Throwback Thursday: A History of Harbour Crossing Options
With new plans (or, at least, plans to get a plan) for the Waitematā Harbour crossing in the news, here’s a timely throwback. This post by Matt Lowrie was originally published on 5 June 2019. The more things change, the more they remain the same!…
37 Comments Moving beyond the Meola distraction
Last week’s announcement that the Government plans to punt a decision on the next Waitematā Harbour Crossing out beyond the election included an offer – or a barbed hook, depending on your point of view – to Mayor Wayne Brown.
The Mayor remains inexplicably fixated on the notion of building a road bridge from Meola Reef to the North Shore.…
At a crossroads: How a new Auckland Council will traverse transport policy
Connor stood on the City Vision ticket in the latest local elections, in a personal capacity.
This ran in The Post on October 21 2025. Despite the lowest ever local election turnout, this was perhaps Auckland’s most consequential election so far.…
The secrecy of mega-projects
How is it that mega-projects costing billions get such little public involvement and scrutiny? That’s a question that Mayor Wayne Brown effectively hits on in an interview a few days ago with the Herald where he spoke on plans for an additional harbour crossing.…
Flashback Saturday: Will the proposed Waitemata Harbour Crossing be good for drivers?
This post was first published by Patrick in January 2016.
There are many reasons to be concerned about the plan to add more road lanes across Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour: from the extreme cost of building such big tunnels and interchanges [$5-$6 billion and four times as much as just building rail tunnels], to the undesirable flooding of city streets and North Shore local roads with even more cars, to the increase in air pollution and carbon emission this will create, the loss of valuable city land to expanded on and off ramps and parking structures, to the impact on the harbour of exhaust stacks and a supersized motorway on the Shore, to the pressure this will put on the rest of the motorway system particularly through the narrow throat of Spaghetti Junction.…
Rethinking the Additional Waitemata Harbour Crossing project
With a new Government, we are able to have a rethink of some of the Transport priorities for Auckland. One of these is the Additional Waitemata Harbour Crossing project.
This project has gone very quiet as of late, since the Auckland Transport Alignment Project clearly demonstrated it was nowhere near the high priority that NZTA had previously suggested, deferring it by around 20 years well into the third decade.…
North Shore Rapid Transit Network Strategic Case
Back in October last year in the AT Closed Board Meeting a item called the Northern RTN Strategic Case was mentioned, its reason for being closed “to protect information that will soon be publicly available”. Me being ever so patient, I waited for the report to be released over the coming months, once this didn’t happen I decided the LGOIMA it.…
Goff’s Busway Tunnel
Yesterday Stuff published what is frankly an odd opinion from Mayor Phil Goff regarding public transport and a future harbour crossing.
Auckland Mayor Phil Goff would prefer the city’s second harbour crossing to be built with a busway instead of a rail line.…
Rail to the Shore Meeting Tonight
In case you missed it, the North Shore Rail campaign is holding a meeting tonight to draw out support from the public and Auckland Council candidates.
As the media release says, the campaign is really pushing for North Shore residents to turn up and demonstrate their support for a high capacity electric rail connection across the Waitemata, otherwise it might not happen at all. …
Additional Harbour Crossing – Is NZTA Following The Law?
Back in May in this post, Matt highlighted the NZTA’s strategy of designating only for road tunnels across the Waitemata Harbour, leaving any rail designation up to Auckland Transport. The NZTA have a total budget of $27m for the designation work, $14m million of which is an additional appropriation, approved under the delegated authority of the Chief Executive, to cover enlarged works at Esmonde Road and Victoria Park. …
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