Bus flyover horrifies Newmarket

Newmarket Station, where the bus flyover is proposed. Picture / Richard Robinson

Auckland transport officials are investigating "future-proofing" central Newmarket for a possible $95 million bus-priority flyover of its railway station.

But the prospect, which has resurfaced in station redevelopment investigations after Auckland City Council planners first raised it in 2003, has been greeted with dismay by the Newmarket Business Association and some local politicians.

Auckland Regional Council leader Mike Lee says it is the "dottiest" idea he has heard for some time and the chairman of the city's own transport and urban linkages committee, Richard Simpson, describes it as appalling.

"I think it's just such a monster - it would be the highway to hell," Mr Simpson said in response to advice that his organisation and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority were studying the viability of a flyover as an extension to a $32 million central transport corridor the city council intends developing next year between Britomart and Khyber Pass.

The regional council, which is the transport authority's parent body, has heard in a staff report that it would cost about $8 million to future-proof a transit route from Khyber Pass Rd to St Marks Rd by installing foundations for a flyover of Newmarket Station.

Mr Lee told his council's transport policy committee he feared such an exercise might delay next year's redevelopment of the station and its adjoining main railway junction, a project expected to cost regional ratepayers and Government agency Ontrack $40 million to $75 million.

"I would hate to see it being even more complicated by people now talking about running subsidised buses in competition with subsidised trains. That is unacceptable - we need Newmarket sorted out as a priority."

Newmarket Business Association general manager Cameron Brewer said his members were running out of patience and feared it would be a struggle to develop a new railway station and a more efficient junction in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

"Running noisy and polluting diesel buses on foundations above the rail precinct is completely inappropriate given the many neighbouring residents."

These included hundreds of residents of Broadway Park, across the railway line from central Newmarket, and future occupants of almost 400 apartments in an eight-storey block.

Mr Simpson said the "appalling" bus flyover proposal had been presented neither to his committee nor the Hobson Bay Community Board - if it had it would have been "killed straight away" - and he had asked council chief executive David Rankin to ensure that no more time was wasted on it.

A regional transport authority spokeswoman said it was investigating the idea at the council's request and a report was due next month from a joint study commissioned by both organisations.

She denied it would delay the redevelopment of Newmarket Station.


Transport Costs

Transport corridor from Britomart to Newmarket: $32 million.
Newmarket Station redevelopment: $40 million to $75 million.
Possible bus-priority flyover of station: $95 million.