KEY POINTS:
Plans to start widening Auckland's Southwestern Motorway along Onehunga Bay next month have been complicated by a call from regional council chairman Mike Lee for the road to be sunk into a trench.
His council heeded the call yesterday by resolving to ask the Government's new Transport Agency
to consider lowering State Highway 20, among options "to provide a better pedestrian and visual link between the coastal edge and the Onehunga town centre".
The agency's highways division (formerly Transit NZ) is already under pressure from the Onehunga community, backed by Auckland City and Roskill MP Phil Goff, to shift the road west as part of a $230 million project - which it began in April - to duplicate its Manukau Harbour motorway crossing.
That joint proposal, which the agency's board will consider next week, would provide greater separation between a widened motorway and the landward Onehunga Lagoon while creating a corridor for future developments such as underground power transmission cables and a Southdown-Avondale rail link.
The Onehunga Enhancement Society has also won support from Mr Goff and Auckland City for an 11ha reclamation of the foreshore, including the creation of five beaches, to restore the area to an approximation of its 1970s pre-motorway condition.
Mr Goff believes a potential cost of more than $30 million could be reduced to $18 million by using fill from the Transport Agency's proposed $1.89 billion Waterview motorway tunnels project, and is asking the city and regional councils to share the bill with the agency.
Auckland City Mayor John Banks and city development committee chairman Peseta Sam Lotu-liga have told Mr Goff in a letter they believe the Transport Agency should foot the bill, although their council may be prepared to contribute up to $10 million if the Government and regional council do likewise.
"When we look at the significant planting, landscaping and other works that are happening on other parts of the state highway network, it does seem that Onehunga is, at best, getting a minimalist approach," wrote Mr Banks and Mr Lotu-liga, who is National's candidate in the local Maungakiekie electorate.
The transport agency is already building a duplicate harbour bridge and widening the motorway back to Walmsley Rd on the Manukau side, with a target of completing the project in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup - to offer an enhanced gateway to Auckland for visitors arriving through the airport.
But Mr Lee told his council's transport committee the restoration proposals would still leave "a sort of Berlin Wall" between the Onehunga community and its foreshore unless the motorway went below ground.
He said only about 1km of motorway would have to be sunk, and anything else would be "like putting lipstick on a bulldog".