactly conductive to good PT, and I don’t even know if it’s possible for buses to cross SH1 without getting stuck in the queues of cars going to the city. But even then, they deserve an F for not even trying.

      With cycleways, I’m not sure if the council is the problem. Look for instance at the sad saga playing out in Northcote Point right now.

        1. That would solve some issues. But we would still have very poor connections in the area around Glenfield, and Northcote would still be stranded.

        2. Those same residents that have held up Skypath and are now trying to ensure that the Northcote Point end of the Northcote Safe Cycle Route doesn’t inconvenience them to any extent, and sod safety.

          My worry about the lack of access to the Northern Busway is that it will translate in the future to lack of access to rail on the Shore. If Onewa Rd isn’t screaming out for LRT, then what corridor is?

    2. I would have thought the Shore got more than its fare share. Recently completed:
      Northern Busway ROW
      Ferry Services
      Albany highway upgrades
      Glenfield Rd upgrades
      Upper Harbour Motorway

      Underway or in the pipeline:
      SH1 and SH18 interchange
      Northern Busway ROW extension north of Constellation
      Devonport Wharf Redevelopment
      Skypath
      Seapath
      Northcote safe cycle route
      City Rail link, indirectly freeing up road space for North Shore motorists and PT users.
      Glenvar Ridge rd
      Hibiscus Coast Bus Station
      Medallian Dr
      Torbay Revitalisation

  4. A great post Matt.
    I have thought for a long time that Michael Barnett bleats out nonsense when proposing solutions for better transport in Auckland. He is inevitably far too close to the truck lobby to synthesize the best outcome for everybody from a series of complex inputs. In my view it is time Barnett was replaced as CEO of the Chamber of Commerce.
    I am reminded also of the continuing nonsense we have had from that lobby group NZCID. They have held sway with their annual NZ Herald supplements for far too long……………….out with them! Auckland needs much better thinking.

  5. Here we go again with the Penlink bashing from people who wouldn’t know their ass from their elbow when it comes to congestion issues on the Hibiscus Coast while sitting comfortably in their chairs in central Auckland. Want to travel locally from the Peninsular to Silverdale/Orewa etc (ie not travelling down to the North Shore or the City)? it will take you a good 20 minutes at least for a 5 minute drive (and if there are any issues or accidents – as there regularly are then that blows out to 30-60 minutes) I can’t think of many other parts of Auckland where it takes the best part of an hour to travel such a short distance locally. Penlink takes most of the commuting (to the Shore or City) traffic off the existing roads freeing them up for local traffic.
    The population on the Coast has grown by around 30,000 people since 2001 (and is still rapidly growing) while there have not been any improvements to any local roads in that time. The Peninsular is also vulnerable to being cut off completely if Whangaparaoa Road is closed (as has happened on multiple occasions).

    Penlink saves multiple kilometres and has significant time savings for those that are driving towards the Shore (reduction in fuel consumption from distance and not stop-start traffic – so less CO2 – one of this blogs goals).
    One statement made on this blog is that it only moves the congestion to the motorway. This is false. It would only do that if it generated significantly larger volumes of traffic (your favourite induced demand). The thing is that while there is still growth to be done on the Peninsular, there isn’t a huge amount – meaning there won’t be huge amounts of induced traffic (especially with increased bus use – more on that later). If the amount of traffic remains the same or only slightly more then Penlink will save commuters about 12 minutes off peak and around 30 minutes on average during peak while at the same time resulting in large reductions in travel time for local traffic on the peninsular as well as in Silverdale and Orewa. It will also make those roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

    The other community that will benefit from Penlink is Stillwater (yes some hippies there are worried about losing their secret little private space). The current road to Stillwater is very dangerous and the population of Stillwater is growing. It also takes around 30+ minutes to travel from Stillwater to the Shops on Whangaparaoa Peninsular which are only about 1km away as the crow flies!

    Earlier I mentioned bus use. Currently buses on the Peninsular are very slow, not particularly regular, don’t have the best coverage and are stuck in traffic with everyone else. There is not really a viable way to put bus lanes in either. Consequently there aren’t a huge amount of people taking the bus (or certainly aren’t taking the bus to get to the Silverdale NEX). Now with Penlink there could be bus services that operate right through to Albany regularly and Peak services that operate to the city as well. This would save bus passengers about 30 minutes off the journey time – I can’t think of many other improvements anywhere in Auckland that save that amount of time (even CRL only saves around 15 minutes). This would really get a lot of people out of their cars and onto buses so the “induced demand” side of Penlink could actually be neutralised.

