Ray Ginnever: Whangaparaoa's 'Penlink' needs to start sooner than 2028

The Penlink development will provide another route in and out of the Whangaparaoa Peninsula.

Opinion

COMMENT: The Penlink arterial route has been in regional roading plans for almost 20 years yet remains unfunded. How can this be? Other projects with lower benefit to cost ratios keep usurping Penlink's rightful priority. Penlink is an investment, not a cost: the most conservative forecasts show the project returns $3.90 in benefits for every dollar invested.

Traffic projections prepared for Penlink over the years are being realised and the roading levels of service and access for Silverdale and Whangaparaoa have fallen well below acceptable levels. The Hibiscus Coast Highway through Silverdale, the Silverdale Interchange on State Highway 1, and State Highway 1 on its approaches to the interchange, especially in peak times, continue to suffer declining levels of service and frequent gridlock. Peak periods continue to start earlier and continue later.

Even minor compromise works on Hibiscus Coast Highway and Whangaparaoa Rd, done since the creation of the Super City, have failed to stem the decline in levels of service on these routes. The aggregate effect of this underinvestment in Hibiscus Coast roading results in unproductive gridlock and declining levels of service on these major arterial routes and State Highway 1.

Penlink solves these problems because it immediately removes some 17,000 vehicles a day originating on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula from arriving in Silverdale and congesting the Silverdale corridor and the Silverdale Interchange. These motorists will take the Penlink option because it saves them time and fuel costs, and is a net benefit to them even if they pay a toll.

Equally so, motorists from Orewa, Silverdale, Millwater, Red Beach and Northern areas benefit from Penlink because the congestion in the Silverdale corridor, the Silverdale Interchange and State Highway 1, is gone.

Does this make sense? Of course it does. Straightforward common sense. Yet under the new regional fuel tax imposed on every motorist in the Auckland region, Penlink is forecast to be built in 2028 – 2030. Can you imagine the traffic mess this creates For Hibiscus Coast residents and users of State Highway 1?

The question is how can other transport projects with significantly lesser benefits get earlier priority than Penlink? We are all paying the regional fuel tax and we need to get the best impact for our tax dollars. That means we invest in higher quality projects first (ie Penlink).

Residents north of the Harbour Bridge don't appear to have a seat at the funding table when project funding comes around. Central Auckland, South Auckland and West Auckland have had billions of dollars in direct transport benefits, whereas the North Shore gets the crumbs.

Remember AMETI, Central Rail Link, Western Ring Route and Tunnel, Northwestern Motorway Improvements, new major rail stations.... These projects are important but the priority is wrong and unfair to the North Shore and Hibiscus Coast.

We keep hearing new obstacles to building Penlink but Penlink supporters keep providing solutions. The argument that Penlink be advanced was countered by the view that the project was not as urgent as others, and that the available funds were needed elsewhere. Yet through the efforts of the Chamber of Commerce and others, an alternative funding partner has been found.

With this obstacle removed, we are fed the excuse there that there is no legislative basis under which a private funder can build and operate the road. This is nonsense again. Penlink has been proposed as a public-private partnership for over 20 years and only obstructive minds can argue there is no legislative basis to build the road.

Smart thinking at the Auckland Council can find a way to capitalise on this opportunity by working in partnership with the private funders under existing legislation. However, they choose to view this as an obstacle, not an opportunity.

Surely, ten good professionals from the council, the Government and the funder can sequester themselves in a forum with a whiteboard and lots of coffee, and knock out a solution in a couple of days or less. This has been done in many other countries, and even done in Auckland. They found a solution for the America's Cup; they can do it for Penlink.

Besides, for Penlink, the land is already owned and designated, and consents are in place. It has been proposed as a public private partnership, and that ground has been traversed many times before with the public, the Government and the council.

While Penlink waits, market and economic forces continue to work away at access issues and transport service levels for the Hibiscus Coast and Silverdale. The Millwater development, KiwiBuild, infill housing on the peninsula, in Silverdale and Orewa, and new school zone changes will continue to erode roading service levels for the Hibiscus Coast, Silverdale and Whangaparaoa.

America's Cup syndicates have been looking at locating on the peninsula, but access issues temper their demand. Recently, motorists have reported 50-minute travel times from Manly to the Silverdale Interchange. These are not characteristics of a city that aspires to be the "world's most liveable".

Penlink needs to be built now. Penlink can be built now. Let's use common sense and demand the political commitment to build Penlink now, not in 2028. As a start date that is pure nonsense.

• Ray Ginnever is an urban economist and chartered accountant resident in Birkenhead. He was transport advisor to former Rodney mayor John Law and served as Penlink Officer and on the Regional Transport Executive Group for five years.