Editorial: Eastern road is not our biggest need

At least John Banks and Sir Barry Curtis are on the right track in deciding to scale back the eastern highway. A 3.5km tunnel under Parnell was always an unwarranted extravagance. The mayors of Auckland and Manukau City are on shakier ground, however, with their latest scheme to meet the highway's $2.5 billion price tag. A leap of faith, and a flight from parochialism, will be required if Aucklanders are to accept tolls on all the region's motorways, the harbour bridge and arterial roads - just so the mayors' pet project can get off the drawing board.

It is easy to see why a tolls cordon around Auckland - an inner cordon and an outer cordon - is now the favoured option. The cost of the eastern highway means that any feasible toll on that road would contribute an inadequate proportion of the project's cost. An isthmus-wide toll would not only broaden the source of funding to all road-users but ensure the cost of the toll on the eastern route could be kept to a level acceptable to motorists.

Obviously this has considerable allure for the residents of the eastern and south-eastern suburbs. But the two mayors will have a far harder job selling it to other Aucklanders. Why, those from north, south and west might ask, should we be charged for a highway that we may never, or only rarely, use? Sir Barry has attempted to answer this by noting that proceeds from the tolls would be used for other transport projects. He might also have pointed out that the eastern highway will take much of the pressure off the Southern Motorway, a piece of road used often by a wide cross-section of Aucklanders. Nonetheless, it is apparent that the origin, and chief beneficiary, of the tolling, in the first instance at least, is the eastern highway.

That might be reasonable if the highway was generally recognised as the region's top roading priority. In fact, that is far from the case. It does not even rate a mention in the Auckland regional land transport strategy, a regionally agreed document that was updated just last year. It suggested a passenger-transit system along the eastern corridor, but placed that well down the priority list. Indeed, the strategy took a relatively benign view of future traffic flows in the eastern suburbs. If, it said, there were no improvements in the transport network over the next decade, peak-period travel times from Howick to the city centre would increase only "moderately".

In line with Transit New Zealand, the strategy allotted far greater importance to the likes of extending State Highway 20 through Mt Roskill, several Spaghetti Junction projects and the completion of the North Shore busway. Given this consensus, it is fair to question the emphasis being placed on the eastern highway. Certainly, it is a worthwhile project, but it is only one piece of a jigsaw that will come together as an integrated transport network. What, therefore, is the logic in making the highway one of the first pieces to be put on the board? Should it not at this stage simply warrant a place in the regionally-agreed queue?

The case for other priorities taking precedence is made even more potent by the two mayors' advocacy of what amounts to an inner-city congestion charge. They are obviously entranced by the experience of London, where a toll cut traffic congestion 30 per cent overnight, increased bus use 12 per cent and raises $200 million a year for other transport projects. But that charge was tenable in London only because comprehensive public-transport alternatives were available for motorists. Such is not the case in Auckland, even if these options, and a completed motorway network, are the objectives of the regional strategy. These must be in place before congestion charging can be contemplated.

Isthmus-wide tolling may, indeed, be the way out of the region's congestion woes. But if it is to be introduced, it should be part of a balanced programme that benefits all Aucklanders. According the eastern highway an undue emphasis does not fit that prescription.