Everyone agrees Auckland's traffic is horrible, but plans for the eastern corridor bring strong views on all sides, as BERNARD ORSMAN reports.
"I want the project to move faster and faster but it is going to be an intergenerational development over some of the best property in Auckland, including Hobson Bay.
"I would like to see an open space from Tamaki Drive to the other side with a boardwalk right around the base of Hobson Bay with perhaps an international rowing course.
"There is no way we can compromise more of Judges Bay. I can see the leg from the bottom of town as a classic candidate, past Parnell Baths, for undergrounding.
"Please don't think I am suggesting right under Hobson Bay will be tunnelled. We may have to compromise some of the foreshore. It may be the economics don't stack up to tunnel right under.
"To make the eastern corridor a truly link road around CBD Auckland will need to include planning for a third harbour crossing.
"We will need to spend more money to make sure the project is something we can be proud of in 70 years. This project lends itself to private-sector building and tolling.
"My mayoralty will stand or fall on substantial progress I make on completing the Auckland motorway network."
- John Banks, Mayor of Auckland.
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"Judges Bay is the last remaining inner Auckland City bay that has not been reclaimed. We have already lost St Marys Bay and St Georges Bay to rampant industrial reclamation.
"Judges Bay has an amazing history, from the geology being over 20 million years old, the early Maori settlement, being visited by Captain D'Urville in 1827, the home of Sir John Logan Campbell.
"Bishop Selwyn landed at the bay in 1842 and later built the nearby historic St Stephens Chapel."
- Rendell McIntosh, Judges Bay historian
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"We need to be innovative at how we look at community and environmental issues. In the past this country thought about straight-up traffic and transport needs and then looked at those other issues.
"If we can't leave the environment better than it is now we don't deserve to be changing it."
- Leigh Auton, environmental management director, Manukau City Council
* * *
"Mr Banks' talk about private financing of the eastern highway, and tolling, is jumping the gun. There is not yet legislation in Parliament to allow for privately funded roads and tolling and the Greens will argue against any legislation that gives the green light to harmful projects like the eastern highway."
- Keith Locke, Auckland Green list MP
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"I normally leave home from Mellons Bay [near Howick] at 7am by myself. It is the only way I can get to work. The journey to the city normally takes 75 minutes, sometimes 90.
"It [the eastern corridor] has to be built. If you don't build it you are going backwards, but that in itself is not sufficient. All of these arterials are absolutely necessary as long as there is alternative transport into the city. You can't fix the traffic problem by building more roads alone."
- Gabrielle Morrison, frustrated motorist
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"Nothing justifies carving a motorway through Auckland's last inner-city wetland, treasured recreational waterways and pristine Purewa Valley native parkland.
"By revisiting the eastern motorway before an upgraded transport system even gets off the ground, Auckland seems to be walking a path that is taking us back in time.
"Auckland is a basket case when it comes to public transport. We are not anti-car ... if there are mass transit systems in place and the city still needs to move more cars around.
"But all the evidence we have looked at points to the fact that first you need to move more people around in Auckland, not more cars.
"Where is the benefit of spending up to $1 billion to bring more cars into downtown Auckland?"
- Terry Gould,
Stop the Eastern Motorway
spokesman
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"I have real concerns about the surface options that are being considered for the eastern arterial.
"You are running the risk of having to deal with major noise issues, in particular across Hobson Bay, and that would probably mean you would end up with some very tall noise barriers on the outside of the embankment or the bridge structures.
"It would just be like a continuous 747 stretched right across the bay.
"The basic rock in Auckland is ... a good material for tunnelling.
"[Tunnelling] is probably a couple of times more expensive but ... construction would be shorter.
"Consent and other issues would be dealt with quickly and offsetting costs to protect the environment, I suspect, would make [tunnelling] more cost-competitive.
"If a tunnel went from Judges Bay to St Johns [under Hobson Bay, Orakei Basin and Purewa Creek] you are probably talking somewhere between $200 million and $300 million, depending on the size of tunnel and numbers of lanes."
- Peter Millar, geotechnical manager, Tonkin & Taylor
* * *
"I can remember back in 1971, as a Remuera Intermediate School project, going to have a discussion with Robbie [Mayor Sir Dove-Myer Robinson] about his thoughts for light rail and transport around Auckland.
"It is a travesty that administrations since 1971 haven't seen fit to spend any money on the development of those light-rail transport concepts.
"Aucklanders - [including] those bloody ratepayers out in Manukau City and on the North Shore who are burdening the roads in Auckland - need to accept the fact that if it is not this year but 10, 20 and 40 years' time, we still need public transport.
"If Robbie had had his way another whole generation would have grown up and accepted the fact.
"We need to bite the bullet and come up with comprehensive public transport solutions that will serve this city for the next 50 years.
"To build a road across the harbour is a shortsighted solution for the purposes of a few."
- David Glen, Meadowbank resident
* * *
"The eastern highway is an urgent priority. It's a disgrace that one major accident can bring the whole system to a standstill.
"However, the highway route must also contain a central slip of land for an upgraded passenger rail service or a lane just for buses."
- Sir Barry Curtis, Mayor of Manukau
Eastern Motorway - plans and pitfalls
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