Banks' bridge plan draws fire

By BERNARD ORSMAN

Auckland City Mayor John Banks is being accused of promoting a third harbour crossing to dump traffic that would otherwise clog city streets on to North Shore's motorways

Furthermore, say North Shore City councillor Joel Cayford and lobby group Stop the Eastern Motorway, Mr Banks wants North Shore motorists to pay for the city's traffic problem by bringing back tolls on the harbour bridge.

The mayor has reiterated his support for a third harbour crossing costing more than $1 billion at the city end of the proposed eastern highway and for tolls of about $2 for cars and $5 for trucks on the harbour bridge to help pay for it. Tolls were dropped in 1984.

Mr Banks has expressed concerns about traffic from the eastern highway when it reaches Tamaki Drive. The third harbour crossing would start from Mechanics Bay and connect with the Northern Motorway at Esmonde Rd.

That would give two circle roads around central Auckland - the eastern corridor and the western ring route via a new upper harbour motorway - to take congestion off the harbour bridge.

"I don't think we would pursue the eastern corridor if we didn't have in our medium and long-term strategy a third harbour crossing," Mr Banks said.

He has justified the North Shore link to the eastern corridor, by saying 40 per cent of morning traffic on the harbour bridge is heading to the south and east of Auckland.

But Stop the Eastern Motorway executive officer Richard Lewis said the 40 per cent figure was incorrect.

Data from the 2001 census showed that of the 33,519 trips across the harbour bridge, just 3435, or 10 per cent, went to southeast Auckland, he said.

Mr Cayford said Mr Banks did not understand that the planned North Shore busway put back the need for a third harbour crossing by 20 years or more, and that the number of people who lived and worked on the North Shore was rising. The figures had risen from 30 per cent 10 years ago to 66 per cent at the 2001 census.

"The real reason Mr Banks is arguing for a third harbour crossing is to justify the eastern corridor because it is going to deposit thousands of new cars into central Auckland," said Mr Cayford.

"To add insult to injury, he is suggesting tolls on the harbour bridge to pay for a bridge he wants to build."

Transit has rejected a third harbour crossing at Mechanics Bay. It favours a $1.5 billion crossing - either a bridge or a tunnel - near the existing harbour bridge. Construction would not start before 2011.

Stop the Eastern Motorway has released 1996 figures which show that Auckland is in the top half of 20 international cities for kilometres of motorway per person.

Auckland has 0.081km of motorway per capita - well behind Houston (0.206km), Melbourne (0.168km) and Los Angeles (0.097km) but ahead of Sydney (0.059) and Perth (0.043).

The figures were compiled by Dr Jeff Kenworthy, an associate professor at the Institute of Sustainability and Technology Policy at Murdoch University in Perth.

Dr Kenworthy said Auckland's round of motorway building was edging closer to Los Angeles.

Mr Banks said Auckland was a spread- out city and the isthmus carried 27 per cent of the country's traffic on 3 per cent of the motorway network.