Transport Minister Simeon Brown has been soaring high with his hubris of getting on and building motorways, but some uncomfortable realities are starting to creep in.
Back in July he announced that the government was pushing on with a Northland Expressway using an “accelerated delivery strategy”:
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.
…..
“An accelerated delivery strategy developed by NZTA includes a progressive public private partnership model that will achieve efficiencies and innovation in planning, procurement, design and construction across the entire roading corridor between Auckland and Whangārei. It will do this by treating the three Roads of National Significance as three stages of the same project, and incentivising the development partner to deliver excellence in design, construction, financing, maintenance, and operation for each phase of the expressway.
“Taking a corridor approach means NZTA will avoid multiple procurement processes. It will also deliver integrated design, construction, maintenance and operations across the entire Northland Expressway, and allow greater efficiencies through scale to deliver the project up to 10 years faster than traditional approaches.
The government has also been talking a lot about the possibility of tolling many of these new expressways around the country and back in March I highlighted that the cost for this particular project is so high – and existing traffic volumes so low – that a toll to pay for the entire route would need to be over $50 per vehicle per trip.
My back-of-the-envelope calculations are one thing, but now a report from the Infrastructure Commission puts the cost of this project into even starker perspective. The Herald reports.
A single road network in Northland will consume one dollar in every 10 spent by the Government on infrastructure over the next 25 years – excluding maintenance and renewals – the Infrastructure Commission says.
In a paper on a Northland expressway network that will eventually connect Auckland and Whangārei, the commission warned that this was a large proportion of the pool of capital intended to be spent on all other central government infrastructure like, “roads, hospitals, schools, defence, justice, public admin, etc”.
It also warned that the already high cost of the project could double.
The advice was drawn up for Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop and advised him on the Government’s plan to accelerate the construction of Roads of National Significance in Northland.
I think most people would agree that we need to improve roads and other transport connections to Northland – and many other regions – but spending (a minimum of) 10% of our entire public infrastructure budget on this one project just does not make sense.
The (opportunity) costs of mega-roads
We don’t know yet what the full cost of this expressway will be, but we do have some idea about parts of it:
- The 26km Warkworth to Wellsford section was estimated at around $2 billion back in 2020 many projects have ballooned in cost since then and before the last election Labour said the cost had increased to closer to $4 billion
- The 22km Whangarei to Marsden Point section has seem similar cost increases, going from around $700 million to up to $1.67 billion
That still leaves a 44km gap which includes a bypass of the Brynderwyns that will likely push the cost for the full route to $10 billion or more.
If the government weren’t so obsessed with every road being a four-lane highway, there are a lot of lower-cost options to the existing state highway that could be considered to improve the safety, reliability and efficiency of the corridor. This could include things like easing corners, wider shoulders, median barriers, regular passing lanes, improved intersections and probably a range of other improvements.
What’s more, the money that is saved could then be used to deliver those same kinds of treatment to a range of other roads, throughout Northland and/or in other parts of the country. Alternatively, as the NZ Herald article notes, that is money that could otherwise be spent on vital thing like hospitals, schools, and a range of other public resources, most of which are probably going to have a much greater impact for Northland and the nation than one mega-road will.
How to know if you even need a mega-road
Perhaps to put all of this in a different perspective. The Warkworth to Wellsford section was consented back in 2020 and the business case released just before that, which estimated the costs at $1.7-2.1 billion noted the benefit-cost ratio (BCR) was just 0.7 and that was unchanged even if wider economic benefits were included. Given the cost has now doubled what has that done to the BCR?
It also sought to answer the important question of when the infrastructure is needed, suggesting some project triggers. One of those was around forecast traffic volumes:
- Forecast traffic volumes are predicted to exceed 25,000 AADT [average annual daily traffic]
That volume is around what is currently seen on the Waikato Expressway.
Forecasting future volumes is always a bit of a risky proposition, especially in recent years but we can look at some history.
First up, let’s look at the most recent publicly available AADT data for Northland. I’ve looked at the figures for the various monitoring sites for the proposed section and a bit either side. Of note, the Puhoi to Warkworth data is from the old road, as the available data was from before the motorway opened.
