Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Transport Minister Michael Wood lay out the options for a second Waitematā harbour crossing with construction expected to start in 2029. Video / NZ Herald
Opinion by Garth Falconer
OPINION
Among the current turmoil of Auckland Council’s proposed budget cuts, further massive cost blow-outs on the central rail tunnel, and climate change costs from recent inundations, the additional Waitematā crossing is to be fast-tracked into the next decade – 2030, rather than 2040.
There are five options for publicfeedback and a tunnel is top of the list.
A tunnel option is high stakes, not the least of which are the build, contingency and maintenance costs, which are monstrous – billions more than a second bridge.
We know tunnelling carries the highest risk of cost overruns, too - just look at the Central Rail Link.
Mayor Wayne Brown tours the Maungawhau Mt Eden City Rail Link station.
But given favouritism towards a tunnel, clear assessment criteria and peer review are needed. The short presentation that accompanied NZTA’s tunnel announcement fell well short.
The five options were presented in simplified high-level form, together with several diagrams and tables.
They were arranged in different combinations of full multi-modal movement: light rail, walking and cycling and road.
No further details or studies were made available or provided on the project website.
We are invited to “have our say, to help shape the future” via an online survey, attending one workshop or four drop-in sessions.
Of the five scenarios, there are several familiar alignments, and there are a couple of wild cards with suggested connections to Devonport (option 1: two tunnels) and Birkenhead (option 3: tunnel and bridge).
Interestingly, there is no hero bridge striding the central Waitematā like the proposed Anzac centenary bridge from 2009. Thank goodness.
The proposed Anzac Centenary Bridge was dismissed.
Options 3 and 5 have bridges departing northwards from Wynyard Pt, which would require quite a reshuffle in that prized area of urban regeneration.
That leaves option, 2 a new wider bridge against the Auckland harbour bridge taking all modes; and 4, a tunnel with a new pedestrian and cycle bridge.
The latter looks like a reheat of the recently rescinded standalone pedestrian cycle bridge and the 2020 preferred road and rail tunnel.
Several tables were presented in addition to the plans. One table purports to weigh up a tunnel versus a bridge. The commentary is conversational and doesn’t provide any detail.
When we look at the other tables that list eight criteria to further inform our thinking, we find a simplistic chart of symbols. Again, this is good for “at a glance”, but disappointing for anyone wanting in-depth understanding.
Scooting across the cost line containing the dollar signs, glaringly, the costs are of a higher magnitude than the $14 billion to $15 billion mooted in 2020. All the scenarios incorporating a tunnel are pegged at $20b to $25b.
Transport Minister Michael Woods and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins in front of the Auckland Harbour Bridge at an announcement about new Waitemata Harbour crossing options. Photo / Michael Craig
The sole bridge scenario (2) is estimated in this table at $15b. How this estimate has been arrived at is baffling as the previously documented bridge and associated works came in at $3-$5b. This leaves a massive difference of $10b.
Another table informs us that any additional Waitematā Crossing that involves a tunnel will take 15 years at least to be completed, so that’s potentially up to 2045 with no cycling or walking connection.
But maybe that’s where scenario 4 is intended to come back into play; with already $50m spent on plans and requestioned houses for a standalone pedestrian cycling bridge along Northcote Pt in 2021.
Based on the provision of full multi-modal connections and a stressed budget environment, there is only one feasible option of those presented, and that’s scenario 2, a bridge alongside the existing bridge.
Garth Falconer.
One is left wondering, with all this high-level stuff, questionable criteria, absence of any peer review and rushed timelines, whether there is any scope to have any real say in shaping the future of our city.
With the project announced as starting construction in 2029, it is clear some final decisions will need to be made quickly.
One thing we should all be worried about is the apparent lack of urban design thinking in any of the options.
In the 21st century, urban design should be driving discussion about the opportunities for the form and functioning of the city, not transport planning, which is so 1960s.
Where, in the five scenarios do the northward connections land in the back end of Takapuna? And what does that do for the city?
Surely the single biggest infrastructure project in New Zealand’s history should also be about the unleashing of a new major centre for living and business, and not just about getting people north out of the central city.
The goal needs to be a world-class affordable outcome and we need a real design process to get there.
- Garth Falconer is the director of Reset Urban Design, and author of Living in Paradox; a History of the Urban Design of Kāinga, Towns and Cities across New Zealand (2015) and Harry Turbott: New Zealand’s First Landscape Architect (2020) and former design lead of the SkyPath project.
