Concerted drive to join up motorways

By GEOFF CUMMING

Completing the "missing links" in Auckland's motorway network would do more to end traffic snarls than public transport, says a pressure group of business leaders and commercial road users.

The Auckland Business Forum is driven by frustration over snail's-pace progress on the motorway network envisaged in the mid-1960s.

Calls to build more roads are unfashionable, as the Government veers towards buses and trains to ease the city's $1 billion-a-year congestion.

But the forum argues that cost-benefit analyses place the roading projects well ahead of public transport options in terms of immediate impact on traffic.

The high-powered pressure group was formed last year after the Auckland City Council shelved planning for the long-contemplated eastern highway, between the waterfront out through the eastern suburbs to Mt Wellington.

Forum spokesman Tony Garnier says the route offers an alternative to the Southern Motorway and would take heavy goods vehicles off residential streets.

The forum includes the Chamber of Commerce, the Northern Employers and Manufacturers Association, Ports of Auckland Ltd, the Automobile Association, National Road Carriers and the Northern Road Transport Association.

"Our membership accounts for 280,000 jobs around Auckland and represents a third of the nation's economy," says Mr Garnier.

"All our members are complaining about lost time and productivity costs because of traffic problems.

"In most modern cities, 90 per cent of trips are by cars and commercial vehicles and 10 per cent by public transport. Auckland's road network is deficient for a city of its geographic size and spread."

The worst bottleneck is the Southern Motorway, where "1.2 million commuters share one corridor."

The upshot is potential gridlock from any accident.

Forum chairman Barrie Lunny says the group supports public transport initiatives which reduce congestion and allow freight to flow more freely.

"We're not against public transport. But we don't believe its impact will be sufficient to overcome the problems of a roading network that has been neglected for 30 years.

"Evidence around the world is that public transport is not going to take enough cars off the road to allow freight to move freely."

The forum has identified nine "missing links" that it wants completed by 2010, at an estimated cost of $1.6 billion.

The programme looks appealing on a map - a ring motorway network providing alternative routes for through-traffic and reducing loads on the Southern Motorway and suburban roads.

"It's not a matter of more tarseal," says Mr Lunny. "It's a matter of putting tarseal where it is planned to go."

Transit New Zealand says congestion is so bad that the projects would easily qualify for Government funding under existing rules.

But, as always with Auckland transport issues, there are complications.

First, communities block the path of several projects, meaning they must run a gauntlet of consent hurdles.

And Auckland transport planners are not convinced that building more roads will ease congestion in the long term. Traffic will soon swell to take the available road space. They argue that better public transport offers motorists an alternative.

Western corridor Prime Minister Helen Clark's Mt Albert electorate is now the battleground for the debate. The forum is lobbying hard to complete the extension of the Southwestern Motorway from Hillsborough over to the Northwestern Motorway.

Connection of further missing links - from the Southwestern to the Southern Motorway at Wiri and from the Northwestern to the Northern Motorway along Upper Harbour Drive - would create a western motorway ring around the central city.

Mr Lunny says significant numbers of commercial vehicles making for Whangarei or Hamilton now have no choice but to pass through the central city.

The western bypass would considerably reduce the load on the Southern Motorway, while providing a direct route for traffic moving between the west and south.

Transit New Zealand agrees and has fast-tracked work on the Wiri connection and on planning for the Hillsborough-Northwestern connection.

But the Auckland Regional Council doubts that the bypass will bring major benefits. Transport planning manager Don Houghton says the route would be significantly longer and would have only a minor effect on cross-harbour congestion.

"If the route proves more attractive than expected, there would be little spare capacity on the bypass route to absorb that extra traffic."

However, Mr Houghton agrees that the bypass would be extremely valuable during major disruptions on State Highway 1.

Residents from Hillsborough and through Mt Albert are also not convinced that the western bypass will bring its touted "benefits for the greater good of Auckland."

Megan Stunzner, of local action group Greenbelt, says possible routes would cut a swath through established parks and reserves as well as housing. She says the area has 11 per cent of Auckland's population but only 2 per cent of its green space.

A network of reserves and parkland used by families, including the Oakley Creek and its waterfall, would be destroyed by one of the route options.

She says uncertainty over the route is affecting property sales and values in the area. A motorway will bring more noise and destroy views.

Locals suggested a tunnel to put the link "out of sight and out of earshot - but we were told it would be far too expensive."

Eastern corridor In the eastern suburbs on the other side of the isthmus, renewed pressure for an eastern bypass of the Southern Motorway is raising similar flak.

A year ago, the council shelved planning for the eastern corridor route, which follows the railway line across Hobson Bay, through Glen Innes to Panmure. It favoured improvements such as new stations and platforms to promote the rail line as a viable alternative to the car.

But Mr Lunny says commercial traffic still needs the highway because of growth in Auckland's industrial southeast. The area from Mt Wellington to East Tamaki is earmarked to take most of the region's growth in the next 50 years and is already booming.

To get there, heavy vehicles are now forced to use residential roads in Kohimarama and Glen Innes, he says.

A Ports of Auckland survey shows that 1350 trucks a day use Ngapipi Rd, nearly 10 per cent of total traffic. The port company notes that only 240 of the trucks are from the port.

Port-Grafton Gully Transit is also keen to complete another long-planned connection, between the Auckland wharves and the Grafton Gully motorway ramps. Mr Lunny says this will bring benefits, particularly to inner-city Stanley St and the Strand.

But the port connection is not the complete answer. For one thing, it would feed trucks on to the Southern Motorway bottleneck; also, there are now many commercial vehicles servicing Glen Innes, Panmure and East Tamaki.

"We need the eastern highway because those areas are out on a limb."

Northern to Northwestern Connecting the Northwestern to the Northern Motorway through Spaghetti Junction is another notorious missing link. Vehicles moving between the north and west now have to get off one motorway and negotiate crowded city streets to get on the other. But Transit is loath to proceed until capacity on the harbour bridge approaches is increased.

This includes widening the viaduct over Victoria Park and further widening of the bridge approaches through St Marys Bay.

A further connection, between Onehunga and Panmure, completes the ring network.

These and other roading projects are included in the congestion-beating formula adopted late last year by local bodies, the regional land transport strategy. It identifies $2.7 billion of roading work, nearly half for completion in the next five years.

But it leaves open the question of who will pay, noting that new sources of funds, possibly tolls and congestion pricing, must be found.

The business forum's Mr Garnier agrees that sophisticated electronic tolling should be considered.

"Business is saying: 'We have a problem, we are prepared to pay our share.' There are models available where just commercial road users pay tolls for the privilege of using a road at peak hours which other traffic can't use."

The forum's campaign has persuaded the council to rethink its stance on the eastern highway. But it is not about to abandon its "liveable communities" approach in either the east or southwest of the isthmus.

Council rapid transport manager Ross Rutherford says putting road solutions first would "set public transport back 10 years."

"We have to start thinking 20 to 30 years ahead and [consider] the city's attractiveness in terms of lifestyle and as a place to do business."

Mr Rutherford says the best approach is to make selected improvements to the roading network while boosting public transport.

"In terms of future generations, we should put public transport first."

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