As you can see, traffic volumes are well below the 25k level suggested in the Warkworth to Wellsford business case; and over the Brynderwyns, volumes are only around 10k per day. Spending $10 billion so 10,000 vehicles a day can travel faster is not a good return on investment.
We can also see that, even prior to COVID, the slow and steady increase in traffic volume appeared to stall, and is not on track to reach 25k any time soon. None of these locations along the road appear to be seeing increases that would justify planning a motorway-scale investment, let alone one that would soak up a minimum of 10% of the national infrastructure budget for a generation.
It’s good that we’re starting to see this kind of information from the Infrastructure Commission. Will it change the government’s mind, or will they push on regardless of what it costs, just like Labour did with their silly proposals for Tunnelled Light Rail?
Processing...
Here is an example of wastefully overscaled design that the inflexible RoNS doctrine leads to. Crushing land use like this makes it very hard for any claims of economic benefit to be taken seriously:
https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2019/03/20/warkworth-to-wellsford-updated-alignment/
Build a re-aligned primarily two lane highway. Passing lanes every 4km each direction, or on any significant hills. Median barrier the whole way, or at least on any curved sections. Major intersections grade separated, minor intersections use roundabouts, occasional right-turns using a protected central turning bay. Speed limit 100 kmh with the provision to raise to 110 after a certain % of the vehicle fleet is zero emission. Design so it can be widened to 4 lanes in the future without major earthworks in most cases.
90% of the benefit of an expressway for like 60% of the cost.
Your post makes a lot of sense apart from “Speed limit 100 kmh with the provision to raise to 110 after a certain % of the vehicle fleet is zero emission. ”
Didn’t realise zero emission vehicles have some sort of force field that protects them and others in the event of an accident – even at higher speeds
The median barriers (and roadside barriers) protect from head-on collisions and collisions with street furniture. Grade separated intersections protect from side impact collisions. Effectively what you end up with is a 2 lane expressway, which wouldn’t be less safe than, say, the Waikato Expressway or any other equivalent overseas – which would have a 110 kmh (or higher) limit. I’m not sure how 4 lanes is magically safer than 2 lanes when there is still a median barrier.
The fair argument against higher speeds on roads that can support them is increased emissions – which EVs help take care of.
Not sure if you drive an EV, but driving above 100kmh is an absolute drain on the battery, probably worse than the drain on fuel consumption, especially factoring in Brynderwyns, you ain’t gonig to want to be flying around at max speed, losing lots of charge for minimal time benefit. I still stick to a 100 on the Waikato, but then everyone is different.
Nobody will force you to drive faster. Auckland to Whangarei is also only 160km. Even at a hypothetical 120-130 kmh I cant think of many EVs that wouldnt have the range for that trip in one go.
I can easily drive 300km at 110-120km/h in my BMW iX, I can match WLTP on a nice simmer day. My friend in NZ also has an iX and regularly travels between Albany and Tauranga where his parents live return on a single charge. There are so many EV’s that could do this easily, I think you’re simply anti EV.
If anything I’d go the other way. Legally limit ICE vehicles to 80-90km/h, slow them down to incentivize ZEV uptake if people really are that addicted to going fast. Keep the max speed limit at 100, and upgrade the railways to take 160km/h trains on the straights if people need to go faster.
Really these major regional transport projects should be split more-or-less equally between transit and road transport. 2-lane upgraded highway with some deviations where necessary, plus extensive realignments of the NAL track, that’s what I’d be doing were I in Simeon’s place.
Yes a passing lanes every 5-10km is a win-win. I drove from Hobart to Launceston in Tasmania over last Christmas holiday and was quite impressed with it. Having lot of passing lanes made the difference.
If you do most of the major earthworks to allow for 4 lanes, you’re still going to be spending most of the same money. Part of the point of a 2 lane road is to reduce the amount of earth you need to move!
Th problem is that today’s 4 lanes has earthworks made to allow expansion to 6 lanes. The section of SH1 north of TeKauwhata for many years had earthworks on the eastern side sufficiently wide enough to allow 4 lanes where there was two This included the infrastructure (power poles) already moved off to the side. It had all the appearance of a four lane road minus the seal. What happened was a further widening, including moving the power, to get… a four lane road! We are not paying for four lane roads we are paying for gold plated roads that can be increased to 6 lane.
