Motorway trip could cost $10

Auckland motorists could pay as much as $10 to use the new Western Motorway ring route.

Transit announced today that seven tolling points would be introduced, with drivers paying no more than $2 for a single toll and no more than $10 for the whole route.

It is estimated the motorway will cost $2 billion to build.

Transit NZ was announcing a long-delayed plan to raise about $860 million from various tolling points on sections of the 48km route between Manukau and Albany, which have yet to be built or are under construction.

It has been guarding details of a scheme approved by its board a week ago, after a seven-month delay complicated by a post-election cooling of Government enthusiasm for tolls and by two successive ministerial changes in the transport portfolio.

But motorists are likely to be asked to approve tolls for a $1 billion-plus motorway through Waterview and for other future links such as a duplicate Mangere bridge to be substantially ready for the 2011 Rugby World Cup at a cost of $265 million.

Tolls charged electronically from overhead gantries homing in on vehicle windscreen transponders - to avoid interrupting traffic flows - could also cover:

* The 4km Mt Roskill motorway being built between Hillsborough and Owairaka at a cost of $169 million.

* The 4km Manukau link on which construction starts this month between the Southern Motorway and State Highway 20 at the Puhinui Rd-airport turnoff ($210 million).

* The 4km motorway link being built between Greenhithe and Albany ($100 million-plus).

* The 6km link past Hobsonville, between the Northwestern Motorway and the newly completed duplicate Upper Harbour bridge ($270 million, including $37 million for the bridge).

The tolling proposal will prove controversial but Transit chief Rick van Barneveld has warned that the full ring route could take 20 or more years to finish unless motorists are ready to supplement what they pay now in petrol taxes or diesel road-user charges.

With tolls, he hopes to have the full route open by 2015.

Prime Minister Helen Clark, whose Mt Albert electorate is on the Waterview section of the route, said before being re-elected last year that the timetable would depend on the willingness of her fellow Aucklanders to accept tolls.

Auckland mayors are understood to have received signals that the route will ultimately become State Highway 1, displacing the 50-year-old Auckland Harbour Bridge as their region's main north-south thoroughfare.

But the bridge or a replacement structure would have to be available under existing transport legislation, which guarantees motorists a free alternative to any toll road.

The Land Transport Management Act allows tolls only on new roads or on existing roads if they are "physically or operationally integral to a new road". It also requires authorities such as Transit to demonstrate strong community support before seeking Government approval for an order-in-council.

Today is likely to be the start of a consultation period when the public will be entitled to make written submissions, before Transit sets up an independent hearings panel to assess community support.

That was the process it followed in 2004 to gain Government approval for an inflation-adjusted toll starting at $1.80 on its $365 million extension of the Northern Motorway being built along 7.5km between Orewa and Puhoi.

Rodney District Council is also preparing a consultation document for Whangaparaoa Peninsula residents for a toll of up to $2 for a $150 million-plus road it wants to build in a public-private partnership across the Weiti River from the Northern Motorway.

But Tauranga residents are having their $240 million duplicate harbour bridge built for free - courtesy of the post-election governance agreement between New Zealand First and Labour.


Tolling the way

$1.80 - Charge for the Orewa to Puhoi motorway
$2 - Fee for Whangaparaoa Peninsula
$2 to $10 - Toll for Western Motorway