Give Aucklanders a real say on our next harbour crossing

Why is the public not involved in the options for Auckland’s next harbour crossing? This is a critical issue for our city, so it shouldn’t be a state secret, let alone a single option imposed on us by fiat.

Getting this right is something we all have a stake in. The Mayor of Auckland is right to demand more say, and we should all be way more involved in developing an answer.

But for thirty-plus years – a whole generation – all of the discussion and decision-making on this vital question has happened behind closed doors.

This is in large part why nothing has yet worked. And it’s why nothing has happened, for all that time, money on consultants, and energy expended. Because it’s always the same people, with the same thinking, who inevitably decide to impose the same answer on Auckland.

(Spoiler alert: once again it’ll be a mega road tunnel project, likely only for traffic, with maybe some mutterings about possible future options for other modes, one day, after all the money is spent.)

The secrecy is counter-productive, as well as silly, given what everyone can plainly see:

• resilience requires a complement to the ageing Harbour Bridge sooner rather than later.
• for freedom of choice, efficiency and productivity, we urgently need those missing modes – dedicated rapid transit (bus now, rail later) and the ability to walk and bike as in any normal city.

We all know that whatever-it-is needs to be actually buildable, which also means affordable, especially in this economy, so should be clever and lean rather than super-sized and complex.

And we all hope it will be iconic: a structure that enhances our beautiful harbour city to look at, and gifts everyone an even greater experience of everything Auckland has to offer.

The exciting news is, there is a plan that fits the bill. Which we will run here tomorrow.

But first…

I want to shed light on what’s so wrong with the current process, by unpacking some key previous work that’s in the public domain.

What I want to make clear is, the next harbour crossing isn’t just a chance to add valuable resilience. It’s also a crucial opportunity to finally solve the glaring deficiency of every harbour crossing project to date, by prioritising the missing modes: Rapid and Active Transit.

Whatever is built next will be it for the foreseeable future. So building a limited single-mode crossing, again, would come at a crippling opportunity cost. Besides being a lost opportunity for generations to come, it would be an extremely expensive, disruptive and – let’s be frank – globally embarrassing mistake.

To avoid being once again frogmarched into that deep dark hole, we all need to be clear about the what and the why.

The Current State of Play

Luckily, I don’t have to run through the current state of play in detail, because the University of Auckland’s Tim Welch has done so very well in an extremely even-handed explainer video.

Prof Welch has also helpfully sketched out a handy timeline of official schemes for additional crossings, and of course there have also been plenty of non-official schemes along the way.

All of these schemes share the same flaw. They are what might be called product-led, i.e. solutions developed without a clear or holistic definition of the problem the are seeking to solve.

As in life, we should always be wary of being (repeatedly) handed a particular product, without properly asking what we need it for.

Step One: Define the Problem

The Mayor is absolutely right that the key question to ask is: what are we trying to solve here?

A good place to start is the 2020 Additional Waitematā Harbour Crossings strategic business case, a joint effort by Auckland Council (AC), Auckland Transport (AT) and Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency (Waka Kotahi/ NZTA).

The executive summary agrees that problem-definition is indeed, the best place to start:

Previous studies have largely focused on options analysis, rather than defining the problem to be solved or outlining a case for investment. [emphasis added]

The summary confirms that as well as establishing the problems and benefits of investing in the next crossing, it will take a “fully mode neutral approach in determining the preferred response.”

The strategic case made in this paper remains the current problem definition, and was jointly made with Auckland agencies. So far, so good.

One thing to note: at the time, planning was already under way for a dedicated walking and cycling crossing,* so the 2020 Strategic Business Case didn’t need to answer the active mode question.

(*As we all know, that proposal was sadly culture-warred to death. A poignant footnote here is that some of the budget intended to enable accessibility for Aucklanders eventually helped give Wellingtonians their equivalent missing link: the glorious and 100% central government-funded Te Ara Tupua.)

That point noted, here are the high-level findings of the 2020 Strategic Business Case:

In short, a commitment to:

1. Investigate demand management and land-use planning (including road pricing)
2. Urgently upgrade the Northern Busway (why hasn’t this already begun?)
3. Add true Rapid Transit across the Harbour, and lastly…
4. Address resilience of road connections

Why does the study list them in this order? For that, let’s refresh ourselves on the official analysis of what problem(s) the next harbour crossing needs to solve.