Amen to that.
Really annoyed me as a daily commuter through there seeing all those 90% done earthworks but having to put up with a 60s bodge 2 lane road.
It should have been four lanes at the start, saving NZ a lot of money long term.
What it does NOT EVER need though is 6 laning.
Meanwhile the North Auckland Line hasn’t being reopened or at least it hasn’t being reported and Kiwirail is usually pretty good at promoting any small progress so I assume it’s still shut. Pacifica shipping has a trial shipment of 100 containers of dairy products between Kauri and the port of Tauranga on their coastal service. Undoubtedly this is an attempt by Fonterra to extract a lower price from Kiwirail if it ever gets all it’s ducks in a row and actually manages to reopen the line. Aparrently up to 800 containers of dairy products per annum travel from Kauri to Tauranga port. I assume containers are presently being trucked to Metroport in Southdown then railed to Tauranga.
I agree with rail projects. I cant believe the Govt’s obsession with roading projects. Their absolute horrendous lack of insight into developing quality rail connections flummox me. Everyone wants to drive their Rangers on the roads. I see trailers and Rangers towing doing 110 plus speeds on Waikato Expressway. I guess it will be the same up north if the expressway were to open in eons. Am sure politicians are well travelled around the world and have seen public infrastructure projects around, but fail to think rationally.
Give me a good rapid and frequent rail connections. will happily commute.
For Northland, using existing infrastructure and strengthening rails with higher speeds with tilting trains will be far better in the long run.
I can believe the current government’s obsession with roads even though I don’t understand it. Right-wing politicians have always seemed to have some kind of antipathy towards railways.
I well recall Margaret Thatcher once remarking that if it was up to her she would shut down Britain’s rail network and turn the trackbeds into motorways.
That kind of mindset defies comprehension.
For the North Auckland line to be competitive with even the current road for passenger transport, it needs to be fully re-routed along most of its length.
The current route is 50km longer than the road from city centre to city centre. We would need a new line going under/over the harbour and up the North Shore to Wellsford, and then perhaps another realignment down onto the flat land by Waipu to allow for any kind of acceptable journey time.
Im not saying this shouldnt be done – but it will end up costing similar to the expressway. Though Northern Auckland would also gain a new rapid transit line so that would be a huge huge bonus.
The main problem with this would be that we really want some sort of metro system to serve the shore to city.
Something that is usable by freight trains will have limits on gradient etc that wouldn’t be seen with a passenger dedicated system. IF there are long tunnels (ie under the Harbour) you would also probably need electrified freight trains.
It will be also difficult to plug into the existing system, especially in a way yo keep capacity.
It’d cost the same but do far more than this project, imo.
As much as I’d like a HSR passenger rail service to Northland (and elsewhere in the country), that line would also be used for freight. And that in itself would boost the economy *and* reduce travel times on SH1 more than this project ever would, since it’d remove a good amount of trucks from the road.
Of course, that’d mean we’d be spending more than 1% of the transport budget on something that isn’t a road. We can’t have that.
SimonL freight trains will use the existing NAL through Helensville. The new line between Britomart and Wellsford would carry AT metro services to Albany or Orewa, and a regional service stopping at Orewa, Warkworth, Wellsford, then onwards to Whangarei (and beyond? a train to Opua would be good in summer).
It’s reopening later this month 4 trains per day (2 in each direction)
What is the proposed time line on this mega road because there’s absolutely zero chance of us getting 8 to 12 years of Simeon Brown as Transport Minister and at some point during the next decade basic transport evidence will catch up with the National Party and Winston Peters and NZF will be long gone pushing mega projects to Northland.
He will see this through as PM, then 🙂
*shudder*
The speed limits consultation results the Minister is stating worryingly seems to support his agenda. I would’ve thought there would be significant push back against it but doesn’t seem to be the case? This may suggest it will take longer and more evidence (I.e. more deaths) before the pendulum switches back
There has been massive pushback, locally. I think the count of local councils would be up to about 10, certainly the majority of ratepayers in the country say they don’t want a carte blanche approach. Which is, ironically, what he said Labour did. So for those saying he has given the people what they want, he actually campaigned on one thing but is now delivering another. Same with this road.