    Finally, unlike any other roading or PT infrastructure project Penlink actually has private backing and doesn’t drain resources to anywhere near it’s costs due to it being a toll-road (yes I know it doesn’t full pay for itself from tolls – but compare that to any other road – including busways etc and none of them come cheap). The private backers are there they have been waiting for direction from AT/NZTA which has been severely lacking!

  6. Here we go again with the Penlink bashing from people who wouldn’t know their ass from their elbow when it comes to congestion issues on the Hibiscus Coast while sitting comfortably in their chairs in central Auckland. Want to travel locally from the Peninsular to Silverdale/Orewa etc (ie not travelling down to the North Shore or the City)? it will take you a good 20 minutes at least for a 5 minute drive (and if there are any issues or accidents – as there regularly are then that blows out to 30-60 minutes) I can’t think of many other parts of Auckland where it takes the best part of an hour to travel such a short distance locally. Penlink takes most of the commuting (to the Shore or City) traffic off the existing roads freeing them up for local traffic.
    The population on the Coast has grown by around 30,000 people since 2001 (and is still rapidly growing) while there have not been any improvements to any local roads in that time. The Peninsular is also vulnerable to being cut off completely if Whangaparaoa Road is closed (as has happened on multiple occasions).

    Penlink saves multiple kilometres and has significant time savings for those that are driving towards the Shore (reduction in fuel consumption from distance and not stop-start traffic – so less CO2 – one of this blogs goals).
    One statement made on this blog is that it only moves the congestion to the motorway. This is false. It would only do that if it generated significantly larger volumes of traffic (your favourite induced demand). The thing is that while there is still growth to be done on the Peninsular, there isn’t a huge amount – meaning there won’t be huge amounts of induced traffic (especially with increased bus use – more on that later). If the amount of traffic remains the same or only slightly more then Penlink will save commuters about 12 minutes off peak and around 30 minutes on average during peak while at the same time resulting in large reductions in travel time for local traffic on the peninsular as well as in Silverdale and Orewa. It will also make those roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

    The other community that will benefit from Penlink is Stillwater (yes some hippies there are worried about losing their secret little private space). The current road to Stillwater is very dangerous and the population of Stillwater is growing. It also takes around 30+ minutes to travel from Stillwater to the Shops on Whangaparaoa Peninsular which are only about 1km away as the crow flies!

    Earlier I mentioned bus use. Currently buses on the Peninsular are very slow, not particularly regular, don’t have the best coverage and are stuck in traffic with everyone else. There is not really a viable way to put bus lanes in either. Consequently there aren’t a huge amount of people taking the bus (or certainly aren’t taking the bus to get to the Silverdale NEX). Now with Penlink there could be bus services that operate right through to Albany regularly and Peak services that operate to the city as well. This would save bus passengers about 30 minutes off the journey time – I can’t think of many other improvements anywhere in Auckland that save that amount of time (even CRL only saves around 15 minutes). This would really get a lot of people out of their cars and onto buses so the “induced demand” side of Penlink could actually be neutralised.

    Finally, unlike any other roading or PT infrastructure project Penlink actually has private backing and doesn’t drain resources to anywhere near it’s costs due to it being a toll-road (yes I know it doesn’t full pay for itself from tolls – but compare that to any other road – including busways etc and none of them come cheap). The private backers are there they have been waiting for direction from AT/NZTA which has been severely lacking!

    1. hahahahahaha.
      Try travelling south from Manukau city at any time after about 2pm on a week day. You won’t see much difference from what you’re describing.
      And for a comparison,
      Manukau City
      2001 – ~285,000
      2006 – ~329,000
      2013 – Can’t tell easily because they changed the city, but that first 5 years was already ~45,000

    2. “It also takes around 30+ minutes to travel from Stillwater to the Shops on Whangaparaoa Peninsular which are only about 1km away as the crow flies!”

      Well there’s your problem – that’s a 15 minute walk or a 5 minute ride. Consider that when there’s a transport problem, the car is not always the answer.

    3. What a load of rubbish. I’ve been using Whangaparaoa Rd a bit lately. The ‘congestion’ is minimal in the context of Auckland region. Don’t like it, don’t live 14km out on a peninsula. Or, get some pod casts, kick back and enjoy.

    4. “I can’t think of many other parts of Auckland where it takes the best part of an hour to travel such a short distance locally”

      Awhitu.

  7. When it comes to funding $100m new motorways that are designed to imrpove journey times for (primarily) commuter traffic then surely the business case for a Park & RIde stacks up favourably?
    Or do people in Whangaparoa Peninsula actually want high levels of growth (in people and local traffic) that that Penlink will encourage/facilitate?

