Don’t drive north tomorrow
Tomorrow, December 27th, is the one day of the year we actually could do with the Puhoi-Wellsford holiday highway. Here’s what happened last year:
Bumper-to-bumper traffic stretched almost the length of the 7.5km toll road between Orewa and Puhoi for three hours from late yesterday morning.…
21 Comments Transport in the next three years
With special votes seeming likely to result in the Green Party getting one more MP, at the cost of National, and the chances of Auckland Central and/or Waitakere swinging from National to Labour being relatively (but not impossibly) slim, we have a fairly good idea about the shape of the future government.…
Comparing the City Rail Link with Puhoi-Wellsford
Interest in comparing the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” with the City Rail Link has, unsurprisingly, risen in the past few weeks with Labour and now the Greens both promising to scrap the Puhoi-Wellsford road to help pay for the rail project. The debate is obviously causing a bit of consternation with the government, as David Farrar’s Kiwiblog has weighed into the debate with an interestingly well researched post on comparing the two projects:
Labour and the Greens refer to the the proposed Puhoi to Wellsford SH1 upgrade as the Holiday Highway.…
Notes on the CBT transport meeting
Last night the Campaign for Better Transport ran a meeting of transport spokespeople from five different parties, asking them two key questions: How they think the government’s $3 billion a year contribution to transport should generally be split across the different modes.…
Looking closer at “Operation Lifesaver”
Labour’s announcement on the weekend that they would provide $1.2 billion to help construct the City Rail Link was credible because they have a source for the funding: redirecting the money from the Puhoi-Wellsford project which is often termed the “holiday highway”.…
What is the holiday highway’s BCR?
There was an interesting exchange in parliament yesterday about the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” – and in particular focusing on the issue of whether the Minister was confident the project still represents good value for money. Here’s the video: Here’s the full discussion.…
Does Auckland Council support the holiday highway?
It has been difficult to figure out what Auckland Council thinks of the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” project. Obviously the council’s Transport Chair Mike Lee is not a fan, as he was the one who coined the “holiday highway” name in the first place.…
Labour finally ask some tough transport questions
I have (rightfully I think) hassled Labour for not paying enough attention to transport in recent times, letting Steven Joyce get away with a lot of the poor transport decisions that he’s making. So it was good to see them put together a few challenging questions today: (Zip past the first minute or so, which is just silly stuff).…
The real reason for the holiday highway?
Reading through the two Herald articles last week that related to the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” really got me wondering why the government is so utterly determined to ram through this road. It’s very unpopular, with only 24.8% of Aucklanders and 19.2% of non-Aucklanders supporting the project, plus the Warkworth to Wellsford section of the road appears to have exceedingly difficult geotechnical issues to resolve.…
Huge problems for the holiday highway
There was an interesting article on the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway” in the NZ Herald today – which notes the enormous difficulties NZTA is facing in finding a route that is feasible for the Warkworth-Wellsford section through Dome Valley.
Unstable ground around Dome Valley north of Auckland threatens to rip the wheels off the Government’s “road of national significance” from Puhoi to Wellsford.…
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