Brian Rudman: Highway poll wake-up call for mayors

COMMENT

Sweet reason hasn't dissuaded the Auckland and Manukau mayors from their obsession with building the Banks-Curtis Memorial Eastern Highway. Nor has their inability to come up with any viable means of financing it.

But with elections looming in October and their jobs on the line, maybe this week's poll results will bring local body politicians to their senses.

The poll was conducted beginning on May 21 by international research company TNS Global for the anti-motorway lobby group, Stem.

Auckland City Mayor John Banks was quick to rubbish the results - not surprisingly given the outcome - so I'll record the questions as asked and answered by the random sample of 500 Aucklanders.

The first question began by saying there was a proposal to pay for the $2.5 billion Manukau-to-Auckland CBD eastern motorway by placing a toll on all roads entering the city. It asked: Would you be prepared to pay such a toll?

Only 38 per cent said "yes", 56 per cent said "no" and 7 per cent didn't know or wanted more detail. The trends were similar across the region except for Rodney District, where opinion was evenly split.

The next question began by explaining that most of the costs were incurred on the Panmure-to-CBD stretch, alongside an existing twin-tracked railway line. This section of motorway would cost $1.5 billion. One alternative would be to modernise the rail connection, with an electric train service at 10-minute intervals in peak periods. That option would cost less than half a billion dollars.

Asked if they preferred the motorway or rail-only option, only 25 per cent went for the road, a whopping 64 per cent supporting rail. Lowest support for the motorway came from the North Shore, with only 19 per cent in favour.

Those for the motorway were then asked which option they backed if it was shown that ecologically sensitive areas of Purewa Creek, Orakei Basin and Hobson Bay were to be adversely affected. Only 58 per cent of road supporters stuck with the highway, 18 per cent changing to support the railway and another 18 per cent wanting more detail before making their choice.

Turning to the politics of the issue, nearly two-thirds said the eastern corridor issue would affect their vote in October's elections, with 19 per cent overall - and 25 per cent in Auckland City - saying it would "greatly affect" it.

Unfortunately, there's no breakdown to show whether it's pro-roaders or pro-railers who are more likely to be affected. But if I was a politician hoping for re-election, I'd certainly see this poll as a salutary bucket of cold water.

The poll shows that given sensible options, Aucklanders aren't the crazed, highway-loving, one-eyed petrol heads that the two mayors believe we are. Last year, before the costs of the corridor were known, a TNS poll had found 71 per cent of Aucklanders supporting the highway. Now, with the impossible price tag revealed, and an alternative on offer, 64 per cent have got in behind the rail-only option.

This is rather different from Mayor Banks' dismissive claim this year that opponents of the road were "small in number and centred mainly around a few selfish, vested-interest property owners".

The poll shows that support for rail over road is evenly widespread across the whole region.

Certainly the opposition is being led by locally based action groups like Stem and the recently formed Hobson Bay Residents Network. I'm sure also that their first concern was and is to save their local community. And good on them for doing so.

Without their ongoing opposition, ratepayers might long ago have been saddled with the crippling debt of this folly, or an earlier incarnation of it, and, as a result, a wide swathe of ecologically sensitive foreshore replaced by acres of tarmac.

If the mayors reject this poll, then I challenge them to conduct one of their own. Not, of course, one of the shonky, fill-in-form type being used by Auckland City to promote the V8 street race, but a proper scientific poll like the TNS one.

Better, perhaps, to find out what citizens really want now, rather than wait for the three-yearly sudden-death poll due in October.