Road tolls for Auckland a step closer, as Govt sets up team to investigate congestion charging

The Government is considering a congestion charge in Auckland, where 800 cars are added to the roads every week.

The Government will this week make another step towards introducing road tolls in Auckland.

The progress on road pricing comes as Auckland mayor Phil Goff warns that Auckland's infrastructure shortfall has now risen to $7 billion because of faster-than-expected population growth.

It is understood the Government will this week establish a multi-agency group to look into options for road pricing.

The group, which will include the Auckland Council, the New Zealand Transport Agency and the Ministry of Transport, will investigate pricing on a nationwide level.

But their main focus is on Auckland, where traffic congestion is worst and demand for infrastructure funding is greatest.

Transport Minister Simon Bridges' office would not comment yesterday, except to say an announcement was imminent.

After initially showing no interest in road tolls, the National-led Government last year changed tack and conceded it was needed to ease traffic woes in Auckland.

Its U-turn came after a joint Government-Auckland Council report showed the city would grow by 700,000 people over the next 30 years. The report said tolls of between 3c and 40c a kilometre would help reduce congestion.

Bridges said at the time that tolling in Auckland could be done by GPS satellite, as opposed to toll gantries or cameras.

GPS is considered the gold standard for road pricing, because it does not require as much physical infrastructure and is effective in changing behaviour, rather than just collecting revenue.

However, GPS road pricing technology is still being developed. Singapore is expected to be the first to introduce it in 2020.

Speaking to Newshub yesterday, Goff said road pricing was a medium-term option for Auckland, and other transport and revenue options were needed in the short-term.

"We are the one internationally competitive city that New Zealand has and we cannot remain internationally competitive if we're gridlocked and our gateway from the airport is so congested that people can't get in and out of it."

Until now, Auckland's infrastructure funding gap was estimated at $4b.

Goff said yesterday the figure was now closer to $7b. The original estimate was based on population increases of 16,000 a year in Auckland, and the city is now growing by 45,000 people a year.

The Government created a $1b infrastructure fund last year, but it is yet to receive any applications from councils.

That is partly because councils must borrow money from the fund, and some of them say they are unwilling to take on more debt when they are already close to their debt ceiling.

The Government will announce a policy in the next month to get around this problem.

It is understood it will allow Auckland Council and others to receive money from the fund without affecting their balance sheets, through what are known as special purpose vehicles.

Labour's Auckland and transport spokesman Phil Twyford said his party supported road pricing because it meant the transport system was not "subsidising urban sprawl".

But he said the Government first needed to invest more in public transport so commuters had "genuine alternatives" to driving once tolls were in place.