  8. @ Roger W: South Auckland is bad sure however it also has multiple roads heading South (including but not limited to SH1, Gt SOuth Road, Mill Road, Sutton Road). It also has a heavy rail line with regular services on it.
    The coast is a smaller population so growing by 30,000 people has a lot more impact there than it does in Manukau.

    @ Scott G… That’s nice Scott. Did I ever say Red Beach out to Army Bay (ie the peninsular?) No I didn’t. I talked about population growth on the coast (which includes Silverdale, Orewa, Hatfields Beach and often includes Stillwater).

    @Andy White: You show your ignorance. I said: “It also takes around 30+ minutes to travel from Stillwater to the Shops on Whangaparaoa Peninsular which are only about 1km away as the crow flies!”
    You replied with: “Well there’s your problem – that’s a 15 minute walk or a 5 minute ride. Consider that when there’s a transport problem, the car is not always the answer.” So should I put some togs on and pull out the scuba gear? The whole reason why it is called a peninsular is that it is a piece of land sticking out from the SEA surrounding it… So unless you think people can walk or cycle underwater through the Weiti River/Estuary then I suggest you stay out of conversations you clearly know absolutely NOTHING about!

    @Ak-Sam: Growth on the Peninsular is going to happen with or without Penlink. Without Penlink the growth will of course cause chaos. Growth on the Peninsular will of course facilitate agglomeration benefits and job creation – it currently does not have the density to support many businesses.

    1. My apologies, you did indeed say ‘the coast’, though because the discussion was about the peninsula I glommed to that.
      Total pop for 2013 for peninsula and coast (silverdale, waiwera, orewa, stillwater) is 43197.

    2. “Penlink”, sounds like your pet project would be well suited for a PPP toll road. That will provide ongoing benefits for the peninsular inhabitants by keeping the link fairly uncongested too, so you’ll have a quick run along the new road and by paying for it yourselves, you can jump the queue on more regionally important transport projects.

    3. I’m sure Roger is aware of the multiple routes but it doesn’t change the fact that any time after 1400 until well after 1900 all of those routes are jammed taking the amount of time you are complaining about to go that same short distance.

    4. My mistake, I read it as Stillwater to Silverdale.

      Still, hardly justifies a motorway. It is perhaps the residents of Stillwater that would benefit most from a connection but a local traffic bridge would be a better solution for that purpose though.

      Alternatively a Penlink that is mass transit only would have the combined effect of reducing traffic on the existing Whangaparaoa Rd for local connections while improving commuting times for those heading to employment centres on the Shore and in the city and not creating additional induced demand car traffic.

    5. Sutton Road goes sideways for a couple of kilometres from the Great South Road such that it links Opaheke and “Ponga” to Drury. Sure, without it you’d have to do some pretty loopy driving but to put things in perspective, to get to Papakura from Drury via Sutton Road you have to cross the Papakura-Pukekohe rail line twice (once on Sutton Road, once on Opaheke Road*). It is, in no shape or form, a route that heads South… even if you consider things more broadly, you just simply take on a different side of Papakura and its ubiquitous traffic lights and then end up back on the Great South Road (unless you happen to live on Sutton Road, Murray Street or York Street, which is a couple of dozen people tops and, frankly, that sounds too high). There’s a reason why the cars that periodically form back to back along the Great South Road between Drury and Papakura (seriously) do not turn down Sutton Road in large numbers.**

      *You can, in fact, get caught waiting for the same freight train twice. This is despite Sutton Road consisting of some mean right angles.

      **As far as I know, this happens only when there’s an issue with the motorway but it /does/ happen.

    6. It would be a No-Brainer for taxpayers to fully fund Penlink and a new busway if the Pensinsula had any appetite for growth.The location is extremely well suited to apartments – north facing peninsula with panoramic sea views, access to beaches, etc. It would be fantastic…world class.

      But 95% of Whangaparoa Peninsula has been zoned Single House or Large Lot Zone. The only density is in retirement villages – and those don’t boost local commerce at all.

      So by building Penlink, you’re just encouraging a lot more Auckland workers to relocate to the peninsula and drive to work – right? This will drive up property prices and change the demographic makeup of the area quite significantly.

      1. “The only density is in retirement villages”

        Isn’t that weird? Old people are allowed to move into what’s essentially a small apartment. Young people are not.

        But why would they not boost local commerce?

  9. So the 1km that you mentioned was totally irrelevant, but you abuse someone who responded as if it was relevant. Not a good way to convince people that you are interested in a meaningful discussion.

  10. @ Scott G. I get 45,990 for the 2013 census vs 33,012 for 2001. Since then Millwater and large parts of Orewa and Hatfields have been developed along with ongoing development on the Peninsular meaning that the numbers are up around the 60,000 mark. So compared to South Auckland not a large amount, however as mentioned most of it has to go through Silverdale which is a huge choke point (and is a huge dogleg).

