The opportunity cost of expressway obsessions
A version of this piece appeared as an op-ed in The Sunday Star-Times on 2 August 2026, and in The Post online. It has been lightly updated to reflect events. (See also last Monday’s post: What will Warkworth to Te Hana cost us?…
62 Comments What will Warkworth to Te Hana cost us? And other burning questions
Last week, late on Thursday afternoon, Minister of Transport Chris Bishop announced that the government had signed the contract for a Public Private Partnership for Warkworth to Te Hana.
This answers our long-running question: are they seriously going to go ahead with this?…
RoNS Reality Finally Hits Home
In something of a Matariki miracle, the government has finally acknowledged that their mega-road programme isn’t feasible (as we’ve been pointing out for quite some time), and have scaled it back accordingly.
Transport Minister Chris Bishop has been hinting for some months that this was probably going to happen, with the Roads of National Significance (RoNS) programme alone expected to cost over $50 billion, but it’s good to finally have it confirmed as of last Thursday:
Transport Minister Chris Bishop is welcoming the publication of NZTA’s Major Transport Projects Pipeline, setting out the phasing for projects including the Roads of National Significance and major public transport projects.…
Urgent call to rescope Warkworth to Te Hana
On Monday Greater Auckland wrote to all political parties calling for a pause on signing a Public-Private Partnership for the Warkworth to Te Hana expressway, and urging the government to work with opposition parties to rescope and right-size the project following the recommendations outlined in the National Infrastructure Plan.…
The Road Toll of the RoNS
How many people have been killed or seriously injured because of a myopic focus on over-scoped highways?
This isn’t a rhetorical question.
The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) – the name of which is a political slogan – are a number of State Highway projects first proposed in 2009, by then National Party Minister of Transport Steven Joyce.…
Throwback Thursday: Holiday Highway Benefits Disputed (by Northland)
Over the last 15+ years, Greater Auckland (and formerly as Transport Blog) have been scrutinising the Roads of National Significance, and specifically the ‘Holiday Highway’ between Puhoi and Wellsford.
We’ve long been proponents of better, cheaper, and quicker-to-deliver solutions (than the proposed Road of National Significance mega-project), importantly for the safety issues on the stretch of State Highway 1 between Puhoi and Wellsford, but also across the wider Northland Region.…
The nation’s most expensive road (so far)?
If built, it will be the most expensive road ever constructed in New Zealand.
$3,500,000,000 to $4,000,000,000.
Over twice the cost per km as Transmission Gully.
And it is not a good project, by any measure.
And it’s currently being rushed towards construction, with a Public-Private Partnership contact set to be signed by July, locking in a generation of New Zealanders who’ll be paying the bill over the next few decades.…
Is reality setting in, re the Northland RONS?
There have been a couple of pieces this week about a few parts of the Northland Motorway that show reality is starting to bubble up – but will it reach the surface in time?
On Monday there was an op-ed in the Northern Advocate, from Whangārei Mayor Ken Couper.…
Tolling will not touch the sides of Warkworth to Te Hana
With a contract due to be awarded in the next few months and construction starting later this year, at the most recent estimate of $3.5 to $4 billion – though possibly higher now – the Warkworth to Te Hana motorway will be the single most expensive roading project NZ has ever built (so far).…
$22,000,000,000 on just one road?
Last year, I posted about the challenges I faced, trying to daylight public-interest information about the government’s Roads of National Significance programme. As I wrote then, entire documents – including even titles – were being withheld on what looked to me like flimsy grounds.…
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