The consultation results haven’t been released yet, so we don’t know for sure – although reportedly there are thousands of submissions, versus the couple of hundred for the existing and largely uncontroversial speed-sitting rule introduced by the previous government.
Will be interesting to see the breakdown of location, age, etc of those who spoke up.
Would also be quite interesting to know how many submissions arrived before and after the Minister used his mailing list to ask people to submit.
We really need to demand a thorough analysis of the feedback on the Speed Limits Rule. Simeon hyped up a request for support from the uninformed public (Note: lack of safety and economic impacts in the consultation left everyone uninformed – some of us just already know better).
What is needed for tis superhighway is a journey time analysis for trucks – never mind the Maserati club.
Sorry, the majority want quicker journey times. Simeon said in an interview recently about 65% supported reversing speeds! Even when GA and the Greens wanted people to mass submit against it, slow speeds are so unpopular they can’t get over the line without force. Sorry but the public is back to being listened to so just suck it up higher speeds are coming and the speed bumps are falling.
I’m surprised that the government is not caring about benefit to cost ratios. The benefits and costs of any project include all environment, travel times, emissions, health considerations etc.
Surely the business people must be concerned as they will be paying for poor investment decisions.
For NZ to compete in the world we need to make every dollar count. Our Tech sector is about to become our biggest export earner. They employ many highly skilled people and for them to compete against highly subsidised Australian (and other countries) Tech companies any increases in taxes to pay for poor decisions wont help them.
This government has absolutely zero concern about BCR’s. They have approved, or have they, $100 million so that a few Marlborough Sounds residents can travel on better roads. But unfortunately it won’t stop there. The local councils want to future proof (whatever this means, but it sounds vital, important and necessary) these roads, and why wouldn’t they if someone else is paying. One fundamental question is whether it is possible to future proof them, given that the current issues were caused over two successive years. Is anyone prepared to give an assurance that climate change related storm events are dissipating anytime soon? Next time any government representative says that they are getting great economic returns from road investment I say bullshit.
Cost-benefit only matters when it’s things like transit, walking, and cycling. When it’s cars you can spend $Texas and it’s all good, because war on the car or other such culture war nonsense.
This will be an expressway or nothing. This is needed for the north it’ll significantly reduce the travel time compared to the existing route. Look wider shoulders and all the rest of it are great but simply not possible in many parts along the existing route. Look at dome valley still parts without median barriers as it’s not possible. They are going to push regardless of cost because that’s what voters want and this will help win elections. Remember what happened when the last govt cancelled a road up north they got badly beaten in the election. I understand it’s frustrating you’re not getting your way but maybe instead of attacking the minister for simply giving the public what they asked for try and convince the public to ask for something else.
Well hopefully it is nothing then because an expressway will be a huge waste of money if it is 10% like the article says.
People in the comments here keep saying “this is what the public wanted” for a bunch of things. But I cannot think that is true. And certainly it cuts both ways, who actually wanted the recent gun changes, or tobacco corruption? Yet when a ridiculously expensive motorway gets floated suddenly it is “the will of the people” and anyone who says otherwise is a woke, leftie car hater.
So how many voted for a new motorway north though? I mean we can see there’s actually not many vehicle journeys, and surely most people south of the Bombays (to use an old phrase) couldn’t give a hoot about a gold plated northern motorway.
A real leader would explain the issue with good data and not just use the cop out of it is what’s people want. I am sure if the question was asked with different options clearly and honestly laid out people would understand. As the Rolling Stones said. “you can’t always get want you want as long as you get what you need”.
Auckland Trains/Quickly/Technology/Hope Campbelltown.
No one outside of Northland voted for this road (if they did at all). And certainly the rest of the country weren’t told it would be 10% of the total infrastructure budget.
Labour got voted in on LR in Auckland in 2020 but once it became a tunnelled monstrosity, it quite rightly got canned. So should this. Only an ideologue can look past those costs.
Sorry, who out of the 5 million New Zealanders have asked for a 4 lane express way from Auckland to Whangerei? Get that you are keen, but don’t think because someone won an election it means the majority would rather a highway to a small regional centre over you know, hospitals and schools.