As defined, just over half (55%) of the problem is growing demand for travel (both evident and projected) combined with worsening travel choice reducing connectivity and access. In other words, the problem is the combination of a growing population and a current single-mode crossing.

The second biggest problem is concerns about resilience – on the grounds that the current bridge is “constrained and vulnerable” – are rated at 30%, or just under a third of the problem.

And inefficiency (basically congestion and delays) makes up the remaining 15% of the problem.

So, if moving people better is the bulk of the issue, the next question is: who and what are we trying to move, from where and to where?

The Strategic Business Case gives this description of North Shore population and land-use:

Note the two key areas of population growth: greenfields to the north of the Upper Harbour Bridge crossing, and suburbs clustered around Rapid Transit Nodes, i.e. the Northern Busway.

The greenfields growth to the northwest is already substantially served by the Western Ring Route and the Upper Harbour Crossing (ditto, inter-regional highway traffic looking to skirt the city).

So, with the city centre as a major magnet for employment and education, the key question is: how can we efficiently and effectively give more people better access between the mid and upper North Shore, and the central city?

To answer that question, it helps to know how people are getting from the Shore to the city centre already, and what the trends are. Take a look at this graph from the Strategic Business Case, showing arrivals into the city centre during the morning peak.

What stands out is that private cars are a shrinking subset of journeys to the city centre, and will continue to be so. Because space is permanently limited in the city centre – and it is already saturated with cars – growth can only come via other modes.

In other words, pretty much the last thing needed in a new harbour crossing is more traffic lanes. There is simply nowhere for more cars to go in the city centre. Nor the inner suburbs, including the North Shore inner ‘burbs. And the Central Motorway Junction is also already full, with little to no scope for widening.

So the solution to the question of better access for more people must focus on the missing modes.

Ideology is fatal to rational planning

Unfortunately, any impending government announcement of NZTA’s latest recommendation for a harbour crossing is already fatally flawed – because they’ve made it practically impossible to address the real issues as described in the strategic business case.

The problem is the handcuffs clamped on by the current Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS), a document that governs project planning and funding for now, and takes the opposite of a “mode neutral” approach.

The brainchild of former Minister of Transport Simeon Brown, the GPS is so deeply at odds with reality and distorted by ideology that NZTA will find it impossible to both give effect to Brown’s GPS and reflect the actual evidence and best practice.

Therefore, you can expect them to recommend advancing a truncated version of the last announced scheme: road tunnels, again – but this time, to meet the requirements of Brown’s GPS, with rapid transit and active modes unfunded. Those will be pushed off way into the future, to be delivered only on the old bridge, and only after the tortuous two-decade process of building massive new road tunnels and renewing the old bridge.

In other words, if we’re lucky, we may get a couple of dedicated bus lanes, and perhaps a shared path by the mid to late 2040s. Or the 2050s, if we’re not lucky.

This is not a satisfactory or sufficient approach for Auckland in the 21st Century. From the Mayor on down, Aucklanders will rightly be shocked and appalled, if and when such a narrowly focused and ruthlessly unsustainable plan is announced.

And we should laugh it out of town.

Because here’s the thing. Resilience is extremely important, something NZTA well knows. You may have spotted the sudden recent uptick in stories emphasising the risks of the sole existing structure.

But if the Harbour Bridge really does have such urgent structural issues such that an additional crossing is needed ASAP – then NZTA needs to hit the brakes on their over-sized, extremely expensive, and decades-to-build road tunnel planning juggernaut.

Instead, they must get on with progressing a sensible, nimble option that actually has a prayer of being funded and delivered as quickly and affordably as we need.

And whatever-it-is simply must address the lack of transport choice (going on seven decades!) at the same time as addressing the purportedly urgent resilience risk.

The answer can only be an efficient, effective and elegantly designed bridge, without massive road interchanges at either side.

We believe this is possible. And we’re looking forward to showing you an option that meets the brief.

The money question: how to afford resilience

Any new crossing will be very expensive. And bridges are generally less so than tunnels – as well as being quicker to build (as long as they’re not ridiculously overscoped).

Therefore, while we get ready to design and build the new thing, every effort should be made to manage travel demand efficiently on our existing routes.

This is best practice. It’s what the Infrastructure Commission calls for. And it’s demanded by NZTA’s own official intervention hierarchy. Before you build new infrastructure, you must first consider integrated planning, demand management, and optimal use of your existing system.

