Motorway toll support runs out

Political support for tolls on new Auckland motorways appears to be waning as Transit NZ delays public consultation over completing the western bypass between Manukau and Albany.

The highways agency confirmed yesterday that its board had deferred by at least two months a decision on whether to put options for tolling parts or even all of the 35km western ring route out for consultation.

A decision due this month has been delayed until at least May, to allow Transit staff to prepare more technical information, such as where they would be legally entitled to build electronic-scanning gantries from which to bill passing motorists.

But Waitakere Mayor and former Labour Party president Bob Harvey lent credence last night to suggestions that political support for tolling the route was losing steam.

"I think in the last few weeks there has been a cooling of support for the tolling option," he said, without allowing himself to be drawn further.

He said he was not overly concerned, as he believed a way would be found to pay for the project. Whatever happened, this would be down to "the punters", whether through tolls or some other mechanism such as a regional fuel tax.

It is understood Finance Minister Michael Cullen has raised that idea with the Auckland Mayoral Forum as a way of helping to bridge a $2.3 billion regional transport funding gap over the next decade.

Although the Government was bullish during the election campaign about completing the bypass by 2015, it may be getting cold feet over equity issues, given that a toll would fall hardest on commuters from some of Auckland's less affluent suburbs.

A draft 10-year highways forecast which Transit published last month ranked the western route, which includes a proposed $1 billion motorway link through Avondale to the Northwestern Motorway, as the organisation's top national priority project.

But it has since last year emphasised that completing the bypass by the 2015 target will depend on being able to borrow $860 million for repayment through tolls.

Prime Minister Helen Clark, whose Mt Albert electorate is along the route, said in August that "the precise timetable of this work will depend on the willingness of Aucklanders to accept some tolling".

Transit announced in its forecast that the development of strategies to toll the route were "well advanced" and that these were expected to be issued for public consultation this month.

"Without any toll revenue to help advance the project, completion of the essential components of the western ring route would be significantly delayed," the document said.

But the agency's capital projects general manager, Colin Crampton, said yesterday that the complexity of tolling the western route was such that its board had asked for another report once officers resolved remaining technical issues.

He said that although Transit had gained valuable experience consulting the public over tolls on two other projects - a duplicate Tauranga harbour bridge (which is now to be fully state funded) and the Northern Motorway extension past Orewa - the western ring route was of "an order of magnitude more complex." It was far more complicated because it was a corridor with a number of motorway components, including a proposed duplicate Mangere bridge.

Mr Crampton acknowledged Transit was wrestling with issues under the Land Transport Management Act, which allows tolls on existing roads only if they are "physically or operationally integral to a new road".

He said that, if the board decided to approve options for public consultation, available material would include indicative tariffs aimed at raising enough money to meet the construction funding gap but not so high as to keep motorists off the route.

Mr Crampton said raising tolls to pay for new motorways was a separate proposition to options explored in a major Ministry of Transport study of whether charges should be levied on existing Auckland roads to reduce congestion.

The ministry has offered for public submission five potential schemes, including cordons around large parts of central Auckland and charging motorists to use congested parts of the region's strategic roading network, including the western bypass.

Its study describes the strategic roading option as by far the least economically efficient, and likely to encourage motorists to choke up suburban streets.