I missed the voting papers………no thanks, I don’t think it is at all necessary. Passing lanes, safety improvements – yes.
“This is needed for the north it’ll significantly reduce the travel time compared to the existing route.”
At that price we can subsidise flights to and from Northland for everyone for decades and still end it up being cheaper – and probably even still better for the climate.
This kind of comment a) overestimates how much a few minutes (or even half an hour) really does for the economy AND b) what the opportunity cost is of having no money left for other things and more crucial safety and transport improvements.
It’s like spending all your money on replacing your somewhat worn wheels of your car with the best and most expensive ones on the market, while your transmission is smoking and the brakes are shot. But hey, fancy mag wheels, and I can cite a study that shows that the new wheels will be so much better than the worn old ones. Selective truth.
I want a gold-plated Ferrari and a free cottage in Coromandel, doesn’t mean it makes sense for the government to pay for it.
What they are proposing is a “build it and they will come” project. So why not do it with a rail project or two?
Rail is woke.
We should all do what the Japanese people did when their government embarked on wanton spending on roads and bridges. We should reduce our consumption and increase our personal savings because one day we will be asked to pay for all of this wastefulness. The problem is that causes an economic contraction. But it is still a better outcome in the long run.
Ideally we would throw out governments who try to spend our money on shit they think makes them popular rather than on things that actually have a return.
Ideally we would throw out capitalism and stop letting imaginary numbers we chose to invent dictate our wellbeing
Having family up that way moaning at me all the time .When pressed its about the brenderwyns and the bottle neck at wellsford .A well engineered road bypassing those two problem areas and raised enough to prevent flooding along the waipu area would be great .It does not need to be 4 lanes however the current traffic volume is not enough .The money saved could be used to build a super two lane road from Napier to Gisbourne which also deserves better roading to move people and produce as the rail is shot and this lot will do nothing to fix it as they will not allow the northern line to reopen .I would have thought Winston would be jumping up and down as it was he who pushed the last government to invest in that line so containers could all go by rail .
That proposed interchange at Walkworth looks horrendous. I imagine similar interchanges wrecked small towns overseas.
*Warkworth
We need this road. Many people are coming to live up here in Northland. I live in Mangawhai and there are more and more people living here now and commute to Auckland or just stay and work up here. I have to travel every week on a week down to Warkworth and the dome is horrible to drive on. I now also travel once a fortnight through the Bryndrewns. Not nice at all. I’m quite worried if there’s a rain event that all the dirt and trees will rain down on the van I’m in. Seriously not funny. WE NEED THE HIGHWAY!!
Please stop saying WE. The People in Christchurch, our 2nd biggest city with no rapid transit do not need your road. The people of Auckland stuck in grid lock do not need your road.
You speak with such entitlement, and that even with this article talking about 10% of our overall infra budget you are still bringing everything back to what YOU can get out of it.
That’s because “we” actually means “me” in this context.
The funding system is broken when the communal infrastructure pot ends up getting spent on just one corner of the country.
Good reasons not to move to Mangawhai. Thanks for warning everyone.
Mangawhai used to be nice. Ruined now. I avoid it when I can. Good skatepark though.
Thanks for that – I helped build it
Unfortunately Simeon Brown comes across as a “petrol head” / “boy racer’. I suspect that a tiny fraction of the billions proposed, for the four lane highway, would go a long way towards fixing the North Auckland railway and including a link to Marsden Point and getting some freight off the roads.
Will you pay $50 for a one-way trip?
The headline picture shows how with recent roads we have crossed a threshold of road construction which it will be difficult to retreat from. The new roads, starting with Transmission Gully and then Puhoi-to-Warkworth are an order of magnitude more “engineered” than anything built previously in New Zealand. They will create an expectation that all roads should be like that.
The cuttings on Te Ahu a Turanga (the Manawatū Gorge replacement road, under construction) are even deeper than those at Warkworth, and there is also a vast motorway bridge over the Manawatū River, dumping you out at the existing 2-lane bridge (taking you back to the side you started on). This road is expected to get about 10k vehicles a day.
Simeon has already stuck his head into the same cloud that Labour’s Auckland Light Rail and North Shore Underground Railway brewed up.
Keep walking like that and you’ll fall into the economic pit – just don’t drag the rest of us into it.
