KEY POINTS:
Twin motorway tunnels and a lofty "eco-viaduct" nearing completion north of Auckland for $65 million have been criticised by a ministerial advisory group as too costly.
The group, which the Government appointed a year ago before finding the money needed to close a national $900 million transport funding gap, said in a report issued yesterday that the extra cost imposed on the $360 million toll motorway extension to Puhoi appeared "not fully justified".
It criticised decisions of road-builder Transit NZ and its Government funder, Land Transport NZ, which will now come under State Services Commission scrutiny in a "next steps" review of the Government's transport agencies.
Even the question of whether the country could afford international roading standards was raised by the four-member advisory group, chaired by former Downer Construction head Clive Tilby and including former Auckland Regional Council chief executive Jo Brosnahan.
Transit and Land Transport both last night defended their decision-making but Transport Minister Annette King, who timed her release of the advisory group's report to coincide with her announcement of a fast-track review by the commission, said there was sometimes a tendency "to gold-plate what we do".
She would not rule out changes to the 2003 Land Transport Management Act, which requires Transit to give greater consideration than previously to the environmental and social impacts of new roads, although she promised the Weekend Herald that community interests would not be overridden.
The advisory group also questioned Transit's justification for a $320 million northbound tunnel and associated motorway developments between Victoria Park in central Auckland and the Harbour Bridge, rather than an earlier plan for a duplicate viaduct.
Although the commission's review will also include the Treasury's involvement in rail funding, Ms King announced it in the context of the Government drive to achieve value for money in road-building, and said she wanted it completed by April 30.
The commission has been charged with reviewing planning and funding mechanisms to achieve a financially sustainable system without causing "structural imbalance or bias between transport modes or communities of interest".
That follows a 30 to 40 per cent rise in costs nationally in five years, and even steeper increases in Auckland, where seven state roading projects are at various stages of construction and a $1.3 billion motorway link under investigation through Waterview is expected to be the most challenging task Transit has tackled.
The advisory group said it appeared the Puhoi project's twin tunnels were added to the toll road design in response to a risk that a local environmental group would challenge its compliance with legal requirements.
Land Transport chairwoman Jan Wright said she was "comfortable with the decisions we have made" and her Transit counterpart David Stubbs strongly denied that the environmental group's concerns were what prompted the design.
