35-year payment scheme to ease traffic congestion

Tauranga motorists face up to 35 years of tolls if a controversial plan to relieve chronic traffic congestion on the harbour bridge forges ahead.

The city council and Transit New Zealand have confirmed they intend splitting the cost of the $210 million Harbour Link expressway equally between tolls and state funding.

This comes three years after the council bowed to community pressure and axed tolls on the existing bridge. Use has since rocketed to levels not expected until 2015.

If the package survives public scrutiny and is approved by Transport Minister Paul Swain, tolls will be introduced early in 2009.

Transit says new toll-friendly transport laws allows higher tolls to be charged during peak traffic periods, encouraging motorists to catch buses or carpool.

The package goes out for public consultation without spelling out how much tolls will be - just that they could be up to $2 during peak periods and as low as $1 at other times of the day.

The cost of Harbour Link continues to rise - from $140 million two years ago to $190 million last year and now the latest $20 million rise, which has been attributed to inflation and the cost of tolling infrastructure.

Mayor Stuart Crosby said the critical issue for consultation was not the level of the toll but whether the package was accepted as a mechanism to bring forward the construction of Harbour Link.

Transit regional manager Chris Allen said there was still a lot of work to be done on the funding plan. All he could say was that it could be between $1 and $2. Heavy trucks will be charged twice as much as light vehicles.

Planners expect the funding plan to be concluded by March. Public submissions close on February 18.

Under the plan, electronic toll gantries will straddle the old toll plaza and the fly-over's Mirrielees Rd off-ramp will pick up signals from small windscreen-mounted transponders. Registration plates of vehicles not carrying transponders will be videoed and motorists billed.

The prospect of tolls lasting 35 years has angered Tolls Action Group.

Chairman Ross Linney said Harbour Link could be repaid in seven to nine years, not 35.

Papers released at the weekend show that even if the entire Harbour Link project was designated a state highway, it would still not be included in construction plans to start within 10 years. It will not be built as a private project.

- NZPA