If a project can show 1% of added national wealth generation, maybe it’s reasonable to put 1% of available capital investment into it. 10%? Come back to the real world, please.
Let’s get the route designations finalised, hopefully wide enough for 3 lanes in both directions, and then decide what gets built in the first round. I agree with the sentiment that 2 +1 seems more appropriate in the first instance, or even, maybe, a new single dual carriageway northbound and keep existing road for southbound. The new road could be designed to be used as two way when existing road is closed due to slips.
Interesting debate. As somone who regularly drives between Akl-Whang this would certainly make the trip much better. I can see it’s going to cost a lot of money though I still think we need the motorway to at least get to just north of the Brynderwyns then the old road can probably be ok although it’s still annoying as the traffic rubberbands between 80-110 along the Waipu straights. I would think a $5 toll for Warkworth to Te hana is a good place to start then we can discuss if the next section is possible or not. Since this will be an intergenerational project I don’t see an issue with spreading the cost over decades.
I mean of course it would make the trip better. So would buying a Rolls Royce Spectre EV at close to $1m.
So we have what looks like ca. 10,000-15,000 trips in that Warkworth to Whangarei area. A tiny amount. Close to 200,000 go over the Harbour Bridge and presumably similar numbers through Auckland’s central roading network.
So let’s say 10x the number of this road, then lets spend 10x this road on public transport in Auckland. Surely that’s where the productivity gains would be rather than shaving a few mins off a trip up north, or so that Lynn Rhodin has a pleasant journey.
And it would actually help the petrol heads because all of these cars would be off the road!
Huh. What has public transport in AKL got to do with making a safer and more resilient route north. Forget about the PT funding for a second and focus on why this is being proposed. It’s hard to name a worse drive than Warkworth to Whangārei the road is so dangerous and slow. Building this road will ensure a more reliable and faster trip north and make it much more comfortable to ride in a bus on the way up north as well. “A few mins” it’ll be much much more than a few mins come on you know that. It’s actually quite a significant amount of time if they build to the 120 standard from Warkworth to Whangārei. It could save over 30 mins for many trips that’s huge!
“Huh. What has public transport in AKL got to do with making a safer and more resilient route north.”
Opportunity cost. Also Auckland will be paying for it, northland sure won’t
Yes and with more than 15,000 bicycle trips going past the Auckland Cycle counters each day imagine what that number would be with a joined up network including taking a lane from the Harbour Bridge!
I do not understand that you do not seem to want a safer and faster connection up north that meets first world road standards.
Do you know how many people go to physio because of the rediculouse road quality, convoluted windy roads and climbing brenderwyns that should have been a bypass or tunnel 30 years ago.
WHAT TOLL???
toll is passing away money.
Just look at the highest economical value for the economy and build the bloody road.
I am happy to double road tax and have proper safe highways.
I hate giving 30% of my road tax like toll to companies that fill their pockets.
One of the few things the goverment should do ….. they don’t.
Do you have any numbers how many people need physiotherapy because of the state of SH1 between Warkworth and Whangarei? Can it be ruled out that other rural roads and highways contribute the majority to whatever conditions need to be treated by physiotherapy? What is the effect on public health of having an inadequate bicycle network in most of the country?
What if the ‘highest economical value for the economy’ is not building the road?
I thought Donald Trumps comments about immigrants eating dogs was the silliest quote of the day but that physio comment ‘trumps’ it, excuse the pun.
“The 26km Warkworth to Wellsford section was estimated at around $2 billion back in 2020 many projects have ballooned in cost since then and before the last election Labour said the cost had increased to closer to $4 billion”
What’s your source?
This suggests total cost of $1bn.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/498176/millions-in-new-costs-add-to-puhoi-to-warkworth-motorway-overrun
Puhoi to Warkworth is the project that’s finished and open.
Warkworth to Wellsford is the dome valley bypass, or ‘next stage’ of the motorway heading north. This section only has estimates at the moment, and last time that was done, it was estimated at $2b
Anyone who thinks this is going to be built is deceiving themselves. NZ does not, and will never have, the money to make this work. This project will go the same way as other recent over-sized mega-projects that never left the planning stages, taking the career of any politician closely associated with it.