    @ Bevan it has been planned to be a toll road all along and has been put up for being a PPP for quite some time. The developer of Gulf Harbour had offered to contribute something like half the cost (which retaining an ownership stake for the life of the PPP) a few years ago which wasn’t taken up.

    @Bigted I’m not saying South is better or anything like that – everyone knows it’s a shambles. My point is that the coast is also a shambles just on a smaller scale however there is one project that solves a variety of transport problems (both local and commuter) for a reasonable cost (PPP/toll road) and with a good BCR so there is little reason for it not to proceed (especially since it is unlikely to have a negative impact on other projects due to the aforementioned PPP/tollroad status).

  11. @Errol Cavit… how is the 1km irrelevant? Driving/walking/cycling between the 2 spots I mentioned is 15km all the way around through Silverdale or 1km over a Penlink Bridge.

    I don’t think it is abuse to correct someone firmly when they make a snarky comment about something to which they know nothing about as if they do and get’s it completely and utterly wrong.

    How are they making it a meaningful discussion? That would be like me saying I’m trying to bake a moist chocolate cake and them saying why don’t you cook it on a frying pan on the stovetop and only if it is powered by solar power.

    1. “… Driving/walking/cycling between the 2 spots I mentioned is 15km all the way around through Silverdale…”

      So they could just go as far as the shops at Silverdale then, further as the crow flies, but closer by achievable means.

      St. Lukes is closer to me than Albany as the crow flies, but I’ve never been to St. Lukes and I’m not about to demand a new harbour crossing to overcome known geographical constraints just so I can.

  12. Penlink has a BCR of between 2.5 and 3.1 (which is very high).
    I can’t find a BCR for a busway extension to Silverdale however it does have an estimated cost of $800m. That does sound quite high to me considering most of the land is already relatively prepared for it and it wouldn’t involve much construction along the likes of overpasses/underpasses that aren’t already in place. I would imagine a busway extension to Silverdale (and Orewa) would have a positive BCR

    1. Can you use your real name please? Given that you’re advocating for this particular project i think its important and useful information to know.

    2. I wonder what the count is for people driving to the Hibiscus Coast P&R from somewhere along the peninsular (to the city destination people avoiding just the motorway congestion)? To cater for those people, for a small slightly useful interim fix, I wonder if there is a case for a small P&R half way along the peninsular somewhere around Mainly? Not much room without taking a park or something out. Of course really they should if they can transfer from a local / collector bus & really we need bus priority measures along there.

  13. I thought they only wanted North Shore in the super city to take our rates off us but I was wrong. Watercare is building a big new pipeline called the Northern Interceptor. Turns out as well as taking our money they are going to send us West Auckland’s shit.

    1. Well the North Shore has been taking Auckland’s fresh water for many more years. And it could be argued that without the generosity of those south of the harbour there would be no electricity north of the bridge…….

      1. Do you mean West Auckland’s fresh water? Does NS not share with Central and South Auckland that estrogren laden supply pumped up from the Waikato river?

        1. Prior to the Waikato Pipeline, The Waitakere’s less than 40% of Auckland’s Water. 60 + % came from the Hunia’s, and a tiny remainder Bore and Tanks. Since the pipeline, even a smaller % from West.

  14. A lot of focus on here is on the city-bound direction but as some have mentioned, the bottlenecks are further south at every on-ramp so while people will get off the peninsula quicker & avoid Silverdale, the queue at Oteha Valley will lengthen quicker. I see in the 1st graphic that with all of the ‘major interventions’ planned, we are still going to end up with 2 southbound lanes between Constellation & Tristram. Considering this area is at a standstill even on a Sat & Sun, I’m sure Penlink isn’t going to solve many southbound problems. The only major southbound benefit will be if there is a road closure, then Penlink will allow an alternative route off the peninsula. However, the real benefits will be found northbound. With a large percentage of traffic exiting at Redvale in the evenings, commuters to Orewa, Red Beach, Millwater, Silverdale, Wainui, Puhoi, D/Flat, Warkworth etc will all benefit. Not only that, the Silverdale motorway exchange will become unclogged allowing people travelling from Silverdale/Orewa, D/Flat or coming from north will no longer be stuck at the gridlocked intersections. Westbound traffic sit at a red traffic signal until the tail of the traffic exiting the motorway clears which in turn blocks the previous intersection thus preventing southbound traffic from exiting the motorway from north. People travelling from Orewa via Red Beach to the Peninsula will reduce their 30min commute to travel 6km by half. People travelling from Silverdale to anywhere would cut their travelling time by more than half. To have however many tens of thousand people relying on a single lane of road is madness.

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