$290m busway promises to be just the ticket

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Bulldozers will break ground on the North Shore in January for the 8.5km Northern Busway, which will cost $290 million. It is motorway-builder Transit NZ's first big public transport project.

Fletcher Construction won an $82 million contract yesterday for the first 2.9km leg of the predominantly two-lane buses-only highway, running parallel to the Northern Motorway from Northcote Rd to just north of the Onewa interchange.

Transit also hopes to negotiate a second contract with Fletcher by April for the next 4.5km stretch, north to Constellation Drive, and for construction to start on bus stations at Sunnynook and Westlake.

Busway project director Clive Fuhr said tenders were received from three firms, all of which agreed from the outset to the two-phase award process.

The final length, south to the Harbour Bridge, would also be built by 2008 as a single southbound lane, as would a link from busy Onewa Rd to the busway.

National electricity grid operator Transpower will contribute about $24 million for a trench along the busway to run a duct for a future underground high-voltage power line to Albany.

There is no shortage of impending road-building work in gridlocked Auckland, and it is understood winning the busway project prompted Fletcher to withdraw from tenders for a 4km Mt Roskill extension of the Southwestern Motorway, for a budgeted $167.4 million.

It will start building the busway after next month's completion of the $55 million first stage of a $195 million upgrade to Auckland's central motorway junction.

Tenders close in March for the main part of the Mt Roskill motorway extension, although construction will not start until October, apart from enabling works such as an overbridge at May Rd.

A $174 million link through Manukau to the Southern Motorway will begin several months later.

Construction has meanwhile started on a $66 million link between the Southern Motorway and the site of a proposed $1 billion industrial park at East Tamaki - which promoters promise will be Australasia's largest.

Transit is also awaiting Government approval to build a 7km extension of the Northern Motorway to Puhoi as a toll road, a project expected to cost $320 million, which it hopes to begin this summer.

The initial busway contract will include part of a North Shore City Council project to widen Esmonde Rd, a key route between the motorway and Takapuna, as well as work on another of the project's five stations, to be called Akoranga.

That station will provide important access to the Auckland University of Technology's North Shore campus.

Although the bus track will run parallel with the eastern side of the motorway, a footbridge will link the station to the university.

Earthworks and motorway links are already substantially complete on the project's two northernmost stations, at Albany and Constellation Drive, although buses will have to vie with general traffic in that sector until a further addition to the busway becomes feasible.

Mr Fuhr said Transit was assessing the practicalities of reserving land for bus-priority measures all the way to Orewa.

The city council is meanwhile preparing to award contracts for buildings and big "park and ride" facilities at the Albany and Constellation Drive stations.

Transit chief executive Rick van Barneveld said this would encourage more people to leave their cars and take hassle-free bus rides to the Britomart centre in downtown Auckland.

Only limited carparking will be available at the three southern stations, as planners want to encourage the use of feeder buses to the main trunk.

The goal is to have buses whizzing down the busway at five-minute intervals, subject to operating subsidy decisions by the new Auckland Regional Transport Authority.

Transit chairman David Stubbs said the busway would be similar to a rail service, with a dedicated route and stations along the way.

A 15km busway that opened in Brisbane two years showed that commuters could get to work faster than by car.