We seem to aspire to build highways like Norway is doing but with a minuscule portion of the income that they receive from oil.
I’m a committed proponent and user of rail and I instinctively disagree with anything Simeon Brown says, however, I am struggling to disagree too much with the plan. It seems to be engineered a bit much but if it turns out to be something like the expressway to Hamilton I am onboard. Ideally we should toll both the new road as well as the Hamilton expressway. I see no reason why that should be free for the people of the waikato but northlanders have to pay for their one. I do find it a bit galling that every public transport initiative has to prove its worth from day one but roads can be build it and they will come
We should toll all motorways
I hope it’s over engineered to a 120kmh standard. May as well right let’s do this properly make it last for generations and make the barriers and gradient the very safest it can be. Suppose we could just raise the RUCs instead of tolls yes that’s an option then we wouldn’t have to worry about leaving a “free” route for others and the bonus of everyone travelling on the safest route possible. Not every public transport initiate has to prove its worth. Plenty of projects get done and the people come later. Eastern busway is a classic example it’s built based on the fact they are predicting 20,000 riders daily. I also enjoy rail travel myself and you’re right it’s hard to disagree with this road. Rail will never work for the north better to invest that rail into south of AKL. Let’s get Northland a decent road!
Northland’s economy would benefit more from a university in Whangarei than a bigger highway there. It’s not last century.
Total rubbish. This highway is key to unlocking northlands potential over half an hour saved per trip is huge! It’s going to be built you can moan about the cost all you want but you’ll be paying for it so may as well at least see the benefits. Try driving the existing route more and you’ll see why this is needed. It will save lives! It will reduce travel time! It will improve productivity! A university wouldn’t be able to do that sorry. You’re right it’s not last century that’s why we need a big new road! The current route is a last century design.
“Not every public transport initiate has to prove its worth.”
Actually, they all do. That’s the hypocrisy.
‘You’ll be paying for it so you may as well see the benefits’
Are you suggesting I waste 2 hours of my life driving to Whangerei for absolutely no reason other than I’m paying for it? That’s like me rocking up to ED with nothing wrong because I pay taxes..
Also, I hate to break it to you, but it aint getting built, at least not a 4 lane all the way job.
Joe this comment explains a lot. You’ve never driven the route which makes sense as to why you’re against this apart from the fact your obviously anti car. Maybe actually take the time to understand why this is needed and have a change of heart for the wonderful north! It’s not a waste of time have a look at the wonderful attractions and people the north has to offer. Whangārei is home to the Hundertwasser Art Centre with the wonderful Māori art gallery. Just for a second realise that the entire region north of Auckland is held back by lack of a decent road. The current road is dangerous are you willing to sacrifice lives just because you’re ideologically opposed to new roads? Please I invite you to take the careful time to see why the north deserves this and how it can really unlock growth and maybe discover some new culture along the way. Once you’ve driven or even been a passenger along the route you’ll realise just how last century it would be to leave the current road as the only way north. It will be built Joe it may not be done on time but it will get done eventually. This is a politically popular road now cancelling it would be a very bad move.
I stopped at “anti car”.
I’ve driven it many times, I just wouldn’t pay $50 a time which is what the toll should be if this was given the same set of rules as public transport.
What economic magic would have it unlocked if i’d gotten there 20 mins quicker?
It’s got about as much chance of being built as the previous government’s light rail plan, for the same reason too – the cost.
They’ve fallen into the same trap as the previous government, go for the big project that is completely unaffordable.
If you’re lucky it might be completed to Te Hana in 15 years (not even in Northland) but even then I think they’re going to hit a serious hurdle with their fiscal responsibility claims clashing with likely ballooning costs.
It’s worth noting that the Key/English administration pulled the pin on this section 10 years ago based on a $1.5 billion cost.
We haven’t even got the rail line put in to Northport yet.
The plan is to make it a PPP isn’t it so I presume the toll will be massive so then they won’t end up building it.
The difference in attitudes from the right wing between a $15+ billion dollar mass transit project and a $15+ billion expressway is very telling. Goes to prove the right doesn’t care about fiscal responsibility in the slightest, only in pandering to the ‘haves’ who are deemed the “worthiest” in the culture war.