Source from: https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/08/07/auckland-harbour-tunnels-road-tolls-on-the-table-minister/
Transport Minister David Parker says tolls and other financing tools could pay for Auckland’s new harbour crossing but that “cross-government” support was ultimately needed to deliver the $35-$45 billion plan.
He added that the Government was planning on further transport announcements in the “next few weeks” including “pushing forward” with a “separated” Northwestern Busway.
The Transport Minister described the project along State Highway 16 motorway in the west of the city as the “most important traffic project now facing Auckland”.
It comes after Parker and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced a harbour crossing mega-plan with indicative overall costings between $35-45 billion yesterday.
New public transport, cycle, and road lanes would be provided as part of the plan.
The overall indicative costing would also include floodproofing parts of State Highway 1 just after the existing bridge and a 21km train tunnel between the CBD and Albany.
Parker said today that there needed to be cross-party support on another crossing.
“No single government can [deliver on this plan]. Successive governments need to.
“Whether it’s Waterview Tunnel or Transmission Gully, those large projects take a lot of time to plan and deliver. You effectively do have to reach some sort of a cross-government agreement that these things will be delivered through time,” he said.
But hopes of bipartisan support for the mega-plan vanished within hours of yesterday’s announcement with a shower of criticism from both National and the Greens.
The opposition party’s Simeon Brown said the plans were unfunded, a “fantasy”, and pointed to the Government’s struggle to deliver its light rail project.
His party has committed to beginning construction on an additional road crossing by the end of the decade if it’s elected into government.
Meanwhile, the Greens’ Julie Anne Genter said the plan was too expensive, emissions-intensive and wouldn’t fix traffic congestion. She said public transport and cycling links should be prioritised over more car lanes.
In response to cost blowout concerns, the minister said today that he thought the numbers provided by officials had “fat in the system rather than being too skinny”.
“We obviously need to drill down into those numbers, but they look to me like there’s fat in the system rather than them being too skinny,” Parker said.
He said “all options” were being left on the table in order to pay for the project, including tolls and a potential value capture tax on properties that would gain much better transport access as a result of the planned tunnels.
“For example, if a piece of land around a new transport connection is going to increase hugely in value overseas — what sometimes happens is that the government acquires that land and resells it later, or imposes a rate, which shares the value uplift with the owner of that property,” Parker said.
“We’re going to drill down into the costings, and we’re going to see how it can be phased because no government could afford to do that all at once.”
Northwestern Busway announcement to come – minister
The Transport Minister said the Government would make an announcement on additional bus priority measures on the Northwestern Motorway in the next few weeks.
“Even before this is delivered (harbour crossing plan), I think the most important traffic project now facing Auckland is actually getting some public transport down State Highway 16 — the northwestern route,” Parker said.
“You’ll see announcements in the next few weeks of the Government pushing forward with a decent, separated Northwestern Busway, modelled on the Northern Busway.”
In the northwest, an “interim” bus improvements programme is set to go live in November with additional bus lanes alongside two bus interchanges at Te Atatū and Lincoln Rd.
Previous NZTA business cases have proposed a more permanent solution with more priority for buses and additional stations being built alongside SH16.
National has promised to build rapid transit in northwest Auckland using either buses or trains, using a public-private partnership.
Govt, cycling advocates disagree on tunnels mega-plan
Speaking to Breakfast, Bike Auckland chairperson Karen Hormann said the Government was moving too slowly on creating a new path for pedestrians and bicycles.
Under the plan, a walking and cycling connection will be provided by reallocating a lane on the existing Harbour Bridge, but only after at least one road tunnel has opened.
Hormann said: “We think that the timeline is a long way off, you know, decades. We want to be able to cross using active modes, and we want to be able to do that now.”
The advocate said an alternative proposal the group had put together would see a lane re-allocated immediately. Hormann suggested their own analysis showed there was enough capacity on the existing Harbour Bridge to take a lane away from cars.
“The cost will be around $30 million, which compared with a lot of infrastructure projects seems quite affordable these days, which is still a crazy number,” she said.
The money would be spent on ensuring the lane would be safe for people travelling right next to fast-moving motorway traffic, according to the group.
Speaking shortly after, Parker said officials had advised the Government that “we can’t afford to give up a lane” due to traffic concerns.
Parker said: “The advice I hear from Waka Kotahi is that we’re already pressed with congestion across the bridge at peak times, and we can’t afford to give up a lane at this stage for that.”