Happily, now that legislation allows it, the Mayor of Auckland is strongly pushing ahead with a road pricing scheme for Auckland, called “Time of Use Charging”.

Time of Use Charging, as the name suggests, would charge drivers a smallish fee to drive at peak times, in order to give them quicker journeys by incentivising anyone who can choose to delay or divert their driving journey to do so, thereby meaningfully reducing congestion for all.

Around the world, these schemes have typically lowered peak traffic by around 15-20%. That’s huge! Even half of that – the estimated initial impact for Auckland – would reduce delays significantly.

But for this to truly work, an essential part of the deal is that all income from the fee needs to go straight into optimising alternatives to driving.

In other words, every cent generated from time-of-use pricing must be poured into funding new and improved public transport operations, and new and improved infrastructure for public and active transport. A virtuous circle, which will expand the number of Aucklanders who can opt to avoid traffic.

But a problem will arise if this government – which is likely – opts for a massively expensive set of road tunnels, and then also commits to tolling the crossings with all income going to help fund construction and financing of whichever multi-billion dollar road-only scheme they come up with.

Tolling would conflict with any road-pricing scheme, diverting money away from complementary modes (again!), and towards building even more traffic lanes, thus trapping Aucklanders in congestion to infinity and beyond. A doom loop of despair.

So let’s not do that.

We know the problem, so let’s not keep announcing the same old solution

Auckland’s existing Waitematā Harbour crossings were built via three long-running and place-shaping (sprawl inducing) mega-projects:

• The original Harbour Bridge (1959)
• The doubling in width via clip-ons (1969)
• The Western Ring Route (1975-2022 many stages).

Which all have exactly the same characteristic – they are solely part of the road traffic system. They all provide for, and cause, more road traffic.

And since the original Harbour Bridge toll ended in 1984, the only demand-management tactic has been congestion and delay.

Unlocking full and genuine freedom of movement across the harbour is the key to an efficient, accessible and productive city that works better for everyone.

So why on earth would we even attempt to do that without using the whole city-mobility toolbox? We’d be that proverbial man with the hammer, seeing nothing but nails, and bullheadedly ignoring the nuts and bolts of rational 21st C city-building.

That’s madness, especially as we know what works. The dedicated Northern Busway (built in 2008, extended in 2022) has famously relieved the mono-modality of the bridge by enabling two highly successful partially-rapid bus services to help handle the huge and growing demand for city centre-North Shore travel.

Indeed, there is a compelling case that the Busway (and other bus services that cross the bridge) is the only reason traffic there moves at all during peak travel times. The impact is clear in this graph:

The NX North Shore express buses began service in 2006, and the Northern Busway itself opened in 2009. You can see the immediate impact on traffic across the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

And yet, these critical public transport services have zero priority on the current bridge. Buses are carrying up to 40% of peak travel demand, while fighting for space with general traffic (commuters in cars, and state highway through-travel) on the five peak-direction lanes.

Imagine how effective our rapid transit services (bus and/or train) would be, given their own dedicated and direct right of way? As proven by the Busway, a faster and higher capacity option is the most urgent task of any new crossing.

And if anyone still doubts the effectiveness of the only partially-rapid bus system across the harbour, check out the traffic counts at the previous eternally clogged Fanshawe St on and off-ramps. Spot the immediate impact of NX services from 2006-7, and the Busway from 2009 onwards. (And the change in working habits and travel habits from 2020).

Clearly, significant volumes of people have switched to the bus because it offers a competitive alternative to driving (in terms of speed, convenience, cost, and comfort). As well as easing commuter journeys, this frees up space on the state highway for drivers looking to head past the city centre.

These are the kinds of convergent benefits that accrue when we focus on access, not just on traffic. Whatever we feed grows. Want more traffic everywhere, on North Shore city streets, ruining the city centre and inner suburbs, gridlocking all the motorways? Then build yet another road crossing.

Want something different? Build something different.

In short (the TL;DR)

It truly defies reason that we would set out – yet again – to try and solve the issues of access, efficiency, and resilience in our primate city, caused by the mono-modality of the first three efforts…

…by embarking for a fourth time on yet another road-only mega-project.

We’d be that other proverbial idiot: the one expecting different outcomes from the same action.

The great news is, we don’t have to be – if the next investment across the harbour gets it right. And getting it right will need everyone’s voices in the conversation. So, get ready to shout about it.

Stand by for a proposal from a leading transport planner in tomorrow’s post!

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