Fine-tuning of crossing to start soon

Detailed work is due to start in the New Year on a second harbour crossing between Auckland City and the North Shore, but it will take at least 16 years for a new bridge or tunnel to be built.

Transit New Zealand transport planning manager Wayne McDonald said a study last year showed it was feasible to build a bridge to the west of the existing Auckland Harbour Bridge or a tunnel under the Waitemata Harbour at an estimated cost of $3 billion.

The next stage was planning and protecting the most appropriate site near the existing harbour bridge that could link with the Northwestern Motorway by tunnel.

Auckland City Mayor Dick Hubbard yesterday gained the backing of his North Shore counterpart, George Wood, to speed up work on a new harbour crossing and to encourage Transit to make an early start on widening the approaches to the harbour bridge at Victoria Park.

Mr Wood said he supported a harbour tunnel with a strong public transport component, but that could happen only if regionwide tolling was in place, which would require some tough political decisions.

He said tunnelling technology had improved markedly since the Sydney harbour tunnel was built in 1992.

The biggest challenge was determining and designating the location.

North Shore MP Wayne Mapp said it was time for Auckland's leaders to work together to make a harbour tunnel a reality, saying the project could be fully funded by tolls.

Mr Hubbard said on Wednesday that Auckland needed to speed up work on a new harbour crossing to guard against the risk to the local and national economies of the existing bridge being damaged from a terrorist attack, shipping accident or structural failure.

Mr McDonald said Transit was setting up a team to work on a new crossing.

He estimated the planning process would take five years.

Auckland local-body politicians would also debate the issue as part of a review of the regional land transport strategy. The current strategy has not made a second harbour crossing a priority and does not envisage completion for 20 to 25 years.

Mr Wood said the Victoria Park flyover was the biggest bottleneck in the Northern-Southern Motorway system now that Transit was fixing Spaghetti Junction

He said it was crucial that widening of the bridge's northbound approach started soon.

Mr Hubbard has called for Transit to tunnel under Victoria Park in view of residential development in the area, which Mr Wood would support if it meant a faster planning process. The cost of tunnelling is $290 million, as opposed to $160 million for a new, iconic bridge.

Transit chairman David Stubbs said board members would start trying to whittle down the options next week.

He said Transit had sunk about $500 million into improving the central motorway junctions and it needed to build the harbour bridge-to-city project to get the full benefits of that spending for motorists in the form of faster journeys and less congestion.

"It's a matter of great urgency in our minds."